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“Enjoy your mess, enjoy your tidy”, that’s a little childlike phrase I made up for myself to help me to keep perspective, keep calm and resist the temptation to be overwhelmed.
If you think about it, as perhaps silly and simplistic as it at first seems, it is quite a loaded little phrase. For I’m sure that I’m not alone in the temptation to feel overwhelmed when outer clutter begins to encroach upon my inner calm, that as it is, is quite a delicate thing to try to maintain.
In seeking to encourage myself, I also encourage you to put your housekeeping ‘to-do’ list down for a moment, regardless of what is going on around you. Have a cuppa, take a deep breath, and enjoy a moment of a recalibrated perspective.
Instead of feeling overwhelmed or annoyed at yourself for the mess you’ve managed so far not to properly attend to, “enjoy your mess”. Look around you at all of the stuff that you are privileged to have to mess up your home in the first place. Take a moment to be truly grateful that you have a home to get messy, when so many people go without. Be thankful that you have more than enough, and perhaps more than you need, and instead of feeling guilty about this, and planning how to give more to other people, first just STOP. Be. Enjoy the mess.
And enjoy the process of tidying. Of being able to move and have the ability to do things, be grateful if you have been so blessed that you have limbs and movement, and perhaps even freedom from pain. And if you do not enjoy these things, consider what you *are* able to do, and enjoy and be thankful for those things.
Slow down, take your time, rushing through each task doesn’t necessarily make you more effective, but it probably does make you more overwhelmed.
And when you do reach that place of being able to ‘enjoy your tidy’….truly enjoy it. Even if you are on your own, or if you have kids rushing about, or if things seem to be descending into chaos again. Just take that moment. Enjoy. And keep this in mind as the days go on and the cycle repeats. And don’t forget to take care of yourself as you take care of your home and those you love.
Life as it happens to be 