Does your cleaning bring you peace or stress?
Here’s A Situation For Inquiry
Recently, a participant in Steady Pace Inquiry came up with an interesting situation for her work. Here’s what she writes.
“This morning, I was a little hot and slightly tired and I wanted to get some quick cleaning done before going out. The cleaning got extended a bit and I was down on my knees with a hoover and a bottle of spray and a cloth cleaning some grime under and up the sides of the cooker.
“My thoughts turned to my sister, and I became resentful that she could judge me for some grime that I might have missed. Then the thoughts cascade from there: “It’s not fair. I’m being judged by a smiling villain who betrays me, and forms alliances against me.
“But I’ll show her, there’s not one place she’ll find grime this time. I can make this place perfect so that when she comes to stay and look after my mother while I’m away, she has no ammunition against me.”
And she continued to write a Judge-Your-Neighbor Worksheet on this very specific situation.
Here’s What She Questioned
From line 4 of her worksheet, she questioned the thought, “I need her to be reliable, predictably, consistently kind and generous and forgiving of me when I don’t clean perfectly.
And Here’s What She Found Through Inquiry
Is that true?
No
How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
I resentfully keep her at a distance. I don´t enjoy her presence. I don´t trust her appearance of friendliness. I don´t believe her. My world isn´t as safe as it used to be and I can´t relax around people who are not trustworthy. I need to be suspicious and sceptical for my safety. I sometimes want misfortune to befall her. Mainly, I don´t want her to exist.
Who would you be without that thought?
I would feel more powerful. It would be up to me when to clean and when not to. My happiness would not be dependent on her approval of my cleanliness and service. I would feel more like a child without responsibilities and unguarded about my lifestyle.
Turnaround to the Self
I need me to be reliable, predictably, consistently kind and generous and forgiving of myself when I don’t clean perfectly.
Examples
1. If only that were true what a fun time that would be in comparison to the stress.
2. It´s only me that judges me like I do. My mother tells me to leave it, she´d rather have it not done perfectly, than me to get stressed. I only think my sister doesn´t like it because of inference, rather than direct comment.
3. I´ve forgotten what it´s like to only care about my opinion, and in that I am inconsistent and unforgiving.
Turnaround to the Other
She needs me to be reliable, predictably, consistently kind and generous and forgiving of her when she cleans perfectly.
Examples
1. Perhaps her opinion of herself is based on her sense of hygene, maybe she uses it as a currency just as I try to. I never compliment her on it or thank her. I condemn her for it.
2. I´m not kind to her, or offer to help her or give her a token of gratitude for it, like a smile and observation.
3. I could show her what someone is like who is OK with a different level of cleanliness.
Turnaround to the Opposite
I don´t need her to be reliable, predictably, consistently kind and generous and forgiving of me when I don’t clean perfectly.
Examples
1. Not if I am detatched from the idea that what she does is a judgement of me.
2. Perhaps she´s trying to help me clean.
3. If I listen to her, she never actually says I don´t clean perfectly. I might be inventing the fight she has with me.
4. If I didn´t have anxiety I wouldn´t need consistency of behaviour, I´d see sometimes she´s this way, sometimes she´s that way, just like everyone, especially me.
How About You?
Are you getting stressed about the judgments you imagine someone else to have about you? Keep an eye out for a situation where this gets triggered. When you question your beliefs about it, you may find a different story.
Have a great week,
Todd
“The Work always leaves you with less of your uncomfortable story. Who would you be without it? How much of your world is made up of unexamined stories? You’ll never know until you inquire.” — Byron Katie, Loving What Is
