Happy “after the holidays” Bees.
It’s a time of messiness. Of putting the house back together.
Of dishes and laundry.
Of finding a home for all of the new trinkets and toys.
If you’ve been walking around grumpy, you’re not alone.
I’ve been in step right beside you.
That is… until I’ll learned a magic phrase:
“And then…?”
When I find myself thinking I should be doing the dishes while everyone else is watching a movie, I ask myself, “Why?”
The answer is usually some version of: “What do you mean? It’s a mess. If someone doesn’t clean it,
it’ll still be there tomorrow.”
That used to be the end of the conversation.
Case closed.
Time to clean up.
But I hate cleaning up while everyone else is resting.
I usually use that as a reason to resent my husband.
Not always, but often.
So I decided to continue the conversation. My brain says, “the dishes will be there tomorrow if I don’t
clean them now” and I answer back: “And then?”
Brain: it’ll be messy
Me: And then?
Brain: it’ll be harder to cook and set the table
Me: And then?
Brain: I guess we’ll eat around the mess
Me: And then?
Brain: Well… I guess nothing really.
And when I land at “well… nothing really” I give myself the choice to do the dishes or not.
No judgment. Just freedom.
Very few things are the emergency that our brain would have us believe them to be.
So from now til forever, clean if you want to.
Rest if you’d rather.
Examine the “emergency” with a little “And then?”
Because your holiday is YOUR holiday – if you’ll let it be so.
Why not?
And if the “And then…?” takes you to an actual emergency?
You’ll handle that like a boss because you haven’t worn yourself thin doing stuff that doesn’t really matter.
You’re welcome.
