Lisa notes

• Mop the floors or read a book?
• Start the laundry or take a walk?
• Dust the furniture or eat a cookie?

I’d rather eat the cookie.

But I also thrive in clean, uncluttered spaces, especially my home.

So how do we balance keeping a clean house while also taking care of ourselves?

Especially if we’re going through extra struggles (and aren’t there always extra struggles)?

K. C. Davis struggled with postpartum depression after she had her second child. She began posting TikTok videos of her messy house as a humorous way to cope.

Her mess hit a nerve. She began getting lots of responses from others who also were struggling, feeling guilty if their houses weren’t spic-and-span.

So K. C. Davis wrote a book. As a licensed professional therapist, she knew what she was talking about.

In her book, How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing, you’ll get to decide for yourself what is acceptable or not for your home.

It’s not about perfection. Or efficiency. Or comparison. It’s about what works for you and your family where you are right now. Davis’s philosophy is very freeing: “Anything worth doing is worth doing partially.”

Davis reminds us that, “You don’t exist to serve your space; your space exists to serve you.”

Keeping a spotless house doesn’t make you a good person. And not folding your laundry doesn’t make you a bad person. The tasks themselves are morally neutral, Davis tells us.

You know what is most important for your family. Set your own goals, do what you can, and allow yourself to be a human.

I still breathe better in an uncluttered space. But on days when I just can’t make it happen and I need rest, it need not affect my worthiness. It doesn’t mean I’m lazy.

Keeping house is a never-ending project. All our care tasks don’t have to be finished before we allow ourselves to rest.

Watch K. C. Davis’s TEDx Talk, How to Do Laundry When You’re Depressed.

Quotes from How to Keep House While Drowning

“Instead of Chores, try saying Care tasks. Chores are obligations. Care tasks are kindness to self.”

~ * ~

“The approach that you are motivated to do and enjoy doing is the most ‘efficient,’ because you are actually doing it and not avoiding it.”

~ * ~

“Five minutes was too big of a goal. I wonder if I could get on for three minutes.”

~ * ~

“You are not responsible for saving the world if you are struggling to save yourself.”

~ * ~

“The schedule isn’t for telling me what I must do or reminding me about what I haven’t done. The way it serves me each day is by taking the burden of decision-making away.”

~ * ~

“Humans are messy, fallible, imperfect creatures who cannot and will not ever get everything right all the time. And this messy, fallible imperfection never detracts from our inherent worthiness.”

How are your housekeeping standards? Do you feel guilty leaving dirty dishes in the sink overnight? Share your thoughts.

You are on Day #13 of the series, A Book a Day {Nonfiction Favorites}.

Each day of February 2023 I’m recommending one book a day from favorite nonfiction books I’ve recently read.

The Table of Contents for all 28 books is here, updated daily.

Previous:
“God Can’t” {Book 12}

Next:
“The Lives We Actually Have” {Book 14}

I ask you to do something for me. You’d like to do it.

But you don’t do it. Not because you don’t want to, but because you can’t. 

I wouldn’t be upset. We all understand that. There are lots of things we wish we could do, but we can’t, for all kinds of reasons.

But what about God? There are lots of things I wish God would do for me. If I pray and ask God for something healthy and good, but it doesn’t happen, should I just make excuses for God? . . . Oh, God was probably too busy, or God knew that wasn’t for my good, or it’s probably my own fault it didn’t happen.

Or should I sometimes reevaluate what I’m asking of God?

Maybe, just maybe, what I’m asking from God is something God never promised could be done?

While we talk a lot about things God can do, we don’t often talk about things God can’t do.

Consider some of the things listed in scripture that God can’t do:

• God can’t lie (Numbers 23:19)
• God can’t be unfaithful to himself (2 Timothy 2:13)
• God can’t tempt or be tempted with evil (James 1:13)
• God can’t not love (1 John 4:16)

I imagine every believer could create a varied list of things they think God can and can’t do, based on their specific interpretation of the Bible and their individual experiences and understanding of God.

Because of this lack of agreement among us (who can explain with total certainty the mind and ways of God???), I find books like this one by theologian Thomas Jay Oord fascinating to think about. In God Can’t: How to Believe in God and Love after Tragedy, Abuse, and Other Evils, Oord goes in depth about this topic.

If you, too, like to be challenged in your thoughts of God, especially in light of hard things you experience or see others go through, read how Oord addresses the problem of suffering and God’s love, then come to your own conclusions (although continue to remain open to change).

Because even though we say, “It never hurts to ask God,” sometimes it ruins a person’s faith if what they repeatedly ask for could never come true.

But it might make them love God even more if, based on God’s nature, they could more accurately realign their expectations of what God can or can’t do.

I listened to the audiobook so I don’t have quotes to share on this one. But as with all books I recommend, I’ll give my standard disclaimer with this one, too: take what’s true and helpful to you and leave the rest.

You are on Day #12 of the series, A Book a Day {Nonfiction Favorites}.

Each day of February 2023 I’m recommending one book a day from favorite nonfiction books I’ve recently read.

The Table of Contents for all 28 books is here, updated daily.

Previous:
“The Light We Carry” {Book 11}

Next:
“How to Keep House While Drowning” {Book 13}

As much as I loved her first memoir Becoming, I also love this second one by former First Lady Michelle Obama.

In The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times, Michelle Obama continues sharing wisdom that she learned and is learning in her experiences as a daughter, wife, mother, friend, and First Lady.

She is relatable, humble, and kind as she tells stories from her life, with lessons we can all use in our own lives, ranging from feeling anxious in the pandemic, watching adult children make their own decisions, and dealing with inevitable differences in relationships.

Michelle Obama is the kind of woman you’d love to have in your group of best friends.

Favorite Quotes from The Light We Carry

“The unknown is where possibility glitters. If you don’t take the risk, if you don’t ride out a few jolts, you are taking away your opportunities to transform.”

~ * ~

“Another important thing to remember about friendship: What mattered was that we just kept showing up, in closeness, in commitment, in compromise, and even in fatigue. For me, it’s all about showing up.”

~ * ~

“I often say that it’s much harder to hate up close. When we drop our fears about newness and open ourselves to others, we are practicing an important form of micro-connection.”

~ * ~

“With our friends, we are always looking for very simple reassurances that we matter, that our light is recognized and our voice is heard—and we owe our friends the same.”

~ * ~

“Life has shown me that strong friendships are most often the result of strong intentions. Your table needs to be deliberately built, deliberately populated, and deliberately tended to.”

~ * ~

“The challenge is to shift our perspectives and celebrate the value of differentness in ourselves and in others, seeing it as reason to step forward rather than back, to stand up rather than sit down, to say more rather than less.”

Have you read a good memoir lately? Share in the comments.

You are on Day #11 of the series, A Book a Day {Nonfiction Favorites}.

Each day of February 2023 I’m recommending one book a day from favorite nonfiction books I’ve recently read.

The Table of Contents for all 28 books is here, updated daily.

Previous:
“Someday Is Today” {Book 10}

Next:
“God Can’t” {Book 9}

I am sitting across from an acquaintance at the restaurant. We’ve almost made it through lunch. But now she is dipping into dangerous conversational territory.

I can’t decide what to do: do I explain why I think differently than her, or do I just nod my head and let it go?

At this moment, I still feel like the logical one and I view her as the irrational one.

But in a different situation (and maybe from her perspective in this one?), it can easily be reversed.

So this book can apply to all of us at one time or another: Talking to “Crazy”: How to Deal with the Irrational and Impossible People in Your Life by Mark Goulston.

All of us are irrational and impossible at times.

But when it’s your turn to be sane and the other person seems off-balance, try some practical advice from this book.

Here are 12 statements or questions from Talking to “Crazy” to help you defuse a situation.

1. “Say more about that.”
2. “Yes, I see.”
3. “What’s the worst thing for you right now?”
4. “Hmmm.”
5. “Okay.”
6. “Really?”
7. “What else scares you right now?”
8. “Tell me what you need me to say or do to make the situation better for you.”
9. “What would it take to make this right?”
10. “What do I need to do right now?”
11. “What is the critical thing I need to do in the short term?”
12. “What is the most important thing I need to do in the long term?”

For defusing the potential bomb at my lunch table that afternoon, I instinctively went for #5.

It wasn’t aggressive. It didn’t imply agreement (or disagreement). It simply allowed enough breathing space for the discussion to fade out on its own, without my provocatively ramping it higher.

In other words, it worked.

But the next time, when it’s me that is irrational, maybe I can hand this list of statements to my companion, and they can help me return safely to sanity, too.

More Quotes from Talking to “Crazy”

“The crux is this: You can’t be sincerely empathic toward and angry with someone at the same moment.”

~ * ~

“The emotion that most often lies at the core of anger and venting isn’t hatred or repulsion. It’s disappointment. However, people rarely use that word. Instead, they use horrible, hateful words that they don’t really mean.”

~ * ~

“This simple question—What’s the worst thing for you right now?—can be life altering because it makes people feel less alone. Pain is pain. But suffering is feeling alone in pain.”

~ * ~

“The best antidote to woulda, coulda, shoulda but didn’t is ask, listen, and listen some more.”

~ * ~

“The first step in finding the sane inside the crazy is to believe it’s there.”

Which of the above 12 statements/questions do you use most often to turn down the heat? Share in the comments. 

You are on Day #9 of the series, A Book a Day {Nonfiction Favorites}.

Each day of February 2023 I’m recommending one book a day from favorite nonfiction books I’ve recently read.

The Table of Contents for all 28 books is here, updated daily.

Previous:
“The Dance of Connection” {Book 8}

Next:
“Someday Is Today” {Book 10}

“We need words to begin to heal betrayals, inequalities, and ruptured connections.”
– Harriet Lerner

Is there an author you’d like to talk with over dinner?

Because I’ve experienced how tricky our relationships can be, I’d love to sit at my kitchen table for hours with Harriet Lerner, asking her questions and listening to her wisdom about sticky relationship issues.

Her book, The Dance of Connection: How to Talk to Someone When You’re Mad, Hurt, Scared, Frustrated, Insulted, Betrayed, or Desperate, was published over 20 years ago, but it’s just as relevant today as when she wrote it. In it, Lerner role-plays multiple conversations, guiding us through minefields that have surely plagued us all, especially in the past few years.

Without meaningful conversations, relationships can’t grow. But if we can learn to better see and be seen in our relationships, we can each be more loving versions of ourselves.

Lerner encourages us to use our voice and presence to connect with other people, regardless of our differences.

Here are four pieces of wise relationship advice from The Dance of Connection.

1. Be more supportive to persons in distress by simply letting them know you care about them—be emotionally present without pulling back from their pain and without trying to take it away.

2. Never criticize a person who is criticizing you. There may be a time to bring up your own grievances, but that time is not when the other person has taken the initiative to voice her own complaints.

3. A pure apology does not ask the other person to do anything—not even to forgive.

4. When the other person is already in an avoidant mode or heavily defended, you have to lower the intensity—not raise it—if you hope to begin a conversation.

More Quotes from The Dance of Connection

“When speaking to any hot issue with a family member, we should stay focused on what we want to say about ourselves, rather than on eliciting a particular response from the other person.”

~ * ~

“I believe that whenever we diminish and disregard another person, we also diminish our own self.”

~ * ~

“When people suffer, they often suffer twice, first because they have lived through something painful, and second, because family members or close friends either don’t want to hear about it or don’t communicate a wish to hear about all of it.”

~ * ~

“We all need to step back from any problem and view it through a wide-angle lens.”

How hard is it for you to have difficult conversations? I do not like them. But if I think they’ll make things better, I prefer to engage so we can move forward. Share your thoughts in the comments.

You are on Day #8 of the series, A Book a Day {Nonfiction Favorites}.

Each day of February 2023 I’m recommending one book a day from favorite nonfiction books I’ve read recently.

The Table of Contents for all 28 books is here, updated daily.

Previous:
“Curveball” {Book 7}

Next:
“Talking to Crazy” {Book 9}