Ever feel like everywhere you look in your home, you are failing? If your mother-in-law, or neighbor, or the parent of one of your kid's friends walked in right now, how would you feel? Let’s talk about that.
Ever feel like everywhere you look in your home, you are failing? If your mother-in-law, or neighbor, or the parent of one of your kid's friends walked in right now, how would you feel? Let’s talk about that.
o to awakenyourinterior.com/resources to get your free printable journal, and start Listening Closely, to your body.
Hi Welcome back to, Listening Closely, I’m Tasha Cleaveland. Ever feel like everywhere you look in your home, you are failing? If your mother-in-law, or neighbor, or the parent of one of your kids friends walked in right now, how would you feel? Let’s talk about that.
I know how hard it can be to live in a home that doesn’t feel right. It's not your fault. You were never taught how to create a home that makes you feel alive.The key is inside you, we just need to unlock it, and this podcast is where you begin.
I’m Tasha Cleaveland, welcome to the Listening Closely podcast.
I call them The Ghosts. We look around our homes and everywhere there are reminders. Some silent, some not so much. They are the little things that when we see them, trigger a cascade of emotions that remind us that we aren’t good enough, that make us feel stuck, that we try so hard to look away and silence but the reminders are always there. Looming. Waiting. Reminding.
The books on the shelf that you never got around to reading but really, really, meant to. The hole in the wall that was made when your kiddo accidentally crashed while driving his cute little fire truck, and you have no idea how to patch it or where the paint is. The picture frames lying against the wall, still waiting for a hammer and nail. The chair who’s foot keeps falling off and someone decided it was a bagel for the play kitchen. (You might never get that back.) The sofa pillows and blankets strewn around the room every. single. time. you come in, no matter how often you put it all back together. The handprints (and footprints!) everywhere. And I mean everywhere. (Please, don’t tell me my kids are the only ones to reach the ceiling). That table, counter, shelf or drawer that seems to attract random bits and pieces like a magnet, no matter how often you clear it off. The rooms full to the point of excess. Stuff in every nook. So many cute accessories it’s starting to look like a gift shop. Or, the deafening silence of emptiness in a room, that makes you feel unsafe or incomplete. The piece of furniture that every time you look at it, you are reminded how much you dislike it, but you are stuck with it.
Do you know those ghosts? Do they haunt you too?
I call the first one, The Ghost of Failure. The little reminders of what is still needing to be fixed or finished. All that broken stuff on the endless to-do list. Then there are the things that used to be… but are no longer… and yet, still take up space in your home. Like the toys the kids outgrew but the financial or emotional investment keeps you from letting go. Or the things that… never were. Those hopes and wishes that just never came to be. Like the musical instruments, or fancy project kits that still sit unopened. The “shelf help” of parenting & relationship books. Did you give up after you realized that there is no way to “expect” a darn thing on this parenthood ride, and those magic tricks that work for some people, well… can we please acknowledge that there is no one size fits all answer when it comes to kids? There just isn’t. The Clutter Magnets hiding in your home where everyone dumps their keys, electronics, cups and papers. We all have them hiding somewhere. It’s ok. You don’t have to pretend with me, remember?
I used to have a bookshelf beside by bed. Every morning I would wake up, and instead of being greeted by a new day, I opened my eyes to a wall of books that I never finished reading. Every single day. Good morning! Oh guess what. You already failed. As my eyes scanned the spines, the reminders that I would never sew like my mom, that I still don’t know how to stop the sibling rivalries, that I haven’t surprised my husband with any cool crafty gifts lately, that I haven’t “mastered money’s game”, and I was already too late for all the fancy early childhood education books from Italy. I wasn’t even out of bed yet and I already felt awful. And you know what? That’s jacked up. I work my butt off every single day, and this was how I thanked myself? How I primed myself for my day? By reminding myself of what I haven’t accomplished. So I moved the darn shelf and was brutally honest with myself. Almost all of those books got donated. And now I wake up and see my husband’s beautiful guitars hanging on the wall. I am reminded of how much I love to hear him play. Waking up to gratitude is a wonderful gift. It is one you deserve to give yourself.
Now, how do we banish this ghost? Well, your journal is a great place to start. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, jump over to awakenyourinterior.com/resources to get it for free and print that sucker out. Now, notice the section where it says “space I improved today, how it feels now, and what I can improve tomorrow”. That’s your baby step. Every day pick one tiny thing you can do to improve the spaces you live in. It could be finally gluing that chair foot back on! Or tidying up the clutter magnet and while you are doing it, noticing the categories of things that end up there, so you can start to think of solutions. Or hanging hooks up in the bathroom for towels instead of towel bars so there are no excuses for finding towels anywhere else. Maybe it’s as simple as wiping down the table tops or just folding the throw blankets. Try to rotate the following categories and think in bite sized pieces: cleaning or tidying, organizing or purging, fixing, finishing, improving. Just pick one. Make. It Small. When it’s done, notice how it feels to use that space now. Notice it every time you go by the rest of the day. Soak it in! Don’t rush past the awesomeness that you just created. And when its journal time, write that sucker down and celebrate! And then stack, baby, stack. Now that you are on a roll, what will you do tomorrow? Jot it down so you have some accountability to yourself.
Sometimes we banish The Ghost of Failure with acceptance. We don’t have a lot of extended family. So when we had kids, it was just us. And man those first days of parenthood are hard! I can tell you it doesn’t get much easier the more you have. When our 3rd was born, somehow my mother in law decided to come “help” for a week. Well… she’s the kind of clean freak that you gotta break out the white gloves for. Everything in her home is covered in plastic, even the remotes and countertop, so its easily wiped clean. Cool if that works for you. But that’s not me at all. So a day after giving birth to our third child, I was up, pre-cleaning for her arrival. I tried so hard to make it all perfect. And at one point, I realized how backwards this scene was. I just gave birth. I was still pausing every few hours for those fun uterine contractions no one tells you about. My husband is cleaning up the yard, doing the dishes, and Im on my hands and knees scrubbing and tidying after a toddler, preschooler and newborn. She arrived and it wasn’t long before she had issues with our home and our parenting. When she decided she needed to clean out the fridge because it wasn’t spotless (the one thing I didn’t do!) and she couldn’t understand why the dog was allowed inside, I knew I could never meet her standards. My parenting report card was always going to be an F in her eyes. That was the moment. The moment I stopped focusing on pleasing her, and gave myself permission to be me. Do you know how freeing that is? To realize you will never attain that which you seek, and what you were seeking wasn’t going to truly give you want you wanted in the first place. It changes the game. Suddenly the one with the power, is you.
Heres what I noticed yesterday:
I saw my beauty. Mmm. Thats a hard one, huh? Sometimes it's really hard to see our own beauty. We look in the mirror and at some point you stop getting older in a good way, things stop improving and they start going the other direction. Ever look in the mirror and for a moment, not recognize that person at all?? Ugh. Those are hard days y’all. Hard days. When you have a little one and you have gone days without sleep or a shower and you startle, yourself. So the prompt in the Listening Closely journal, “saw my beauty”, is about that. Reclaiming your own beauty. It’s not that it went away really, its that we stopped giving ourselves permission to see it. Just like our houses, we are seeing what’s wrong, we see our failures. And if that is all we have time to see, we can’t accept what is actually great about us. So to stand in that mirror and own one tiny piece of gorgeousness. That, changes everything. Yesterday I looked up after washing my hands and my eyes were all kinds of Irish green. Usually that only happens when I cry a lot, but sometimes its random. And daaaamn those hazel eyes were glowing. Hello there, gorgeous! Can today be the day you give yourself permission to find one tiny piece of your own beauty? Go on. Find it. I promise, it’s there.
The song for today:
Dearly Departed by Shakey Graves
This song reminds me that the one who is really haunting us, is ourselves. And… they just make me want to bounce my shoulders, snap my fingers and smile. Let’s see how your body responds.
Movement focus, finding a bounce or roll.
Soulwork for today:
Take note of the Ghosts of Failure that haunt you. Make a list and add to it when you notice another. This isn’t a to-do list. This is a Liberation List. You don’t have to do anything about them yet, you only have to see these triggers in your space and write them down. Turn that light on. When we start seeing them for objects they are, instead of the guilt that they have become, we have the power to change it. One baby step at a time.
Don’t have your copy of the Listening Closely Journal? Go to awakenyourinterior.com/resources to get it today, and start listening closely, to your body.
Thank you so much for spending time with me today. I know how hard it is when it seems like there isn’t any to spare. But you showed up today. You put yourself on the list and I celebrate you. As you move through your day, keep your soul work assignment in mind and before starting bedtime routine, while the kids are brushing their teeth, grab your journal and fill in the prompts. Keep going. You can do this.
Know another mom who needs to put themselves on the list too? Please share the love, because we are stronger together.
Until tomorrow. Lots of love.
Tasha