Hello, you sentient ball of Stardust.
This is struggle care, the podcast about self care by a host that hates the term self care.
We're going to get into that today.
I have a guest today named Amanda Dodson.
She is a therapist and a professional organizer.
And you know me.
I love that combination.
Hi, Amanda.
Hi, Casey.
Thanks for having me.
Absolutely.
Amanda, the reason I wanted to have you on is because I love your take on things as a
person who basically talks about low energy care of self.
So we use sort of orient our readers as to why that sort of became a place for you and
what your background is.
Yeah.
So I started my career as a community social worker.
So I did in home therapy for families who had cases open with child protective services
basically.
And a lot of those cases were for what they called condition of the home.
So our job would be to go in.
And I mean, purportedly our job was to help them get the house cleaned up.
But really what it was was figuring out what had gotten in the way of them being able to
care for their home and sometimes care for their children themselves.
And often it was physical disability.
It was significant mental illness or simply not having been raised with that set of skills
and getting to adulthood and just not being sure quite what to do.
And so I really found out a passion for just really getting in there and kind of getting
my hands dirty to get homes the way people wanted them to be with the sort of like mental
health spin on it.
And I moved into like different areas of practice after that.
But then during COVID I myself developed a chronic illness that really impacted my ability
to do a live the light cleaning and organizing that I loved, loved to do.
So it was necessary for me to really adjust my habits and my expectations about how to
keep up with caring for myself, caring for the people I take care of also because I am
also a caretaker for other people who are chronically ill and keeping up with just like
the daily work of running a home, which is a lot when you've got other stuff going on.
So what would you say was the hardest like shift mentally to make when you found yourself
with a smaller capacity of energy than you were used to?
I think the hardest thing to accept for me was just that it was simply not possible for
me to do it all in the way that I was used to being able to do.
Like in the past and lots of people who have like become disabled know this journey, but
in the past you're used to having a pretty much infinite supply of energy even if it
is hard to reach sometimes.
And it really took me a while to accept like I just cannot do that anymore.
And so I can't count on being able to like wake up on a Saturday morning and clean my
whole house for the day, for the week.
I have to be planful about how I ration my energy and even in things like taking care
of myself, getting myself showered, hair washed, dressed every single day.
Like that became something I had to spend my energy on rather than something that was
just a given that I would be able to do.
It's interesting.
You know, I'm sure a lot of our listeners are familiar with spoon theory, but probably
not everybody is, which is this idea that, well, I'll let you explain it.
Go ahead.
Well, yeah, yeah, spoon theory.
So the idea is that when you're able-bodied, able-minded, you have a pretty much endless
supply of these little spoonfuls of energy.
Like if you imagine your physical and mental energy as a big jar, you can just like spoon
out of it and the spoons never stop coming.
But when you have depression or you have chronic pain or something interfering, your spoons
are finite.
And sometimes they're extremely finite, like you may have a couple of a day.
So you have to be really careful about how you spoon out your energy.
Well, and it's a really helpful metaphor for understanding like just the idea of having
a limited capacity, which I find is applicable to most people.
So I don't have a chronic illness, but what I found was when I went from having one kid
to having two kids and then going through the pandemic and then like coming under some
stress, all of the sudden I was experiencing this thing where I would wake up and I would
have these things I needed to get done that day and then like suddenly at 3 p.m., I would
just hit a wall.
And it was like I could feel my body and my mind being like powering down.
Yes.
And I'd be like, oh my- and I could not get myself to do anything else.
I'd have brain fog, I'd have fatigue.
And it was really frustrating and especially, you know, then it's like, oh God, I have
all these other things, including like getting my kids into bed and feeding myself and like
this thing that has to happen tomorrow.
And so I think like whether it is chronic illness or you mentioned mental illness or
just burnout or stress or I know a lot of parents or maybe you got a new dog, I mean,
literally whatever it is, we go through this thing where we're going, oh my God, why don't
I have the limitless energy that I had before?
And I think that a lot of people are, I mean, even able-bodied people have to make choices.
Like maybe they don't have the energy for everything, but typically they have enough
energy to cover all of the necessities and they're really only making cuts when it comes
to the extras.
So it's like, I'm too tired to go to the beach and do a 3 mile run today.
So I guess I'll have to pick one, right?
But it's like very different when that energy runs out at, okay, I guess I have to decide
whether I'm going to shower today or I'm going to clean my house.
Yes, yes, or whether I'm going to shower or be able to prepare myself at dinner, right?
Like, but isn't it interesting what I heard you say and I totally identify with this,
like when you hit that wall and kind of ran out of spoons, our emotional reaction is
to feel frustrated and angry.
And sometimes, and often like angry at ourselves, like, why am I so tired right now?
Like, what am I doing wrong?
Did I not drink enough water?
Did I not get enough sleep?
Like, why do I feel this way?
It must be something that I've done.
And I just have found that to be so counterproductive, even though it's a regular response, because
it only tires us out more to be angry and frustrated with ourselves for feeling tired.
Yeah, it was a huge deal for me to be like, okay, especially in my case, like I didn't
know why I was running out of energy.
I didn't know if it was the trauma from the pandemic.
If I had something wrong with my hormones, if I was sick, if I was depressed, like what
it was.
And I was kind of frustrated that my doctors kept being like, I mean, you might just be
traumatized.
So it's like, no, it must be something fixable.
But like getting to the point where I hit that wall and instead of launching into those
questions or those criticisms, just being like, okay, this is where it ends for me today.
Like it's I think a hard transition to be okay with those stopping points and kind of a
non judgmental awareness.
Totally.
And like radical acceptance is the name of the game because it's natural for us to go
into that like question spiral of why we're tired or why we're out of juice.
But like that only just creates more suffering and more fatigue.
And it's a lot more effective.
I've found to just be like, well, that's it for today.
That's all Amanda has to spend.
So we got to redirect into something else.
Well, what I love about your channel on TikTok and about the kind of services that you offer
is that coming into it from a place of knowing what it's like to have to ration energy and
even mental and physical energy kind of allows you to think outside the box.
Right.
And I think that a lot of resources and services out there about home care, about self care,
they kind of come from an able bodied perspective.
Right.
So it's more about, you know, putting all of the different glass jars into the pantry
or having your rainbow colored bookcase and meal prepping big huge meals that you know
you're going to have the time and energy to plan on Sundays and those sort of things.
And I have an example of one that I love that I've always loved.
I'm going to play.
Hey, you, if you're too hungry and dysregulated to figure out what you want to eat.
So you just eat nothing, eat a little snack first.
Wait for a minute.
Figure out what you want to make yourself for a meal.
Snack before a meal is loud.
Do it.
Okay.
Love you.
I love this because it's those types of little tips that are counterintuitive in a lot of
ways.
Like they're so simple when you hear them and it reveals to us all of these like rules
about caring for ourselves that were like kind of following like who would have thought
I felt like I wasn't allowed to eat a snack before deciding on a larger meal.
Yes.
But we carry those rules with us.
You'd be shocked how many comments from people were like, why did I never think that
this was okay?
And I think it's I've like worked in eating disorder recovery too professionally.
So like the food thing has a special place in my heart.
But yeah, I mean, I think we carry a lot of rules that come from just like gender expectations
and role expectations about like how we're supposed to clean our home, live in our home,
eat in our home.
And they are pretty aimed towards someone who's already doing quite well at all of those things.
So the advice doesn't end up being that helpful.
So how many people do you work with on like a coaching basis that come to you because
they've tried some other like self care organization method and it was a method made for someone
who is firing on all able bodied able minded totally great support system cylinders.
I mean, like all of them, all of them every single one.
Yeah, I was just talking to one of my coaching clients the other day and they were saying
like, yeah, I looked up methods for like a system for cleaning my house.
And it was like day two, remove everything from your cabinets and wipe them out.
Day three, clean all the baseboards and they were like, this is intermediate.
I need beginner like I'm nowhere near keeping this level of cleanliness.
I need something so much more simple.
And really what people need is like the kind of home care training that some of us receive
as kids on how to keep up with homes.
But a lot of people just don't for whatever reason.
So I want to in just a minute, I want to get into something that you said where you talked
about how a lot of the guilt or shame we feel or the messages about like what rules
were allowed to break come from these different cultural expectations.
I want to get into that, but I'm going to pause for a second and then we will be right
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Okay, we are back with Amanda Dodson,
who is a counselor and a professional organizer.
She runs her company called Nesting Your Life.
Nice.
You could tell I was worried that I'd forgotten it.
So we're talking about how when you go through something
and you find yourself with a much more limited capacity
than you previously had.
And sort of almost, would you say there's almost like phases
of grief that you go through of coming to terms
with being able to be non-judgmental about the fact
that you have to now budget things differently?
Yes, totally.
And I really experienced this myself
and I've seen other people go through it
where it's almost like you have to mourn the death
of your able-bodied self that they might not be coming back.
You're going to have a different kind of life now.
And I think that comes with the whole process
of accepting a chronic problem or a chronic disability
or even just like a chronic life challenge.
Like from now on, you're going to have to be taking care
of your ill parent or from now on,
your child has a special need that you never expected
to parent, but now you gotta, right?
Like we all have these things come up in our lives
that are unexpected that we never planned for.
It's almost like chronic lack of support also is a huge one,
right?
There are people out there that didn't plan to be single parent.
Exactly.
They didn't plan for their job to transfer them
away from their family.
They didn't plan to suddenly lose their job
and now have to spend so much more time
making the amount of support that they used to have
and now they're exhausted and limited in time and energy.
Yes, and all the narratives we have for how to deal
with that are very, I mean, you're from Texas like I am,
so we were steeped and like,
just sort of pull yourself up by your bootstraps,
like just, you know, get it together
and then everything will be okay
and you'll be able to handle all of it.
And I think people feel quite full of despair
when that doesn't work because the opposite is true.
Like in those times of your life,
when you're accepting that you have to ration your energy,
that's when you need the most support
and that's when you need to be bringing in more people
that you didn't expect to have to help you out,
but now they do.
And we were sort of talking briefly about the idea
that most like home and self care advice is sort of almost geared
towards people that have able-bodied and support systems.
I'm curious your thoughts on why that is
because if you think about it, like people who need
quote unquote self help advice are people that need help, right?
And so and yet most of the sort of self help advice out there
is really only geared towards a specific like demographic
of people that don't actually need too much help.
Yes.
And I think it's because those are the people
that can afford to buy the books.
Those are the people that have the disposable income
for those sorts of things.
And that's why, I mean, I love your book
and I love writing for the target audience of people
that it's like, maybe you're not gonna be able
to read this whole book.
Maybe you're just gonna be able to skim it.
Maybe you're gonna be able to get some snippets
from the internet, right?
Like I don't know why self help advice is so written
towards basically well people who just want to like
be a little bit better.
But I think it's just because people like,
they forget they exist until they're one of them
or they're taking care of one of them.
Yeah, the world doesn't really like to pretend
like disabled people exist in their full rights
as autonomous human beings that are experiencing life still.
Yes.
And I mean, I think you brought up a great point
which is that the majority of self help products
and advice is living in a capitalistic market
where they want people to purchase that product.
And so you need to both promise to fix somebody's
all their problems and you need to be aiming
and marketing in a way that people
that have expendable income want to be marketed to, right?
They want to believe that all they have to do
is just believe in themselves and manifest.
And then, you know, this will all be fit,
like they'll be better.
They'll suddenly have more energy,
they'll get everything done, everything will look nice.
That's unfortunate, but it's so true.
And I, but I think it's helpful to know that
when we're hearing messages like motivational speakers
and people selling books and things like that.
At the end of the day,
they're trying to get people to purchase from them.
And you have to market in that way.
Yeah, like it's a product and yeah.
But the product, so sometimes packaged so subactively,
like the idea that if you could just do this one thing,
follow this one cleaning system
or make this one little thinking change in your life
and then like everything would be great
and nothing would be difficult or confusing ever again.
Like what a dangerously subuctive idea.
But that's not actually how life works.
It's really more complex than that.
And you can do all the right things
and still have something that happened
to have everything thrown off the rails.
So when you work with someone who is trying to,
let's say create a more functional home
or work some self-care, I love how many tips
you have about eating because if you go and look
for like tips on eating well, it's mostly like diet advice.
Oh, it is, yeah, yeah.
But my experience is like,
there's a lot of people who are just like,
no, how do I eat like anything?
Yeah, it's one of the first questions that I ask people
even when they come to me for just like cleaning
or organization like what's your eating routine like
because I find especially neurodivergent people,
I think because just their internal clocks
run a little bit differently.
Like they tend to eat nothing all morning,
some of the afternoon until like three o'clock,
they realize they're like starving.
And that's when their brain tells them you're hungry.
But by that time they've lost all executive functioning skills
to be able to prepare a meal.
And usually all, they've lost all connection
with their like hunger fullness cues.
So it's just sort of like,
I need to get something in my body right now.
And then the meal doesn't end up even being that enjoyable
cause it's eaten sort of frantically.
And then they don't get hungry again until like late,
late at night when ideally it would be time to like
wind down a little bit and start thinking about going to sleep.
And if you can run your life on that schedule,
am I calling you out right now, Casey?
Oh my God, you're literally describing my exact day.
Like, oh my gosh, I feel exposed.
And that's the reaction that people typically have
is like, how did you know?
I mean, the more I talk to people,
the more I'm convinced I've never had a unique experience.
Okay, so if I come to, let's go with that.
Like let's say I come to you and I'm like,
hey, and you describe that and I go, oh my God, that's me.
And I'm like, oh, but I want to organize my house.
Why is it though that you asked that first
and we're going to start there?
Because they're never going to have
the executive functioning to organize their house
if they're starving.
So what are some things that you would suggest to me
if I were to say like, yes, that's my eating pattern.
And I'm going offline at 3 p.m.
And I feel this paralysis and I'm panic eating,
but I don't know what to make myself.
Like where do we start with some tips for that?
Well, I mean, usually I try to target lunch
because breakfast is really hard for people.
So I'll have people set an alarm for lunch
and we'll make them a list of things to like ideally
that day when I meet with them, go to the store and buy
things that they know they like that are really quick.
They can just grab out of the fridge for a lunch.
Then we start to target breakfast and it's like,
when you get up in the morning,
a lot of people don't feel like eating,
but it's like what's the least like horrifying thing
you can think of nourishing yourself within the morning?
Can you get through a like luna bar, right?
Could you tolerate like a piece of toast
with some peanut butter on it or something like that, right?
And most people find once they start eating more regularly,
they're more in touch with their hunger fullness cues.
And so they remember to eat more frequently
because they're starting to notice
when they're actually hungry.
So yeah, alarms, having snacks in every room of the house
is sometimes something that's worked for some people,
like just having them visible.
That has been huge for me.
I started keeping peanut butter crackers on my third floor.
So my office is on the third floor of our house.
And I found myself, like even when I was recognizing
I was hungry, not wanting to go down to the first floor.
Yeah.
And I spent several days being like,
but you have to, Casey, make yourself,
you have to, it's important before I was like,
or just put some peanut butter crackers on the third floor.
Like maybe this is a battle for another day.
Yes, yes, because way better peanut butter crackers
than like nothing and internal turmoil.
Right.
And so do clients push back on you when you say
get something you can just grab
because that probably means things that are prepackaged,
things that are wrapped in plastic.
Do you ever have people?
It's like, oh God, no, the environment, like I can't do it.
Yeah, I do, I do.
I get the environment and I get the food rules around like,
but that's processed food and I should be eating
something with a vegetable.
And I'm like, you're not eating anything, baby.
Like, like, come on, don't be a hero.
I loved the one you did where you were like acting on a skit
and you said, oh, I've really got to get all this homework done.
But, you know, I'm hungry and I'm thirsty and I'm starving,
but I've got to get this homework done.
And you were like, okay, well,
why do you need to get the homework done?
They're like, so I can get a good job.
And why do you need a good job
so that I can live a fulfilling life?
Okay, like, is this fulfilling?
Are you feeling fulfilled?
And you're like, no, I'm not, I'm hungry.
And they're like, okay, you have to eat.
If you want to do these other things,
like not eating is not alignment with your long-term goals.
It is not.
I love that.
Okay, so that's pretty good.
So let's say that I get the eating down.
I'm starting to eat regular meals
and I've learned to maybe eat a snack before I make a meal,
get some prepackaged things.
If I'm feeling like my house isn't functional,
where's a place that you like to start with people,
especially if they're going,
the amount of things that needs to be done
for my home to be functional.
So because a lot of my wording is about just focus on function,
just focus on function.
Like don't worry about it being perfect.
Focus on function.
And that's really helpful for a huge demographic
that listens to me and listens to my content,
sets them free.
But a lot of times what happens is people going,
okay, but like my capacity is such that like,
I don't even have the energy to get it functional.
Where do I go from there?
Yeah, yeah.
So the first question I usually ask at that point
is what is the most distressing area of your home?
That's always in your way.
It's always causing a problem for you.
When you look at it, you're filled with despair.
Like what is that?
For every person it's different.
Sometimes it's like all my bathroom
or for a lot of people it's the sink with the dishes.
And so then we start to, but then they'll say,
but it's so overwhelming I can't even think of where to start.
So we'll say, okay, what would be the very, very first step
to doing the dishes?
And they'll start to go like, well, you know,
they'll go like six steps in and I'm like,
no, no, no, no, no, back it up.
You can just open, maybe open the dishwasher
and see if there's clean dishes in there.
Maybe we just empty the sink so we can work in it, right?
And like, I find that once people get that first step going,
it's like it breaks the avoidance seal
that their brain has imposed and they can actually engage
in the task without feeling overwhelmed.
I found that I have to put on an apron.
Oh, that's like my game changer.
If I put on an apron and put on music,
then I'm like, okay, maybe I can open the dishwasher.
Now I am cleaning person.
Yes. Yeah, yeah, totally.
And like a lot of people through talking with them,
we find that they have some sort of like sensory aversion
to the task that that is causing a problem with them.
We need to put an accommodation in place
to help it be less distressing.
So sometimes we problem solve that
and sometimes they just need permission to start small.
So I'll ask them like, how long do you think
you could clean your house for today?
And they'll say like an hour and so I'll say like,
okay, set a timer for seven minutes and just clean.
Thank you for saying that.
I was really hoping that you were gonna say that
because the amount of times that I have gone to like
a professional, whether it's a dietitian or a therapist
or whatever and been like, I mean, I think I could do like,
you know, 30 minutes a day and they'll be like,
excellent, we're gonna start with three.
Yes. Like I always overestimate what I think
I can commit to and then I'm too overwhelmed to do it.
So I'm so glad to hear that that's what you do with people.
Yes. But it's so true because we need the experience
of being successful to feel motivated to do it again.
Like I can't be like shooting for 30 minutes,
multiple days and not making it and like wanna keep doing that.
Totally, totally. Yeah.
And that trick works for a lot of things.
Like for me, I like my cognitive energy like hits a wall
at some point in the day and I just don't have any more
like focus anymore.
So one way I ration that if I need to like write an article,
get work done, I'll be like, okay,
I can't say sit down and write an article,
but I can say sit down and I'm gonna set a timer
for three minutes and I'll write during those three minutes.
And like what I find in what a lot of people find
is like just once they do that three minutes,
they're like, wow, I did it success.
And usually they wanna keep going.
I love that.
Okay, we're gonna take a quick break here.
And when we come back, I wanna ask you more
about the sensory issues.
Okay, we're back.
And I wanna dive into this idea of people having
sensory barriers because I feel like, you know,
when I am struggling to get something done in my home
or take care of myself, it's often like the first thought
is like, ah, I'm such a piece of junk.
Like I just have to try harder.
I have to do that.
And when we give people permission to believe
that their struggle with a care task is morally neutral,
that like it doesn't mean anything about them
and that their barriers are legitimate,
I have found that that cracks open all of this problem
solving, like I can't tell you the amount of people
who when I talk about like brushing teeth,
and I'll say like some people don't like,
they're avoiding brushing their teeth.
And I ask like, why?
And they're like, well, what do you mean?
And I'm like, well, why?
But like think about like really think about like what it is
that and people really haven't given themselves permission
to think about what they hate about it so much
because they think that their avoidance of it
is such a character failing.
So tell me a little bit about how you walk through
sensory issues and like, what does that mean?
What does that entail?
What are some of the most common ones you've seen?
Yeah, well, I mean, teeth brushing is a huge one
because for some people, the toothbrush
and the taste of the toothpaste is a sensory nightmare.
I've worked in like therapeutic schools with kids
that are on the autism spectrum.
And I, one school that I worked at in Boston,
they had a whole OT department,
just like they had a therapy department.
They had an entire gym in a department of OTs.
And I'm like, I love OT.
Like I should have gone to school to be an OT, I'm into it.
But I was so inspired by all the strategies that they had.
And I started to realize how many sensory issues
I had in my own life that I had just sort of like shoved down
in the little ball because they seemed weird
or like as my parents would say like, you're a funny girl.
Like just the nicest way to say like, that's really strange.
But I like for myself, I started noticing
like I was avoiding washing my Tupperware
at times I would even just throw it away
because old food gave me like a full body,
just ichnausea reaction.
Like I couldn't think about touching it.
I couldn't think about even looking at it, smelling it.
And so actually at work, a dietician saw me throw it away.
And she was like, okay, I'm going to work with you
all this even though you're my coworker.
She was like, you're going to open it, put it in the sink,
run hot water in it and soap so that you can't see
all the food right away.
And we're just going to get like all the bad stuff
down the drain and you're going to put gloves on, right?
And so like giving myself permission to think about this
not as just like a funny quirk that I had,
but as like a genuine functional issue was really illuminating.
And so I mean, the most common ones I hear are like
touching old wet food and people often need like gloves,
a drop of like something that smells good under the nose
to be able to smell something different.
Another one people have is like they just hate
the feeling of wet hands.
So gloves also work with that, but also aprons,
like sweat bands that go on their wrists,
the water can't run down the wrist
that helps with face washing too
because a lot of people avoid washing their faces
because of the drips.
A lot of people have, and I have this one like,
if there's like crunchy things underfoot
when I'm walking around the house barefoot,
it like makes me want to implode.
And so I have lots of nice socks and I asked and asked
my friends and family and eventually they gifted me
with one of those little robot vacuums,
which has massively improved my quality of life
because I'm not just like inundated with horrible sensory
input all the time.
So I'm such an apron girl.
Like I found that the point of, like I knew that the point
of an apron was like to keep things off of your like clothes,
but I realized that one of the reasons why I would avoid
doing dishes is because when water gets on the sink
and I lean up against it, I have like a real thing
with wet clothes in any capacity.
And so I was like, oh, that's why people wear aprons.
I mean, to me an apron was such a 1950s thing.
Yeah.
So when I recognize like the functionality of not only
does it like get me in the headspace,
but like when I have gloves on, when I have an apron on,
when I have music on, like when I'm addressing
my sensory environment, it's amazing to me how much
of a task feels intolerable because of the sensory components.
And when I address that, all of a sudden the motivational
blocks are a little bit less because, oh, it's not
as intolerable.
And then if you just combine that with a few things,
like you said with like, let me just set a timer
for seven minutes.
And we can kind of get this like wrap around
holistic approach to it.
Yes.
And it's huge.
It's a huge deal.
Oh, totally.
And the like motivation pairing of like music
or podcast or audio book with the chore
is a real game changer for a lot of people.
Also because a lot of people, especially with dishes,
the sound of like the dishes knocking together,
really, really bothers them.
So yeah, I mean, I think it's all about like figuring out
your special formula for like what makes a chore tolerable.
Because once it's tolerable, most people
find they're even like happy to be able to do it.
And it's such a message of compassion
to talk about that with people because I think a lot of us
got this message that if you don't like something,
if it's uncomfortable, if you're feeling
a sense of like avoidance or even
revulsion at doing something, that the only solution to that
is just knock it off, quit being so sensitive,
pick yourself up by the bootstraps, big girls do hard things.
And I believe that there is a time and place for believing,
hey, this is uncomfortable, but I have to make myself do it
anyways, but it's not dishes, right?
It's OK to make a care task that you struggle with a little bit
easier with some accommodations.
The things in my life that I've had to actually tell myself,
I know it's uncomfortable, but you have to just do it,
they're almost always emotional things, right?
I need to say this hard thing to a friend.
I need to be honest with someone.
I need to tell my husband something that's embarrassing.
I need to stand up for myself.
Things where it's like, this is going to be hard,
but I just have to make myself do it because I have to be courageous.
That to me is the place for, all right, suck it up, do it.
Not, you know, laundry is miserable because it's OK.
It's morally neutral to build in some accommodations
around laundry so you don't hate it so much.
Exactly.
And I mean, I don't mean to get so existential about these things,
but dishes, laundry, cooking, these things
are the work of living.
We spend so much of our lives doing these things.
And I hate for people to feel like it's just like some burden,
some task that they have to do because, and also caring for self
and hygiene, right?
I think people feel really filled with emptiness when they think,
I have to spend my life doing all of these things that are such a burden
and I really hate.
Because we have to do them every day.
And if you are burdened by these tasks every day,
I mean, how does that make you feel about your life and life in general?
And so if we can find a way to make these tasks not only tolerable,
but rewarding and pleasant and like a feeling of success and investment
and just the life you're living, I do think that it just makes life
a lot more meaningful.
Well, and it makes me think like for the majority of history,
at least in the US with our current country,
the majority of domestic care tasks have been left to women.
And so I think that there's like some real misogyny behind this idea that,
you know, it's silly or it's superficial to spend time making care tasks
more enjoyable or easier that you should just suck it up and do it.
Like just being adult, everyone has to do these things.
And I always say like, and sometimes people will say that to me
where I'll talk about a hack that I use and they'll say,
it would have taken you two seconds longer to just put your dish in the dishwasher.
Right.
And it always makes me think about how like there are people that are paid
like six figure salaries to find ways to shave two seconds off of production
times and warehouses.
Like you don't think Amazon's paying people like millions of dollars
to shave seconds here, seconds there.
I mean, we know they don't necessarily care about like worker experience,
but when it, you know what I mean?
Like making things more efficient, more doable, more productive.
It's like our culture says it's okay to spend a lot of time and energy
figuring out how to make business more productive, more efficient.
But if you want to take that same type of creativity and dedication to your home,
to your self care, to your home care,
figuring out how to create a home that serves you,
all of a sudden it's why would you do that?
It's not that deep.
Yeah.
Yeah.
When like you said, like good bit of living is these care tasks.
So it is that deep.
It is that deep, but I think you're right.
It's our own internalized misogyny and, and society's misogyny that makes us see
these things as frivolous.
And, you know, even like for a lot of history, white women were able to like
outsource these tasks to black indigenous and women of color.
So seeing, and I even like experienced this sometimes as someone who,
internally as someone who's like, I went and like did all the loans to get
this advanced degree and like worked really hard to get this therapy license.
And I've found myself like cleaning people's houses.
And sometimes I feel a twinge of like, it's uncomfortable to tell people that
I'm cleaning instead of practicing therapy because cleaning is like this not as good,
like occupation.
When in reality, like a lot of times I'm making people stay better in the same way
that I am as a therapist when I go and just clean up their houses for them.
I think those forces are really sneaky plus, you know, like we were talking about the
sensory issues people earlier and giving themselves permission.
I know with a lot of men that I work with and men in my life who they had no permission
to feel that they had an internal barrier to housework either from executive functioning
or never being taught.
A lot of boys are never taught how to care for themselves or their homes.
We just assume they'll like figure it out or someone else will do it for them.
And I think that's at the point at which it's very seductive for men to kind of like
float into the like casual misogyny of like, oh, my sister will just handle it or my mom
will or my wife will just handle it.
And like, I see part of my work as like pulling men out of that to be like, no, let's figure
out what's getting in the way of you actually doing these tasks so that you can also participate
in the work of living in your home and not just feel like this is some silly thing that's
just done for you, like you live there and so you should be a part of it.
When I think it comes down at the end of the day to that every person deserves to function
and they deserve help with tasks even if they seem simple, even if they seem like nobody
else needs help with those tasks because also they do, right?
Like there's a reason why my platform got so big.
There's a reason why people come to you and you're continue to be able to sustain yourself
with this line of work is because there are people that need help with how do I feed myself?
How do I brush my teeth more regularly?
How do I get a functional home that's a little more organized?
And so I think what you do is really valuable work and I really appreciate you coming on
today.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for thinking of me.
Of course.
Can you tell everybody where they can find you if they want to follow you?
You can find me on TikTok at NestingYourLife and you can find my website at NestingYourLife.com.
Awesome.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
If you're a parent, I invite you to join us at the Mindful Mama podcast where it's all
about becoming a less irritable, more joyful parent with sometimes hilarious and always
thought provoking experts and friends.
At Mindful Mama, we know that you cannot give what you do not have and when you have
calm and peace within, then you can give it to your children.
I'm Hunter Clark Fields and I can't wait to see you there.
Listen in to the Mindful Mama podcast.
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