What if cleaning wasn’t about being Pinterest-perfect, but about making your home a place that satisfied your soul? Let’s look at cleaning not as another chore, but as a form of self-care…
Home is where the heart is.
This saying is often used to express that wherever our hearts are, that place or person is our home. But what if we looked at it from another perspective. What if our actual homes were the places where our hearts and souls lived and breathed?
If that’s the case, then tending our homes should be considered less a chore and more a method of self-care.
I am by no means a perfect homemaker. And I’ll admit that my standards of a clean home have lowered with each new child that was introduced into the family. But despite those piles of dirty laundry and half-finished art projects, I can still see the way my home reflects and influences my soul.
It’s sort of a chicken and an egg situation. I’m not sure if the mess affects my feelings or if my cleaning behaviors stem from my attitude.
But I do know that when my home is messy, my mind feels messy. When my floors are sticky, I feel just as stuck. I’ve realized that cleaning shouldn’t be done to impress anyone. It should only be done to satisfy my soul and the hearts of those who actually live there.
So how do we tend our homes in a way that feeds our souls? By figuring out what pleases us most so we can create an environment where we can all thrive.
How to Care for Our Homes and Ourselves
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We each need something different from our environment. Some of us prefer a neat home with nothing out of place. Others prefer organized chaos. And plenty of us are somewhere in between.
So the first thing that should be done before any cleaning is deciding what cleaning actually matters to you.
What space in your home feeds your soul?
Is the kitchen your domain, where you relax by chopping, sautéing, and stirring? Or perhaps the garage with its tools is where you go for some calm? Maybe a corner of the living room where you work on your hobbies?
One place or many, knowing what area matters most to you cannot only focus your cleaning efforts, but can motivate you because keeping that part of your home clean offers solace to your soul.
After a long day, do you yearn to cook, build, read, or create? Having a comfortable and clean space to do the things that help you cope with the everyday stressors in life is important. Cleaning becomes less of a chore and more of a preliminary step for you to truly soothe and feed your heart and soul.
Pinpoint the areas that don’t matter to you
While there are places that you need to keep clean and organized for your own mental happiness, there are certainly places that don’t really matter.
Does ceiling fan dust go unnoticed? Can you live with streaky windows? Do you not mind a dining table that serves as hobby central?
Everyone has different levels of comfort with mess or even less-than-sparkling cleanliness. Knowing what cleaning tasks can be relegated to the monthly or bimonthly list means freeing up time for the things that matter to you. To the areas that satisfy you on a soul-deep level.
Setting expectations
If you are not the only one doing the cleaning in your home, then it makes sense to set expectations for how you want things done. This will allow your spouse and kids to share their input (I’m sure they have areas of the house that matter more to them, too) and also help everyone to know what needs to be done.
Do you need clear counters to be able to cook the way you like? Can you only sleep when the beds are made with hospital corners? Do neatly lined-up shoes make entering your home feel like you’ve entered your sanctuary?
It may sound silly, but I cannot stand being in my bedroom and seeing the bed unmade. I always do it because I feel the entire room becomes a quiet and calm place for me when things are as they should be.
As a family, decide on routines that keep your home as neat and clean as you need it to be. Make checklists and assign chores. By showing everyone how tending the home can also comfort the soul, each person will have a vested interest in taking care of it.
How cleaning itself can feel satisfying
I do not love cleaning, but even I can admit that there is something satisfying about putting things to rights. There is also something meditative about many housework tasks.
Folding laundry. Washing dishes. Sweeping. There are so many small things we do daily and weekly that offer an opportunity to calm our stressed-out minds and relieve our overworked bodies.
Instead of rushing through these tasks, try slowing down. I know you feel you don’t have time for it, but try. The same way that mindfulness requires you to focus on the moment, paying attention to your cleaning will keep your mind steady on the task, and only the task.
This gives you the opportunity to rest. To ease off the gas and just let the rhythmic movements settle your heart and mind. There is soul satisfaction in working hard in your home, both in the process and in the result.
Our homes truly are our sanctuaries. They are a place of safety and comfort. Cleaning doesn’t have to be one more thing to do. It can be an act of love for our families and ourselves.
The next time you settle into your favorite chair or tie on an apron in the kitchen, remember that the dusted end table and vacuumed rugs before you, or the clean counters that hold your ingredients, were not just chores that you checked off a list.
They were acts meant to feed your soul.
Have you ever thought of cleaning as a way to care for yourself or others? Does seeing this as an act of care make chore time less burdensome or even satisfying? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this…
Books that may inspire you:
- Laundry Love by Patric Richardson
- Cleaning House by Kay Wills Wyma
- Outer Order, Inner Calm by Gretchen Rubin
Looking for more on cleaning and self care? Check out these posts:
7 Ways to Make Chores Less of a Chore
What Happens When You Let Yourself Run on Empty
How to Survive the Household Chores We Hate
[Disclaimer: I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for me to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a commission, at no additional cost to you. All opinions are my own and I never recommend anything I haven’t used myself and loved.]
It really is a matter of perspective! I used to despise the task of cleaning until I met a sister in the Lord who cleaned for a living. She told me she loved cleaning and I asked her how that could be. She told me, just look how it makes everything look new again! She’s absolutely right and I learned to value the cleaning process more. I’m still not a huge fan, but I DO love how my home looks when it is kept nice and clean!
You are so right and I can absolutely relate to your dislike of cleaning. I struggle with wanting to do it all the time, but I try to focus on how good it looks and how I feel when it’s done. How interesting to hear it from the perspective of a professional cleaner!