So this week I've had some time to reflect on why it is so difficult for me to collaborate at times. I don't know if anyone else has this same struggle, but I have a hard time knowing how and where to delegate and to let things just kind of the chips fall where they may. So there have been a couple of dynamics within my family and I'm feeling overwhelmed. Right now and trying to keep up with a lot of things and finding that instead I am feeling as if I'm keeping up with nothing.
I reached out in our family group chat that includes all of the children that live in the home that are 15 and up. and Dave and I My 9 and 11 year old children have gab watches and so they aren't able to be part of the family group chat and I reached out and I just said, you know, Recently, I am the only one who does any dishes and there are a lot of capable people who live here. And if you each did dishes two loads a week, I mean, we really do about two loads a day at our house.
If you each did two loads a week, that would be 10 loads. That I did not have to do. And there are a lot of other things that I could be doing that would also benefit our home and help us to kind of do some decluttering that is overdue and start to dig us out, you know? And one of my children also struggles with this piece of being able to share the load together. And I appreciate her care and her concern.
But it makes her feel like she just needs to take on 10 loads a week, and that we can't count on the other people, and we can't always count on the other people. She's not wrong. However, I only asked her for two loads a week, and that was the piece. That was the piece that I was asking from her specifically.
And I was thinking about how that relates to the way I do life and how people, when they reach out to me and they ask for my two loads a week, how I feel like my two loads has to be the equivalent of 10. Two isn't enough. What if other people don't do what they are supposed to do? But here's the thing. When we approach life in that way.
We remove the incentive, the responsibility, the accountability, the learning experiences from the people who are supposed to be responsible for doing the other eight loads. We do them a disservice. We do ourselves a disservice because then we are overwhelmed, but we also do them a disservice because we are not having the kind of healthy boundaries that create strong communities.
One of the things that Brene Brown said that has stood with me, and I'm sure I've mentioned it in a previous episode, was that the most boundaried people are the most compassionate people. And this is part of why this is. It's because if you do your two loads of dishes, and you feel this contribution and you feel this compassion on your mom, who might be overwhelmed because she has a lot of kids and she's trying to do a lot of things.
There's just a lot of responsibilities, but you do your two loads. You do them cheerfully. You do them gratefully. You do them with the spirit of compassion. When you try to do the 10 loads, what happens? You have crossed your own personal boundaries. You don't feel good anymore about the effort that you're giving because there's this hidden resentment. Or maybe not hidden. Maybe it's not a hidden resentment.
Maybe it's an outward resentment where you are feeling resentful of the other humans who live in the house, who could be, who should be contributing. And you feel like you're carrying their load and you start to look at them like they're a burden. And if you're feeling that, you are not feeling compassion. You are feeling all kinds of things that are not compassion. And there are times when I have done this to myself many times.
So, you know, I am not coming in here to say I am the guru and I know all the answers. And also I am the perfect example. I'm saying this is what life is trying to teach me right now. And maybe it is teaching you this too, which is stand up for the responsibilities that are yours. Take hold of them, fill your cup, make that a priority for you, do the things that you need to do. And when I talk about self love and self care, so often we want to feel like it's this selfish thing.
That's not what I'm talking about. Self care, self love might look like putting yourself to bed early and getting off your phone. There's nothing selfish about that. Self love, self care might look like. Making yourself a healthy meal and eating something that's nourishing for you. It might look like taking 20 minutes out of your day to schedule some play time that is recreational for you. What does play look like? There's a whole book about it that's really good.
I'm actually due for a reread, so I'll review that in the next few weeks. But the science of play, you will be a more productive, a more fulfilled, happier, more creative human if you make time for play. And what constitutes play, I remember one of the definitions from that book, it has to do with those things that we participate in where we lose track of time. Which means, and not in a mindless way, like, watching episode after episode of some show.
That's not really what we're talking about, but when you find something that is immersive for you, for some people, it might be something like woodworking. Whereas for someone else, woodworking may feel like work, right? It could be. You know, doing puzzles. It might be something artistic, creative with music, with the arts. It could be actually playing board games, but for some people that might not be it and board games might feel painful.
So what constitutes play for you might be different than someone else, but that is a key component of self love. And self care. And that is actually something that came out in the episode that just dropped on Wednesday in my interview with Rebecca Spotten, where she talked about scheduling time for play and how much value that there was in doing that.
When we do these things, the small and simple things, moving our bodies, taking care of ourselves, taking care of our physical, emotional, spiritual, physical intellectual health. And when we do the two loads a week that we're being asked to do and not do the 10, then sometimes we might do three or four, right? We might do a little bit extra because we can be in this place where we can serve with compassion from the overflow. And I am not the best example of this.
I am working to become a better example of this because where do you think my daughter learned to have that attitude? I think she came by it honestly. And I think that's some of the behavior that I've modeled, is that some people can be counted on and some people cannot. And if the people who can't be counted on aren't showing up for you, then you just have to do it all. But I think it's also okay if some things don't get done. I think it's also okay if you get extra paper plates.
I think it's also okay if you hold some boundaries. I could enforce boundaries such that they lose certain privileges when they're not stepping up and contributing. I could sit down and talk to them one on one and say how important this is and that I value their family contributions. There are things that I can do and then we don't need to feel powerless in it. We can sit down and hold a family council and talk about this dynamic and we're not always going to get it right.
There's a lot of ADHD here. So Sometimes there are good intentions that aren't going to be followed through on. There is a place for us giving grace. But I think the lesson that I'm reminded of is to do my part, including caring for me, modeling that for my family. And letting some of the other things go. Not in a resentful way, but in a way that I chose that and then to do the service that I can in a way that then is boundaried and compassionate and comes from a different energy in the home.
We all know that the energy in the home is greatly influenced by the women that live there. Okay, so it's interesting that I recorded most of this episode this morning. I had not yet reread the Courage, Compassion, and Connection section in Brene Brown's Gifts of Imperfection, which is the book that we are reading as a Solidarity Sister Book Club. We're meeting weekly on Thursday nights on Zoom to discuss.
But that is so much of what I was already working with this week, and our meeting tonight It was so good. It's just so good to be able to connect in a safe space. I feel like the universe is really conspiring to teach me these lessons. I'm kind of trying to work through, again, this whole concept about how the most compassionate people are the most boundaried people, and the idea of how these boundaries really do help us to create better connections with the people around us.
It's all in this section of Brené's book. So I'm reading it earlier today going, Oh yes, this is the lesson I needed this week. So I hope that it was also a lesson that you needed this week. And that it was helpful to you. And if you are not in our book club, I would still love to have you join us. We have 13 weeks left. We're just going slowly, collectively, as a community. through this book so that we can step by step try and apply the things that we're learning.
It's backed by phenomenal research, and if you are not familiar with Brene Brown, please become familiar with Brene Brown. So let's pull together this week. Let's take care of ourselves, take care of our families, and know that if this is a struggle for you, I feel you. For real. And that's why we're here. It's that solidarity. So thank you for being a valued member of the Solidarity Sister community. We needed you.