A few days ago, someone asked me for the link to this blog, and in sending it to her I had to face the fact that I hadn’t posted in six months. I’ve thought about posting, but I’ve been managing a flare-up of ulcerative colitis since last October and, truth be told, simply couldn’t work up the energy to write. At the moment, though, I’m seeing a glimmer of hope. A glimmer; but hope, nonetheless.
As I linked her to my home page, I read my tagline: Fighting the clutter monster ~ inside and out. One thing I’ve realized in these past months, as I’ve struggled to put one foot in front of the other while feeling decidedly ill, is that the inside clutter monster is definitely the one in control. As I’ve taken time to think about the constant clutter I fight, and how even when I seem to get on top of it for a time — it always devolves back into what it was, I’ve concluded that it’s all just symptoms. The real culprit is my general lack of delight in homemaking, and the sense that I’m somehow missing what I should be doing while being stuck in the unending loop of laundry, dishes, picking up. Stop (briefly). Repeat.
With this in mind, I downloaded an organizing book onto my Kindle, called, Organizing from the Heart: Change Your Mindset, Conquer Your Challenges. It presumably deals with spiritual roots to organizational issues, but I wouldn’t actually know.
Now, brace yourself, because this next part would be downright hilarious if it weren’t so achingly cliché. I don’t actually know what it says because, since downloading, I’ve lost my Kindle. In the clutter. It’s gotten sucked into the vortex and I’ve been unable (as yet) to find it.
*insert deep sigh here*
I will find it. I’m sure I will, but in the meantime, I’ve been plodding along, which brings me to my topic… my kitchen. My kitchen is the bane of my life. Well, maybe not, but it’s pretty darn close. It’s poorly laid out (which I cannot control), but beyond that, I constantly have dishes on my counters or in my sink. It’s constant. Every so often, I just muscle through and clean it, and the result is always tremendous pain. Because of multiple surgeries, including reconstructive surgery after cancer, I have lots of scar tissue. My reconstruction involved dissecting large sections of muscle in my back, and ever since, that work which is “kitchen work” leaves me with stabbing pain between my shoulder blades, regardless of how I stand, breathe, or move. I have not been able to control it short of drug use (and by drug use, I mean Advil).
Until now. In the past few months, I’ve looked into something I had heard about, and that is tapping on various acupressure points in order to relieve pain. I’ve read two books, and done some research online, and because of success I’ve had in the past with acupuncture, I thought it was worth trying. I had been doing it on occasion for a while, basically thinking about the pain while tapping eight different points in sequence.
Fast forward to about a month ago. I cleaned the kitchen. I was in agony. Every breath brought a stabbing pain, like knives. I heated a small cloth bag filled with uncooked rice in the microwave, took three Advil, and went to my room. I put the heat on my back, and tried to relax, and started tapping. I had read, doing my research, that it is sometimes very effective to assign an emotion to the pain, and I figured, why not? I am willing to try anything reasonable. So as I was focusing on the sharp pain, I asked myself… What is the emotion I’m holding between my shoulder blades? What emotion is causing this pain? It took a while, but it came to me — a single word.
Discontentment.
So, I began tapping the circuit, saying a phrase like, “…this discontentment in my back … the discontentment causing this sharp pain…” I tapped several times through the circuit of points, until my pain level came down to about a four. Then I stopped, and didn’t really think of it again.
However…
About two weeks later, as I got out of bed and went downstairs to make my coffee, I looked around my kitchen. It was totally clean, and had been for days and days, which has been (historically speaking, at least since I had cancer) TOTALLY unheard of. I stood there, thinking, taking stock… What was I doing differently? It’s not like it was being cleaned by magic. I was actually doing the cleaning, but it no longer felt like a fight. I thought about the things I normally felt regarding my kitchen …. overwhelmed, dread, hatred (if that’s not too strong a word). Those feelings were absent. And then the realization struck me. It’s been since I tapped on discontentment.
Whoa.
I’ve been praying for a solution for so long. And the solution has hit me in the most unexpected way. Here we are, a full month later, and my kitchen is effortlessly clean. I don’t feel pain. It’s no longer a battle. I’ve conquered the kitchen, by acknowledging and clearing the emotion. Who would have thought?
The Disorganized Perfectionist 