It's spring! Time to break out the rags, organize your shelves, and open the windows and scrub all your material possessions till they shine.... blah blah blah.... snore.
You know what? You don't need an article on how to clean your damn house for spring. You just do it. Or better yet, hire someone to give you a hand, you know, so it doesn't have to be a major life drama and you don't have to wear yourself out on shit that doesn't matter. It costs about $100 to hire someone for 2-3 hours. Let them get on their hands and knees and clean that yucky part of the baseboards that you can't ignore forever.
If you're not one of those people who get a spiritual experience from cleaning, IT. IS. TOTALLY. WORTH. IT.
Let's talk instead about the part most of us women ignore until we have a breakdown. Yeah, I'm talking about your headspace. When's the last time you gave your brain a good dusting off? If the answer lies someplace between "never" and "it has been a while since my last life crisis," then this is the post for you!
This spring, sass up your attitude towards life and clean up your act. It'll do more for you than clean mopboards ever will.
This here, this is the big one that all the rest of your brain spring cleaning will hinge upon. You need to sit down, center yourself, and work on trying to achieve what I like to call the spiritual pinnacle of modern enlightenment: Nofucks-vana.
Reaching nofucks-vana will be a journey, not a goal. It may take a lifetime to achieve. There will be setbacks along the way. But any time you feel like you're reaching a point of stress, take a deep, cleansing breath and on the exhale, say: "Effffffff thiiiis shiiiiiiit."
This important mantra is rich in meaning and depth, and when pronounced correctly it will either help you attain focus, or drive the cause of your misery away. The important thing to work on is that once you say your mantra, you stop the spin cycle of your thoughts. Once you have halted the unproductive thought processes, procede into problem solving in peace: how do I fix this?
You might not be able to think of it right now, on the spot. Go about your day. And then the next time you hear your inner voice tell you something snarky, stop what you're doing and write it down. You probably think variations on a theme of that snark a lot more than you realize.
Those inner voices are like trolls on the internet. Ignoring them actually does nothing to prevent them from continuing to add snicky little commentary and make you and everyone else miserable. Fighting back, on the other hand, can shut a troll down cold.
For example: if your inner voice says: "Ugh, so fat"? When you catch that bitch whispering in your thoughts, you blast her with some sass.
FUCK YEAH, baby. I may be 10 pounds over, but I can enjoy PASTA. And my husband LOVES my ass.
Even if you doubt, procede to shout down that voice as often as it speaks up. Sure, we all have things we can improve on - whoever says they don't is a damn liar. So have confidence that you're fucking amazing the way you are, nobody's born perfect, and life is a dirt road with potholes that will require constant course corrections. Do a sexy dance in the mirror. You got dis. Haters gonna hate.
If you are struggling with the inner voice, call up your posse. Get some validation from the ones you love. And if you still have a hard time shutting it down, there's no shame in getting some more professional help in ghosting that inner bitch.
Procrastination and denial is for small souls. If you're a grown-up, you know there's shit you need to do. All that undone stuff piles up in your head as surely as that pile o'crap I know you've got on a chair, counter, or dining room table.
Find something that's been long overdue, and do it. You've been talking about making a will for 10 years? Do it. Call the lawyer right now. You can't remember the last time you had a pap smear? You know who you need to call.
You've been talking about making an appointment with your financial advisor about retirement since you had your first kid? Fucking do it NOW (trust me, finances never benefit from procrastination. The longer you wait the worse off you'll be).
You hate your job? And you've hated it for years? Dust off that resume, chica, and apply to some places.
Get. Shit. Done.
I'm not talking about randomly slapping judgemental personal opinions on other people. I'm talking about how sometimes your voice not being heard feeds the self-doubt and negative thought machine cycle, which feeds the voice that makes you shut up, which just corks things until you're ready to blow up. Put on your big girl pants and make your ideas and needs heard: at work, at home, at the grocery store checkout line where people are being a-holes.
Basically, wherever and whenever appropriate.
You're not a doormat. Say no if you want to. Stop someone if they interrupt or talk over you. Don't protect your boss' fragile ego by never speaking up in a meeting at the expense of your career path. Remind the kids that you need down time and private time.
If people can't appreciate you are a thinking, feeling person who deserves some respect, that's on them. And they should feel bad if you need to remind them of it. Disapproval doesn't just work on correcting a child's bad behaviour. It works fantastically on adults, too.
We all have bad days and we'll all take it out on someone from time to time when we shouldn't. Part of being an adult, however, is knowing the difference between someone who's having a rough time and could use your understanding, and someone who is just pure poison. (This is actually a pet peeve of mine, BTW, that it's becoming a thing for people shame others for not having their social feeds 100% full of nothing but positivity. Honest, real life has ups and downs and we should support each other through that.)
If you love someone, be there for them when they're unhappy. If you don't love them, that's fine, be kind and acquaintence-like. If you hate them, holding a grudge forever is exhausting, and most of the time it isn't even worth the effort. These people who have done you wrong and make you angry are living in your head, rent free, sucking your soul.
If someone doesn't add any value to your life? Ghost 'em. No need to forgive, no need to even tell them and create any drama.
Just quietly vanish them out of your brain space, and completely put them out of your mind. Buh-bye. If you ever run into them again? Deal with it then. But not until then.
Repeat the mantra. And then just smile, be civil, and say "Sorry! I have been busy." And then ghost them right back out again.
You have a friend you haven't seen for over a year, because you're busy? Or maybe you haven't called your mom in a month? You know what they hear when you say "I'm busy"? They hear "I don't care enough to make any time for you."
That's great if you really don't care about someone enough to make time for them. But for the others? "Busy" is bullshit, not a badge you earn in Girl Guides. Busy is something you say when you don't want this person to seek your attention out anymore.
Think about how busy you really are and how you're treating people you actually want to keep in your life. Then carve out some time for them. Bonus: when you make time for them, you're actually making some much-needed time for you, too.
If you have any other questions on this, refer back to "adult up."
You probably were told ladies don't swear. Well, fuck that shit. You might have been told not to use that rowing machine you enjoy at the gym, because it might give you "man shoulders," whatever the hell that means. Fuck that shit. Perhaps somewhere in your brain is the voice of a 1950s housewife telling you you have to make sure everyone's served and happy before you're allowed to touch your now-cold meal. Sit down, shut up, bow your head, clean the house, be complacent, be feminine, be a paragon of virtue, and most importantly, don't let your needs get in the way of his.
Fuck that shit, too.
Whatever ill-conceived old-fashioned notions you have about what it means to be a lady? Find that stuff and set it on fire. Then do your thang, and discover the power that comes from achieving your desires... rather than worrying about what other people think you should behave like.
You'll likely start out small, but make sure you eventually hunger for more.
Wonder and appreciation are close kin to gratitude, and all of them can have a significant impact on the way you behave from day to day. It helps connect you, ground you, and makes you more aware of the moment and less stuck in your rut.
You might have to work on it at first, but once you go looking, you'll find amazing things everywhere. And once you start noticing amazing things, your brain - and your perspective on life - benefits virtually immediately.
If you actually believe that crap about you can't teach an old dog new tricks, then you need to have yourself a mini little midlife crisis and shake things up. Go dye your hair rainbow-coloured, get a tattoo, rent a sports car for a weekend. Flirt with someone innocently for the hell of it. Buy a shocking piece of lingere and greet your spouse at the door. Take a course and learn something that you've always wanted to, ace the class, and gloat about the fact that you're not a snot-nosed 18 year old in college (yes, this is 100% worthy of gloating).
Temper your wild abandonment activities, of course, with that hard-earned wisdom you got. But DO do something just a little bit crazy for the hell of it.
You're a grownup; you're not dead.
Find something you can do to be non-zero sum in this society. If you don't understand what that means, then that means try to make the world a better place for your existence, not a worse one.
Think about this: Whether you are religious or not, we have been given the power to alter our world, ourselves, and the lives of others. That's some pretty powerful stuff. If you believe in a God, why sit back in the mud and wait for the promise of heaven? Would He be pleased with your work?
If you don't believe in a God... does it really sit well with you that this might be good as life gets?
Being non-zero-sum is a progressive journey rather than an easy goal. That's okay. You might have to keep your focus small. That's okay too. We're not naturally altruistic, and we won't all have the power to influence millions.
The important part is you're always learning, always working towards improvement, always changing, and working to leave something lasting behind - in a good way.
What could be better for your brainspace than that?
Anne is one of those people who usually speaks to others in memes, pop culture references, and SAT words. On those occasions she can be understood at all, she likes to entertain others with a sense of humour usually described by friends as “hilarious—once you get to know her.”
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