Me: I am going to get our upstairs clean today. It’s a disaster, and I want it clean before the weekend. It’s going to look so nice!
Walk upstairs.
Anxiety: You can’t do this. Do you see all this crap everywhere?. You’ll never get it done.
Me: I will get it done. It just have to do one thing at a time.
Anxiety: Look at this and this and this and this and this. This is overwhelming. You’ll never get it done.
Me: I’ll never get it done.
Sit feeling awful for a couple of minutes.
Me: No I will do this. I will not look at everything. I will do ONE THING AT A TIME.
Proceed to keep head down and clean half a room in a short period of time. Then look up.
Anxiety: You are such a screw up. Normal people never have kids’ bedrooms get this messy. Your kids are living in dysfunction. They will grow up messed up. They will have no security or happiness and they will be ashamed of you.
Me: Shut up! The room isn’t even that bad. One thing at a time.
Anxiety: Screw up.
Me: One thing.
Anxiety: %uck up.
Me: One thing.
Anxiety: How are you even teaching your kids to clean if you are spending an hour in their rooms? This is pointless. Hopeless. All your time is spent on worthless endeavors.
Me: Shut up.
Anxiety: Bad mom. If you had taught them properly, it wouldn’t get this messy. Their mess is a direct result of your bad parenting.
Give up for a few minutes again.
Find resolve again.
Continue in this fashion for duration of cleaning process.
The moral of this story is to be sensitive to people’s struggles. We all battle some thing, and most other people never see the battle.
I posted a meme earlier this week about what a victory it is for people to overcome their inner struggles. And it’s true. No outward enemy has the ability to control us quite as fiercely and viscously as our internal enemies do.
I was just reminded of a truth during my Bible Study reading the other day. “Love your neighbor as yourself” only works if you first love yourself.
So go out and love your precious self.