Escape the Black Cloud of Housework
by
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You know the feeling you get when you see flashing lights in your rearview mirror and hear sirens? That same feeling appears, every time you hear a siren. Naturally, your first response is to pull to the side of the road. All may go well, if there is plenty of room. What if the street is crowded with cars that are all stopped for a signal light? Do you get nervous or become rattled? In an effort to pull over you may end up crossways in the traffic, and you may even feel your self-esteem drop. You are sure the other drivers think you don’t know how to drive. Where did you get these feelings? Was it one incident or several that made you feel what you always feel at that moment? Could you change the way you feel? If so, how would you go about making those changes? We could call these siren feelings "Siren Fever." We all get similar feelings from "The Black Cloud" of housekeeping when we get that phone call advising us that someone is dropping by the house in a few minutes. It may be a boss, a relative, or a friend. Everyone gets "a feeling," just as we get one when we hear a siren. The feeling may be one of panic, followed by a flurry of speed cleaning. It may be a dark feeling or a low self-esteem feeling, particularly if the visitor is a relative. Some people live their lives with this cloud following them everywhere they go. Every day they endure the negative messages shooting at them from the cloud like bolts of lightning. These messages are the same for all housekeepers, from the most relaxed to the perfectionist. They say things such as: "You slob; you left laundry in the dryer." Or, "Who do you think you are? If people saw how you keep house they would know how you really are. They would know the real worthless you." Often these clouds influence the lives of unknowing victims and even control part or all areas of their lives in some manner. I was surprised at the degrees of variation that I found in housekeepers who owned "Black Clouds." One woman I interviewed, locked her family out of the house each day until she finished cleaning the house. When she let the children in the house for lunch, she made them eat cereal standing over the sink. Another person put dirty dishes in the oven--and bathtub--until every dish in the house was dirty. When there were no more dishes, she stood for hours at the sink to wash them. None of these people that I interviewed were aware of why they clean the way they do or where they got their housekeeping habits. WHY DO PEOPLE CLEAN HOUSE THE WAY THEY DO? Using a simple exercise when interviewing people about their individual housekeeping, I allowed them to go inside their hearts and heads to discover their basic beliefs. During this process, they were often able to pull information out of their subconscious to find out where they got their feelings and how they began. The information they discovered about themselves allowed them to disburse the cloud and bring sunlight and peace into their lives. I recommend that the readers complete the two exercises in the book before they begin to clean. Some changed their housekeeping skills dramatically. Others made no housekeeping changes but cleaned with a different view, allowing them to let loose of the tether to the "Black Cloud." They were able to remove judgment and bring comfort and relaxation into their lives. The information learned from these interviews is the basis for this book. This is a book, not only for learning about the feelings we have about housekeeping and how housekeeping relates to our lives. It is also a guide to making workable changes that will improve our lives.
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About the Book
I wrote this book because I feel that housekeeping is more than a daily chore. I believe that our attitudes and beliefs about housekeeping come from deep within and from our past. These attitudes have a surprising influence on our very existence. Like any chore, housekeeping can be streamlined and simplified, but a clean house will not bring total satisfaction into our lives. If we understand why we are the kind of housekeeper we have become, discover where we got our beliefs and why we have them, we can find freedom. A freedom that can release us from the "Black Clouds" that shadow us and sometimes even affect our happiness. I would like to share some ideas with you about housekeeping and help you learn things about yourself that you may never knew existed. This book is for all housekeepers – male and female. It is for the perfectionist to the most relaxed of housekeepers. I will take you through some exercises that will reveal why you clean or do not clean the way you do. I will also take you through cleaning a house, step by step, and show you how to rid yourself of "Spring and Fall Cleaning" and the guilt that you no longer do it. You will learn what type of housekeeper you are and how to live happily with that discovery. I suggest that you read the book in its entirety, before you began cleaning. Then read and re-read as needed.
About the Author
During her twenties and thirties, Laurel Zigler owned her own "Black Cloud" of housekeeping. She lived and raised three children in eastern Oregon. During those years, she claims her role was "Super Mom." Maintaining the perfectly clean house was the driving force of her life. After years of trying, she finally escaped her "cloud." It took years of trial and error to be free of her perfectionism housecleaning that shadowed every corner of her life. She claims that the struggle to remain free is never ending. Like bad weather, you never know when a cloud might try to block the sunlight. Curiosity encouraged Laurel to talk to others about how and why they keep house the way they do. She began interviewing and talking to anyone and everyone who would talk to her. During these interviews and conversations, she designed a simple exercise that often opened the person's understanding about themselves. Laurel put all the information she learned from her own experiences and of those she interviewed into a book that she feels will help others escape their own "Black Cloud." In 1979 she left the Oregon winters for the cactus and sun of Arizona. With her children grown, she now lives in Tucson where she loves hiking in the desert and the mountains. Laurel loves travel, and when she is not visiting her children and grandchildren, she is off to visit places around the world. Laurel Zigler's first book, WHEN I WAS A KID, was published in 1996. This collection of autobiographical stories details the childhoods of those interviewed. All proceeds from the sale of this limited-edition book went to the Pio Decimo Center, a non-profit Community Center located in Tucson, Arizona. The Author has plenty to say about Escaping the Black Cloud of Housekeeping and why she wrote it. She sums it up with one statement – "If one person reading my book, finds the freedom and the peace that I did, it was worth the time it took to write it."