Why Your Thoughts During Cleaning Matter?

My children would always ask me to tell them a story from my childhood experience before bedtime. Last night was the same. “A happy story, please.” My older one said. So I told them about a firefly accidently flew in my clothes, and I became a lantern for a couple of seconds before it found the way out. “It was ticklish!” I claimed and made both of them giggled.

Then, my younger one volunteered to tell a story of himself, so me and my daughter quiet down to listen. He told a story of one time he sneakly took his sister’s paint brush, then got yelled by her.. As he slowly using the words he knew to describe all these, his voice started to tremble, and finally he began to sob.

My daughter was only 7, yet she was mature enough to say sorry to her brother straight away (proud mama here). I thanked her for being a great sister, and hold both of them close to me to comfort both of them. I knew it was important give comfort first instead of digging into the emotion or taking further action at times like this. In a bad emotion, there are only selfish explanation and limited perspective. There is no way out, but drowning.

When I felt my son had soften his body, I started talking about some games he would enjoy playing, including the ones with his sister. Lego, mud, role play, dance, observing a bug…… As I named these activities, he started adding more details of how he played these, and his voice got louder and brighter.

Mind is a double sided blade. The good news is, you are the one who decide how to use it. The only question is, are you capable?

When you have a quiet time cleaning, what are your thoughts?

Bad emotion is always stickier and stronger than the good emotion. When you try to work it out, you ecounter your self explanations. There can be thousands of explanations, but the bad emotion will not desapear. The worries, anger, sadness, anxiety, inner criticism …… are with you only because you cannot see your life with clarity. My son started crying after his story, because at that moment what he saw was only that one incedent.

In reality, there are more joy than sadness. To see this is a superpower of human. If you can practice this, one day you will see that even the breath you take in is a tremendous joy. You can just be quiet and feel the happiness overflowing. No need to find any other excitement to stimulate yourself. Quiet time is essential for one to notice his mind being nagative.

This week happens to be the mental health awareness week in the UK, I hope some quiet cleaning time can give you a chance to exam how healthy is your mind. If you notice yourself unable to get rid of the bad thoughts while quietly cleaning, comfort yourself first, and then remind yourself of all the good things in your life. When you get a hang of this, you can move on to just drop the bad emotion. Do not dive in. In a bad emotion, there is no way out.

Let’s practice.