My house is a mess. I am not proud of this. But it is what it is, and what it is is messy. There are reasons for it, some just having to do with living life and some having to do with being an adult child of an alcoholic.
But as I have said previously about other things, knowing the reason why things are the way they are isn't enough. You also have to figure out what to do about it. In the case of cleaning up my house, I have found an answer. And I am going to share it with you.
At one point at the ACA forum someone was talking about how his or her house was getting away from him or her and was not sure about what to do about it. Another poster suggested the FlyLady and said that her site was designed specifically for people who have a perfectionist problem when it comes to cleaning.
(It is important to remember the discussion I had a few days back about how perfectionism can manifest as a messy house.)
So realizing that I might actually want a human to come to my house at some point, I checked it out. The FlyLady gives you an incremental game plan toward cleaning your house (after all it was made a mess incrementally; it can be cleaned incrementally). And she tries to instill some habits which will make maintenance easier.
But the main thing she does is work on the self talk that keeps you from even making the gestures you can make. Because most ACoA have a running dialogue going on in their head between The Voice (which encapsulates the worst of the many voices of our childhood) and what we call our Inner Child but I like to think of as Our Real Selves.
One thing I am going to take advantage of during my relationship time out is getting back into my FlyLady habits. And who knows, maybe by the time I am allowed to bring someone home, I'll have a house worthy of bringing someone home to.
But as I have said previously about other things, knowing the reason why things are the way they are isn't enough. You also have to figure out what to do about it. In the case of cleaning up my house, I have found an answer. And I am going to share it with you.
At one point at the ACA forum someone was talking about how his or her house was getting away from him or her and was not sure about what to do about it. Another poster suggested the FlyLady and said that her site was designed specifically for people who have a perfectionist problem when it comes to cleaning.
(It is important to remember the discussion I had a few days back about how perfectionism can manifest as a messy house.)
So realizing that I might actually want a human to come to my house at some point, I checked it out. The FlyLady gives you an incremental game plan toward cleaning your house (after all it was made a mess incrementally; it can be cleaned incrementally). And she tries to instill some habits which will make maintenance easier.
But the main thing she does is work on the self talk that keeps you from even making the gestures you can make. Because most ACoA have a running dialogue going on in their head between The Voice (which encapsulates the worst of the many voices of our childhood) and what we call our Inner Child but I like to think of as Our Real Selves.
One thing I am going to take advantage of during my relationship time out is getting back into my FlyLady habits. And who knows, maybe by the time I am allowed to bring someone home, I'll have a house worthy of bringing someone home to.
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