Is there anything in your life that you are embarrassed of and wish to hide at all costs?  Say, a messy house or cluttered closet?  What does an imperfect situation say about you personally?  Let’s dive in to all the thoughts that we think about ourselves when others see our “messes”.  And I will tell you about the biggest MESS of my life! 

A clean space has always, always, ALWAYS made me happy.  Even as a young child, I loved it when my room was clean.  Not saying I have always kept my space ultra tidy… just that when I did get the gumption to clean things up, I loved it!

That said, there have been two main driving factors for my cleaning throughout the years once I got married, and neither one was for how happy it made me.

Let’s look at several reasons why one would clean their house:

…Company is coming…

…To avoid any embarrassment from unexpected guests…

…It’s what you “should” do…

…It makes you happy…

…It helps you relax…

…It keeps the spiders away…

…To keep things sanitary…

…and more…

The first reason that kept me cleaning is not a usual one.  It was to give a gift to my husband.

See, I grew up “surprising” my mom with a clean house when she returned home from somewhere.  She LOVED it and always made a big deal about it, which in turn made me feel REALLY good.

I wanted this to carry over after I got married so when I did the dishes, scrubbed the toilet, vacuumed the stairs, etc, in my mind, I was doing it for Tyler.  It made for a lovey time cleaning –kind of like when you’ve found the perfect gift for someone and you get excited while wrapping it, thinking about how much they’re going to love it.

However, it was disappointment after disappointment when he would come home and not seem to notice; while I stood there beaming inside just waiting for any amount of acknowledgement to no avail.

I’m not throwing Tyler under the bus by any means!  In his defense, after being gone all day, he would come home to kids ready to dog pile on him!  Before he could even take his shoes off, he was already being jumped on and wrestled with.

So I get that he was distracted in the moment of “noticing” a clean house, and didn’t think to say anything later.  Or whatever did or did not go through his head, I don’t blame him or say he did anything wrong.  It just is what it is.

(And as a side-note, I swear the day I stopped expecting a response from him, he started noticing and thanking me.  Literally, as I write this, he has already complimented 3 times how good the house looks!)

But because of the way it WAS, I lost my biggest driver of motivation when the “clean house gift-giver” in me faded away.

I decided that I would clean for ME because I loved a clean house!

I thought this was a better head-space to be in anyway and was glad to finally make this transition.  And I still agree with that but it was not helpful in the sense of obtaining a clean house because…

I personally have a tendency to go out of my way to please others, but don’t have the same dedication when it comes to serving myself.  It’s a real thing that Gretchen Rubin calls the “Obliger” in her book The Four Tendencies.

Therefore, I was left with my backup motivator…

FEAR!

The fear of someone coming over and “seeing this mess”.

Can I just tell you about the day when my absolute WORST nightmare came true??  I wanted to crawl out of my skin and shrivel down into a wormhole!

I’m only telling you this so you can know that no matter HOW disastrous you think your house is, and if anyone happened to see said “disaster”, you can know that there is someone out there (ME!) who has had it WORSE!

Feel free to skip the story, it’s a little lengthy (but it’s juicy!).

Let me set up the scene with a little background information:

First some information about myself.

• I was at my highest point of caring what others thought of me.
• I was 100% insecure about having so much as a pen out on the counter when company came over. I deeply felt that I must HIDE all signs of being an untidy person.
• If any surprise visitor came and saw a glimpse of our daily messes, I was profusely apologizing to them and felt mortified after they left.
• And at that time, I absolutely would NEVER have even CONSIDERED sharing this story with anyone, let alone ONLINE! (I have come so far since then, haha)

Now a little insight on the condition of my house on a random summer day back in 2012ish.

My house was usually messy, but this day, there are no words to describe how horrible it was.  But let me give it my best shot…

The house was a split-entry home, so you would walk in the front door and after a 3-foot entry way (just enough room for the door to swing open) you immediately go up or down stairs.

• On this day, every spare inch of the entry way floor was covered in piled up shoes.
• There were all sorts of random things strewn all up the stairs… toys, jackets, socks… not sure what else, but imagine a little walking path going up the stairs with junk on both sides –all the way up!
• At the top of the stairs, you hang a hard left to enter the kitchen.
• I cannot tell you what a disaster the kitchen was! There was absolutely ZERO counter space available ANYwhere!  What was covering the counters?  Dishes, a cooling rack with stacked up cookies and crumbs all over, mail, and who knows what other type of clutter!
• The kitchen table was covered in an oil painting project and a bunch of other crap.
• And I’m sure there were toys galore scattered around the floor.

There has never been a bigger mess in all of history, I am sure of it!

SO…….The Story:

This one day my friend baked some cookies and brought some to my house (how sweet of her!) but no one was home.  FYI, this friend had been to my house multiple times!  And every single time I had made sure everything looked immaculate before she came.

But I didn’t know she was coming that day…

Since no one answered the door, she wanted to leave the cookies on the porch but wondered if any animals would get to them.  As she was contemplating what to do, her 5 year old daughter suggested they just leave them right inside the door –as she proceeded to OPEN the door!  (Which was NOT locked!  And I learned my lesson!  If the house is a mess –lock the door!)

Since the door was now open, my friend had to agree that it was indeed a good idea, and went along with her daughter who suddenly had the bright idea to just put them on the kitchen counter!!  (Probably because there was no room down there!)

Up they trudged, through the beaten path of laundry on the stairs, into the horrifying sight of what only slightly resembled a kitchen, and HAD TO CLEAR A LITTLE SPOT on the counter to place their goodies down!!!!

I died a little bit inside when she called to tell me what they had done.  What is a word I could use that is 100 times stronger than saying “mortified”??!!!  Because that’s what I was!!!

Of course she told me not to be embarrassed, and noted the fact that my house was always spotless every other time.  But this is part of why I felt so incredibly horrified; I felt that now she KNEW that my house was only clean because I had a heads up on her visit.  Now that she knew how I really lived (and honestly, that was worse than how I usually lived) she would know that my “clean home” was just a façade.

This affected me more than you can imagine.  I think I speed cleaned and kept a spotless house for weeks afterward.  Any time I thought of this incident, I would cringe and physically curl up into myself and bury my face with my hands.  I had to debrief with my mom, and talk it out because the mortification would not leave me.

This lesson stayed with me for YEARS and has been my main influence in keeping a clean house (as much as I kept it clean anyway).

Looking back, I can see that I internalized all those shameful feelings and believed that my friend “thought less of me” because “I’m a slob”.  Even though I didn’t care what other people’s houses looked like, I believed that everyone deeply cared what mine looked like.

In the spring of 2020, when I felt certain that no surprise visitors would be popping in, I did some soul searching.

I asked myself “If I lived 20 hours from all civilization in every direction, and therefore felt VERY confident that I would never have any random visitors, would I keep a clean house?  Or not?”

I was really being honest with myself when I decided that yes, I indeed WOULD want to keep a clean house, even if no one came to see it.

Ultimately, I DO love to live in a tidy environment.  I feel fresh and free when my living space is orderly.  What about you?  Would you keep a clean house or live in a disaster if you KNEW no one would ever see it?

So let me ask you again… if a clean house matters to you…

Why does it matter?

If your answer has anything to do with other people, I invite you to do some digging.

Do you really want to spend all that time and energy just to try to manage what others will think of you?

Or would you rather put that effort into self-uplifting affirmations?  Like:

“I love and accept you Kayleen!”  (Except say your own name, haha)

Or

“I am equal” (Read more on this affirmation here and why I like it better than “I’m enough”).

Even though I love a clean house, I don’t always put in the work to have one.  I think one reason why I haven’t been keeping a very clean house lately is because I quit caring about the opinion of others.  (Or at least mostly quit caring… it is a deep seeded feeling that takes time to obliterate.  It’s a process of peeling off layers at a time.)  So now I’m in this messy middle of WANTING a clean house for ME, and trying to find some healthy accountability to achieve it, without letting fear or embarrassment take over.  (Send me your tips!)

I have let more people into my cluttered and chaotic home in the past few years than ever before, with the key being that I didn’t feel humiliated inside.  Sure, I’ve been a little embarrassed sometimes, but nothing that I couldn’t roll off by the time they left.

I usually did some self-love affirmations to get me to a place where I could still genuinely accept myself even though someone saw my untidy home.

I don’t know that I’ll ever feel super confident letting someone in my house when it’s a mess, but I do know that I can still love myself even when others see it at its worst.

I know that sometimes it’s clean and sometimes it’s messy, even though it seems like others only see it when it’s disorganized.  And I know that I am still a valuable person whether or not my house is tidy.  I know that I prefer my house to be clean, and that I can cope with it when it’s not.

There really is no reason to drag other people into the situation and have them influence my feelings about the matter.

Now lest you think this is a message on the condition of our homes, let me expound and clarify:

The “mess” that I speak of can resemble any other disorganized or crazy part of your life that you are trying to hide from others.  Is there anything inside of you or about you that you feel desperate to not let others find out about?

Do you cook perfect meals for your family?  If not, is that something you’re ok with, or do you try to hide it from outsiders?

Are you out of shape, and huff and puff just going up the stairs?  (That’s me!)  And if so, do you love yourself anyway, or do you feel embarrassed about it?

Think to yourself, “what is the one thing that I would be absolutely MORTIFIED if anyone ever found out about?”  Now take THAT thought and apply this whole post to it.  Whether it’s a messy house or something else, it’s ok how it is.

You don’t have to hide anything.

You don’t have to feel embarrassed about anything.

You don’t have to put on a mask and pretend to be something you’re not.

You can love and accept yourself just the way you are, in everything you do.

An awesome trick to help yourself get over feeling ashamed is to tell someone your situation.  Just say it like it is!  I know that sounds absurd, but you would be surprised how much it helps to normalize things, and often times the other person will validate you with similar feelings or thoughts of their own!

I used to feel so ashamed of the meals I provided for my family.  I’m no chef, and I often wait until the last minute to put dinner together.  Thus, I don’t usually have a lot of time to cook something half decent.  There was a phase where I used to resort to a certain “quick dinner” when I only left myself 5 minutes to get food on the table.  With a grain, protein, and fruit, I figured it would fill some bellies.  I’ll tell you what it was in a minute…

One evening as dinnertime was approaching, I asked Tyler if he had any ideas for dinner and he said “I don’t care, but can we please not have toast with peanut butter and applesauce again?”  Hahaha, I hadn’t even realized that I had been making that so often and I just had to laugh.  But my immediate self-talk was telling me that NO ONE can ever find out that I’ve fed my husband an “after-school snack” for DINNER that many times!

But I eventually told a friend about it, and just saying it OUTLOUD to someone really removed the pressure to hide it, and we had a good laugh over it.

So just tell someone that your house is a mess!  Or say to somebody that you don’t like exercising.  Or admit to a friend that you secretly spy out your window on your neighbors (hey, we all have a little creeper in us, right?).

I encourage you to give it a try.  Think of what would horrify you the most if anyone found out, and just tell someone about it the next time it comes up in conversation.  Or you can start with telling a baby or toddler!  They listen well, and won’t understand or repeat a word you said!  And remember, you can always email ME!!

If “your thing” happens to be something like drug or alcohol abuse, physical abuse, lying, stealing, etc. –you know, something that is actually hurting you or others, then please understand that yes, you can love yourself no matter what you have done, and now it could be time to stop that behavior.  Seek professional help if needed.

I am all about agency, and it is absolutely your choice what you do with your life and how you treat others.  And it’s important that you understand the consequences of all your choices.  If you’re doing anything to hurt yourself or others, ask yourself if it’s something that you truly want to keep doing or if you just feel stuck in it.  Does it bring you joy?  Or are you caught in a cycle of despair?

No matter what it is that you’re trying to hide from others, there is no need to have any more secrets!  You can love and accept yourself in any literal or figurative “mess” that you live in.  And if it’s something that you truly WANT to quit or change, then telling others will actually HELP you do so by adding in some accountability!

You got this!

I love you!

I hope you love you!

I think this is a message everyone needs to hear.  I would love it if you took the time to send it to a friend.

Thank you!!!!!

Best wishes,

Kayleen

SDG

Sometimes we can feel guilty for not doing all the things we should be doing in the church.  Read this post to see why we “shouldn’t” be doing anything at all!  Any why we have nothing to hide!

Life can seem overwhelming and out of whack sometimes.  Check out these 5 tips to help maintain balance.

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