It always needs to get done. \u00a0Rarely get a break. \u00a0Always need to do more.<\/p>\n
I used to hate cleaning. \u00a0I still often have days of less appreciation, but I’ve improved my relationship with it. \u00a0I’ve come to feel the connection between the act of cleaning and the magic of cleaning. \u00a0When every act of cleaning becomes a magical act, it has, for me, greater purpose, and thus a greater appeal for getting it done. \u00a0Plus, I really love living in a clean home.<\/p>\n
It’s actually a bit of a treat now rather than a relentless torture.<\/p>\n
Even though I will need to do it again later today and tomorrow and next weekend. \u00a0There are always more dishes. \u00a0More dirty clothes. \u00a0The floors get dirty. \u00a0Dust falls on everything. \u00a0Then there are the pets. \u00a0Since they don’t have the wherewithal to eliminate into the toilet, there’s all that associated cleaning, too. \u00a0And closets! \u00a0Wow, closets are a dangerous zone. \u00a0They get organized a time or two throughout the year, and if that organization is maintained, everything is good. \u00a0But it’s sooooo tempting to just put that one thing back quickly rather than properly and before you know it, the whole closet has gone to shit and you’re looking at a major overhaul before it will be fully useful again.<\/p>\n
But when I put the effort in to putting things away properly, in the closets, in the teeny, teeny kitchen. \u00a0In my office area. \u00a0When I use things and then complete their usage by putting them away, all becomes beautiful in the living. \u00a0But the cleaning will always be there, behind everything I do, and an ongoing work on its own behalf.<\/p>\n
That’s what healing is like. \u00a0I’m thinking of emotional trauma and old physical trauma and habits healing. \u00a0Things that have become embedded into us.<\/p>\n
When I first started down my ‘oh shit, I have sexual trauma in my background, I’m going to need to do some work on this’ road, my original viewpoint was ‘let’s get this done and over with so we can go back to living a fun and worry free life’. \u00a0(Yes, apparently I am referring to myself in the 3rd person.) \u00a0And yes, I had this cheerful delusion that I could face it, deal with it, and have it all be over with in a year. \u00a0Maybe two.<\/p>\n
That was over 15 years ago.<\/p>\n
Today I know that healing is an every day thing. \u00a0Today I will do some healing for my nervous system. \u00a0Some. \u00a0And tomorrow will come some more. \u00a0There will be big days, where I clear through a lot in one go; those epic healing days, like the epic cleaning days, that are intensely satisfying and make you feel like you’ve really accomplished something.<\/p>\n
But just as with cleaning, it takes less effort, and life is generally easier to live, when the healing is done in small doses on a regular basis. \u00a0Slipped on a rock and fell? \u00a0Take that extra minute and let the nervous system work it out now instead of having more troubles later. \u00a0Delivery company pissing you off? \u00a0Have a healthy response of useful aggression (non-violent) instead of bottling up everything inside to eat at you later. \u00a0As the day-to-day cleaning, ah, healing, settles in, then when there’s time for a deeper clean, we can actually go a bit deeper instead of just catching up on the little things. \u00a0If the dishes are already done, things put away, then that extra time goes to washing floors or wiping down cabinets, instead of just catching up on the little things. \u00a0(Called titration, btw.)<\/p>\n
And the absolute, inescapable truth is that the healing is going to go on for the rest of our lives. \u00a0We’ll get so good at it that the effort will go down. \u00a0Then we’ll get so caught up on it that the effort will go down. \u00a0(Or alternatively, we’ll just let it all pile up and ignore it – but I’m assuming we’re all in the ‘want to deal’ group.)<\/p>\n
Some days we won’t bother with healing. \u00a0And things will pile up a bit, and we’ll need to catch up on another day. \u00a0And that’s okay. \u00a0Because it will be waiting for us tomorrow.<\/p>\n
When the healing is big and scary and overwhelming, the idea that it won’t end can seem like we’ve been sentenced to some level of hell. \u00a0That we are doomed to suffer until the end of our days. \u00a0Except not. \u00a0Healing isn’t hell. \u00a0It just needs to take us through things that can feel hellish in our systems until we’ve worked things out. \u00a0Have you ever done physiotherapy? \u00a0Not always fun. \u00a0Sometimes downright torturous. \u00a0But afterwards? \u00a0If done well, afterwards is a veritable treat.<\/p>\n
Healing our selves and our souls and our spirits is just what we do. \u00a0So that we can live life to the fullest, in all our corners, bright and dark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It always needs to get done. \u00a0Rarely get a break. \u00a0Always need to do more. I used to hate cleaning. \u00a0I still often have days of less appreciation, but I’ve improved my relationship with it. \u00a0I’ve come to feel the connection between the act of cleaning and the magic of cleaning. \u00a0When every act of … Continue reading Healing is like cleaning house…woot?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2,5,15],"tags":[56,117,383],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":899,"href":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions\/899"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abysmalwitch.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}