just4today
New Member
Joined: December 2010
Posts: 44
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Post by just4today on Dec 19, 2010 10:49:36 GMT -5
Thank you Thank you Thank you! so awesome
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Post by Louie on Dec 30, 2010 2:24:56 GMT -5
thankyou for this post. my head is spinning, in a good way, after reading it. There is a lot in what you have written that resonates with me.
It's as if I had developed a "mess/ clutter blindness" that allowed me to neglect the mess.
I have struggled with knowing how long to leave things, or how often I should do things, I guess working all that out is part of the journey.
You've given me a lot to think about with this, thanks.
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Post by dayeanu on Dec 30, 2010 12:19:31 GMT -5
This thread is just mind-bending (in a very good way.) there is so much here, first in Lioness' original writings (you SHOULD write a book. Maybe a collection of your insights.)
And in the follow-up posts. I am going to have to study this for a while. I think it is a, maybe THE, key for me.
I have been working seriously on my house since July. I have thrown away a lot of stuff, and cleaned a lot of stuff, have spent many an hour working hard on it, and yet nothing changes. Its like the sand dunes in the desert. It shifts, but there is never any emptiness for more than the most fleeting time; the counter that was clear yesterday, is buried today.
While I am diligently working on decluttering and cleaning, I empty grocery sacks. Yes, I put that stuff away, but the bags are left in a heap where they fell. I kick over a flower pot, and I will clean that dirt up later; I can't do it now, because my timer is running and I'm right in the middle of cleaning something else. And then the sacks and the dirt get scattered, and something else gets dropped on top of that. Sad but funny - even my "cleaning" can contribute to with my neglecting a mess!
I have always loved the 12 Steps and Big Book. Sound principles for anyone's life.
I also really love post #40.
Thank you Lioness. (BTW, I still have my special spot. It is still meaningful to me.)
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Post by dayeanu on Dec 31, 2010 11:48:06 GMT -5
Lioness, thank you, thank you for this insight. I had to come back to this thread again today. This should be pinned. This may be the missing key I have needed to make real progress.
All day long yesterday, there must have been a dozen times or more when I started to leave a little mess, and an alarm went off in my brain. Except for washing the dishes, which will involve a number of preparatory steps, I did a surprising job of abstaining from neglecting any new messes-in-the-making!
It was surprising to notice how many times during the day I wod have created a new mess, or contributed to an existing one. Again, thank you, thank you for your incredible insight.
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Post by joyinvirginia on Dec 31, 2010 13:36:43 GMT -5
Lioness, I really like your 12 step analogy.
I really enjoy the TV show Hoarders on A&E, and I especially like the self-described "extreme cleaner" Matt Paxton. Matt is very clear to explain that he is NOT a professional organizer, and he is NOT a psychologist or counselor. He IS a cleaning specialist, and he started cleaning hoarders houses as part of his business because he did not have much competition when bidding on those jobs.
Matt has been very open in interviews and on the A&E Hoarders message board, that he is a recovering gambling addict. He hires people who have had similar addiction problems. He thinks that his experiences give him a unique understanding of problems that hoarders face. The thinking processes are different, and unless those thoughts change, the hoarder cannot change. Matt uses his experiences and skills to challenge those ways of thinking.
Any kind of analogy or anything that can help someone dealing with a range of housekeeping issues, from maintenance challenges to squalor or hoarding, is helpful. Different techniques and different ways of thinking about the issues and challenges will help different people. That is why a site like this is so helpful, with people like Lioness sharing their insights.
Thanks again Lioness!
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Post by Tiger on Jan 10, 2011 8:56:47 GMT -5
Thank you, Lioness. This is such a helpful thread. I've bookmarked it in my favorites.
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Post by ClutterBlind on Jan 10, 2011 14:05:06 GMT -5
Great thread, but I always have such a strange reaction when I read the title: Abstinence from Neglecting. There is a double negative in there, abstinence is not doing, and neglecting is not doing. So it's not doing not doing. So my brain dumps the thread title. I guess it's doing a not doing by not reading it.  |
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Post by CourageouslyLion SeeksSerenity on Mar 1, 2011 18:39:54 GMT -5
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Post by journeyhome on Mar 1, 2011 20:43:31 GMT -5
This is an absolutely brilliant analysis of the condition and mindset that we all seem to be entrapped in. Followed by a fantastic roadmap of how to find our way out of the maze - and it is completely customizable to each of our own unique situations.  Thank you Lioness for your hard work on this and taking the time to share it all with us.  |
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Post by PJ on Mar 2, 2011 10:29:04 GMT -5
The thought process is too complicated for me. It would overwhelm me to think in these terms. I'm a simplistic person when it comes to changing habits. I "just do it." I usually need support. However, this is also pretty much how I've been thinking. Does that make any sense?
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Post by dayeanu on Mar 2, 2011 20:41:23 GMT -5
The thought process is too complicated for me. It would overwhelm me to think in these terms. I'm a simplistic person when it comes to changing habits. I "just do it." I usually need support. However, this is also pretty much how I've been thinking. Does that make any sense? For my simple mind, it's really simple. I just need to tune in and notice when I'm about to make a mess (by flinging my coat to some obscure corner of the house, or dropping the sacks of groceries in the entry), or when I'm about to ignore an already existing mess. Instead of just walking away and making, or leaving, the mess, as I normally do - I realize that to leave a mess, for me, is like the alcoholic just taking one drink - I just can't do it. I better stop - right then and there - and deal with it. A zillion times a day, I catch myself ignoring tiny little messes that would take one or two minutes to clean up. When I remember I HAVE TO ABSTAIN from ignoring it, I have to abstain from leaving it, I can do right then. |
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Post by shosha on Mar 16, 2011 6:24:23 GMT -5
Thank you for this, Lion! I have been trying to do this in certain areas already (coats MUST go on our coat hooks, bags MUST go in our bag-holding-dishpans, I MUST wash up before bed but if I forgot then I MUST NOT get cross with myself and hide from the washing up, I MUST do it as soon as I realise in the morning...) but it is useful to have this thread in the back of my mind (and sometimes not the back!)
This morning I was picking up some non-obvious-rubbish in the kitchen (a small pile of things I have flung out of the laundry bags while filling the machine because they aren't worth sending through a wash, a couple of "perfectly good" but superfluous sturdy grocery bags, etc) and underneath one of the bags was a yucky wet mouldy-looking spot. I could have pretended to myself that I hadn't seen it/decided to let it dry before doing something about it, but I had just been reading this thread and instead of doing those things I kicked the cat out of the kitchen, squirted mould and mildew cleaner (pretty much just a weak solution of bleach in a spray bottle, but it has a clear label and is £1 a bottle but I can live with that) on that spot... and a couple of dried on patches of cat vomit that I had been Meaning To Get To for a while, but the floor wasn't clear enough, and a lump of melted-and-dried-up icecream from some time last summer, waited a couple of minutes and grabbed a cloth and wiped them up - a couple of the spots needed another going-over but the whole thing took five minutes, if that! The ice cream didn't all come off, so I've wet another cloth with boiling water and left it to soak in (both the cloths are ones that are on their last legs and the first one has already been thrown out.)
The floor is still fairly grotty around the edges, and in some of the middles, but it is a million times better than when I got up, so thank you, and yay me!
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Post by dayeanu on Mar 17, 2011 0:25:43 GMT -5
YAY! WTG, Shoshatikvah!!! (and do I get points for spelling your name from memory?  ) |
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Post by shosha on Mar 17, 2011 4:10:05 GMT -5
Thanks, and yes, definitely!
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Post by sidestep on May 21, 2011 18:13:59 GMT -5
Bumping this thread since the topic recently came up in another thread.
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