Good Inside with Dr. Becky - When You're Triggered by Mess

Episode Date: February 15, 2022

Raise your hand if scattered legos and piles of dirty clothes drive you up a wall. Well, you’re in the right place… and you’re not alone. Messiness is so triggering for so many of us. In today��s episode, Dr. Becky hears from three parents about what mess brings up for them. She walks through practical strategies to pause, understand, and reframe your relationships to mess. From calming mantras to a super-simple hack for getting your kids to help clean up, you’ll learn how to better manage mayhem both inside *and* outside. Remember: Your house is a mess. You are not a mess. You’re a good parent with a house full of life. Join Good Inside Membership: https://bit.ly/3cqgG2A Follow Dr. Becky on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbeckyatgoodinside Sign up for our weekly email, Good Insider: https://www.goodinside.com/newsletter Order Dr. Becky's book, Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, at goodinside.com/book or wherever you order your books. For a full transcript of the episode, go to goodinside.com/podcast

You're listening to Good Inside with Dr. Becky. This episode is all about when you find mess triggering. But first, a word from our sponsor. If you're like most parents, I know you're busy. The last thing we want after a long day is to plant in our shop for ingredients and cook, while trying to do a million other things at the same time, just to put the food in front of your child and hear, yuck, that's disgusting. Or I'm not eating that.

So you can imagine how excited I was to meet with the founders of Little Spoon. A one-stop shop for healthy, easy meals for babies, toddlers, and kids shipped right to your door. And I love that little spoon, like good inside, empowers parents to take care of their kids and themselves. Little spoon gives parents the freedom to choose how they spend their time without sacrificing quality food. Get 50% off your first order at littlespoon.com when you use the code GoodInsideVIP at checkout. at Checkout. Hi, I'm Dr. Becky, and this is Good Inside.

I'm a clinical psychologist and mom of three on a mission to rethink the way we raise our children. I love translating deep thoughts about parenting into practical, actionable strategies that you can use in your home right away. One of my core beliefs is that we are all doing the best we can with the resources we have available to us in that moment. So even as we struggle and even as we are having a hard time on the outside. We remain good inside. In this episode, we will be talking about why mess is so triggering for so many of us mess is so triggering for so many of us and effective strategies to manage that trigger, so we can show up as more grounded and less reactive. I got so many voicemails about this topic.

Messes are so triggering for me. I think part of it is the perfect girl in me. I feel much calmer and much more in control and much less like I have a running list of things I need to do when the house is clean. I've always heard that it's overwhelming and dysregulating for kids to be in a messy environment. I have found that when my house is organized,

I feel better inside because I've read so many places where, you know, if you're home and your car is a mess, it's like a reflection of who you are inside. Let me just start out by saying that if you are triggered by mess, you are not alone. You are in the right place with so many other people, including me, who find mess very triggering. I'm really excited about the strategies and scripts. I'm going to be sharing in this episode, so let's jump right in. Let's hear from our first caller, Kevin. Hi Dr. Beggie, my name is Kevin. I'm calling from Buffalo, New York. I have a daughter who's six and a son who's two.

And for some reason when it comes to the messiness of kids with their toys. My household, it triggers me to lose control. I get slightly angry. I feel like I can't relax until all the toys are put away, until anything is really pretty much organized by the end of the night and then it's just cycle repeat every single day afterwards and I'm trying to find out why I'm triggered by this. It could be the loss of control, it could be that I'm embarrassed even though my wife should not be embarrassed because she lives with me obviously and she's not embarrassed. Why am I embarrassed? I don't know if it's the fact that I always have to make sure that I maintain the control of my household. I'm trying to figure out why this triggers me.

It's very defeating, almost on a daily basis. I'm trying to figure out how I can be the best father and just roll back and watch my kids have fun with toys and watch my kids just to make them as it is what it is. Try to figure out why I can't just let that go and let it be. Looking just for thoughts on what can help me with that. Thank you very much. Hi Kevin. Thank you so much for calling in. And thank you for your openness.

I really mean this, what stands out more than anything else is your desire to reflect and learn more about yourself. And to me, there is no better quality in a person than that one, truly. So it strikes me that your desire to understand why is actually getting in the way of your learning process. It's as if your body hears that desire as pressure or as you mentioned as control. Why am I like this? Why? Why? Why? Rather than hearing curiosity.

So let's help activate your curiosity, which is more about open-ended learning and not knowing than it is about figuring things out exactly and drawing conclusions. 1. Pay attention to sensations and beliefs and urges. Okay, what does this really mean? The next time you're in a messy room in your home, tell yourself this. My job is to pay attention to what's happening inside my body and greet each thing I notice. That language of telling yourself it's your job, I think that's going to be really helpful

for you, Kevin, because you sound like someone who takes things seriously. So let's use that to your advantage. Maybe even write things down. Be really diligent. Write down, ooh, there's that tightness in my chest. Or I don't notice anything at all. Or, ooh, my jaw is clenched. I just realized that when I paid attention. Then say hi to each thing you notice. I really mean that. I know it sounds silly. What does Dr. Becky mean say hi? I'll model it. Hi tight feeling in my chest. Hi clenched jaw. Even this high thought that this exercise is really stupid and pointless. That's allowed too.

You are starting to form the foundation of learning more about yourself. We don't understand until we set a baseline of compassionate noticing too. Remind yourself that your feelings and urges make sense even if you don't understand them yet. Our body knows before our brain understands. We all love our brain, me too. But our brain is late to the game compared to our body. And when we don't understand ourselves, we can get frustrated.

Instead of looking at this as, oh, my body knows something, I just haven't figured it out yet. My body knows something, and I need more time for those feelings to make themselves clearer to me. So add that type of self-talk, something like, I'm noticing an urge to clean this room. That urge is so strong and I don't understand it. It's okay that I don't understand it yet. My body knows something.

This feeling has a story to it. I just don't have clarity around that story yet. Three. have clarity around that story yet. 3. Ask yourself what you know about your own upbringing and what was valued in terms of cleanliness versus mess. It might not literally be about a clean room in your home versus a messy room. It might be about order. It might be about things looking put together on the outside. It might mean,

oh, in my childhood, I don't remember anything about a house being clean or a house being messy, but if I think about my emotional life, it definitely wasn't allowed in my family to kind of have messy emotions out there. So I guess there was messaging around quote, cleanliness and order there. We have all absorbed so much from our childhoods that play out in our adulthood. This isn't a reason for shame. This doesn't make us bad parents when we start to reflect on this. When we journal about it, when we start to make connections, when we seek therapy to kind of separate the past from the present, we can show up more and more as that parent we want to be. Okay, last idea, Kevin. Try out the message of enoughness. I know that

might seem like a non-sequitor. Dr. Becky, we're just talking about mess. Why are we talking about enoughness? What does that even mean? Well, stay with me here. Often are urged to clean, and to be totally in control, and make everything perfect. It can be countered a bit by reminding ourselves that even amidst mess, we are doing enough, and we are enough. So many of us, we've been fed this false narrative that if everything is clean and perfect and put together, that's the way we feel like enough, but it never works. Things outside of us, things that can be measured

are never the things that actually give us that feeling. And building up our enoughness on the inside, even when things are literally messy on the outside. That really helps develop our inner strength and confidence. So the next time you're playing with your child, and you're overwhelmed by an urge to clean instead of engage and play. Try out these words. Right now, just playing with my child, with the mess around me.

I am doing enough. I am enough. And now our next caller, Christine. Hi, Dr. Becky. My name is Christine and I live in New York. I have three kids, ages five, three, and one. And then we actually have one more on the way. But I am calling in response to your prompt about how messes make us feel, or what feelings they trigger inside of us. And I just thought, I'd mentioned that for me,

message trigger all of my own personal insecurities. I do find them overwhelming in general as kind of sensory overload. But they triggers all of my insecurities, my concerns that I am lazy, that I'm disorganized, that I don't know what I'm doing, that I can't control myself or my kids, that I'm not doing enough because I don't always pick up after they go to sleep at night, that I can't get them to pick up after themselves, so am I really doing the job I want to be doing as a parent. And so, all messes, as you can imagine, or as you well know,

are very triggering. But for me, more than anything, it triggers all my feelings of the insecurity that I have about myself. Hi, Christine. Thank you for calling in. And thank you for sharing so much of what goes on for you in these triggered moments. I think so many of us, me included, really identify with so many, and this is going to be part of some strategies I share. So so many of the self-beliefs that get evoked when we're around mess. Okay, what do I mean by that? First of all, let's think about triggers in general.

Why is anything triggering? It's not so much that we're triggered by the event in our life, which right now the event is seeing mess. A trigger really is a feeling inside of us that activates. That's what our body responds to. I know that doesn't seem like a big difference, but it really is because when we realize we're not so much triggered by the mess,

we're triggered by the self beliefs and feelings that come up in our body when we see mess. Now, we actually have a key to making some headway because we can't always control the mess if you have young kids, right? If you're living a life with play and spontaneity, what we can do is get a better handle on our feelings and self-belief. So this is actually a really empowering, hopeful way of viewing triggers.

So then this begs the question, and Christine, you got right into this. What are the self-beliefs that come up in my body, in my brain, when I'm surrounded by mess? And I have a feeling so many people, Christine, just got so much from you laying this all out, because it's not always so clear to others as it is to you what the self believes are. I'm not effective as a parent. I don't know what I'm doing. I can't control myself. I'm disorganized. And then you named what I was just talking about with Kevin. I'm not doing enough. There's that word enough. And for so many of us, we have all of these self-believes, all at once, no wonder. We kind of rage clean, no wonder we scream,

because when we put all those self-believes together, they volcano out of our body. I have two main strategies to offer here. Number one, let's actually give this part of you a name. You might be thinking what part of me? this part of you a name. You might be thinking what part of me, the part of you that gets so triggered inside that has all of these self-critical self-beliefs. I'm making this up, but let's call her Jacqueline.

Okay? So you're walking around your house and all of a sudden you see the playroom that your kids didn't clean up and all of this comes up. I'm going to model this. Oh, hey Jacqueline, it's you again. You always come up whenever there's a messy room and you tell me I'm not effective as a parent. You tell me I don't know what I'm doing. You tell me I'm disorganized. You tell me I can't control myself. You tell me I'm not doing enough. I could have predicted this exact scenario walk into this room. Jacqueline pops up and talks to me.

Now, what am I doing here? I'm going to step out of that roleplay to explain. I'm isolating these self-beliefs as a part of me, rather than these self-beliefs really being all of me. So much of our ability to stay grounded actually comes from recognizing a feeling, a self-belief, a thought, an urge as a part of us versus all of us. I am not disorganized. There's a part of me telling me I'm disorganized. I am not enough. There's a part of me.

That feels not enough. This is a huge difference. It's actually much more manageable than trying to achieve not having certain thoughts. That's really hard. How do I feel like enough? How can I always feel good about myself as a parent? How can I always feel effective? I mean, I don't always feel that way. I don't have any of those answers. I do think there's a way where we can make all those self beliefs less intense because we see them as a part of us. And giving that part an actual name also adds humor. It's almost impossible not to laugh when you put

these self beliefs in a part of you with a name. So I'd encourage everyone right now make up a name. It could be any name. It could be a name that makes you laugh. It can be a name from decades ago. That seems silly. It could be the name of someone you didn't like in high school, right? It could be any name you come up with and actually start saying high to this part. What's the next step after saying high? Well, now you, you as a person, you as a self are engaging with this part, and you can have a conversation with her. All right, Jacqueline, I know you have all those beliefs when a room is messy. I hear you, but I don't necessarily have to believe you.

I know you believe you. I know Jacqueline has all those self beliefs and I'm sure there's a whole childhood history and lots to it. I can hear you without believing everything you say is true and and here's the best part get ready for it everyone. And I also have another part of me. I don't know, give that one a name too, right? It could be any name, right? Oh, I also have Caitlin. Caitlin's telling me that yes, my home is messy and I'm still enough.

Caitlin's telling me that yes, my home is messy, and that's not a sign of my effectiveness. And now we really have this way of building up a different voice that's going to be a lot more helpful and staying grounded. Okay, I said I had two strategies. Here's the second one. It's called urge surfing.

Having an urge to rage cleaner, to clean up your whole house, even though you want to be doing something else. Having that urge is not actually a problem. The problem is when we have that urge and the urge takes over us, it literally dictates what we're doing and we find ourselves cleaning our whole house at midnight when we promised ourselves we would get some sleep. So how do we work on that? We don't get rid of the urge, we try to put more space between the urge and the action, between the urge and the discharge of the urge. And when we do that, we create mindfulness,

and we create the ability to make a decision instead of just having a reaction. So literally, notice your urge to clean, and then pick an amount of time that might be kind of hard not to clean but also manageable. It might just be 15 seconds in the beginning or a minute and actually set a timer telling yourself I have a really strong urge to clean. I'm gonna set this timer and just check in with myself after the timer goes off. This is not reverse psychology.

I give myself full permission to clean if I still have this urge after this amount of time. But I know what I'm doing is I'm building my tolerance for having the urge instead of always immediately converting that urge into an action. So I would practice that urge surfing every day, maybe increase the time, every week, and in doing that, you're really building an important emotion regulation skill. My name is Rachel. I have three boys, ages, four and a half, two and a half, and four months. And I live in El Paso, Texas. You ask about what mess makes us feel in the reactions that we have to it.

And I am often triggered by messes in my house. I feel embarrassed. You know, I see friends who seem to be able to keep their houses nice and tidy all the time. So I feel like, why can't I? I feel inadequate as a homemaker sometimes, you know, part of the role to stay at home mom should include keeping up the house, right? And if I can't, then it makes me feel a little bit like I'm not doing my correct job. And then it can hear my kids in the background.

And then not just feelings of, you know, it also leads to more stress and frustration often, you know, it becomes a practical thing. Like I feel overwhelmed because I know I'm not going to be able to find their shoes. I'm looking for a specific toy that's somewhere I can't find digging through the clean laundry for shirts or things that they need. It just starts to pile up so I'll often feel overwhelmed in that sense and it feels insurmountable sometimes. So those are just a few of the ways that I personally react to stress about mess in my house and wanted to share that. Hi Rachel, thank you so much for sharing your experience of mess and again I find myself really resonating with so many of the things you're saying and it's such a parallel to so many

the things that come up for me and I think for so many parents in this community. So a couple of thoughts, things that I think will be helpful over and above the things we've already talked about today. I think this is a big idea, but I think we all need to really redefine what it means to be a homemaker. Or even if that's the best term for someone who's working inside the home, right? I think about this more and more about, do you work? Well, really, do you work inside the home or do you work outside the home? That's really the question we should be saying.

And if you work inside the home, I don't know if the best definition of success is keeping a house tidy. Like, it makes me think of work in an office. If someone would say, you know what the best definition of success is? Having the end of the day look the exact same as the beginning of the day. I think most people say that would be a failure of the day. Don't you want to do something different? Don't you want to make progress? Don't you want to do something different? Don't you want to make progress? Don't you want to have things happen?

And so this is really open-ended for me. I don't have a solve, but maybe we can talk about this as a community. Maybe we don't want to even use that term homemaker. Maybe we want to think about how to redefine working inside the home and what markers of success actually are. A mantra that comes to mind for me is just, my house has life in it.

That means I'm doing my job well. Right, what does that mean to have a house with life? Well, it looks like it has vitality. It doesn't look the same at the end of the day as it does in the beginning. I would really remind yourself of that over and over and then please reach, oh, please reach out and actually share with me your ideas about this term homemaker and a new way to kind of define that type of success. Okay, you brought up the idea of comparison. And I really think this is important when it comes to how our homes look. There is no right way for a home to look. I think

we really need to take the better worse out of this and take away the morality. It's as if it's superior to have a house that looks like there was never a kid running through it. I think what we need to do is take out the judgment and just notice that there's pros and cons to a tidy or messy or home. So having a tidy house, what's a pro? Well, things are more organized. Things are less visually overstimulating. I can find things when I want to find them. Maybe even I enjoy walking around that home. What's a con of a really tidy house?

Well, maybe there's a message to my kids about how creative they can be, or about how much room there is for play, or trying new things. Hmm. Okay, a messier home. What are the pros? My kids can literally, visually see that exploration and vitality are encouraged, that their play is prioritized over the appearance of the room.

Hmm, what's the con of a mess here, house? Well, sometimes I can't find things and sometimes I feel stressed out. So what we're doing here is we're not trying to just be okay with mess. We're taking out the kind of moral or better, worse component. And this helps us stay grounded

without all the guilt and shame. Next idea. I think we all have to get our kids more involved in cleaning up, not because a tidier house is better, but because all of the responsibilities cannot fall on one person on us. How do we do this? I find doing certain things in order is really effective.

So my kids get dessert every night. If cleaning up was a problem, I can imagine saying we're doing something different today. Dessert will happen after cleanup. And I would hold that boundary. It's not a punishment. It's just kind of a practical order to get things done. I have to also share a hack that a friend shared with me. That has massively helped clean up in her house, and I've seen it help so much in my house.

So if you have an Apple iPhone, you can record a video of your kids cleaning up in time lapse mode. And so then the reward kind of at the end is your kids can watch this video of them cleaning up frantically. It is always hysterical and amazing and at times my kids will say, Mom, can you do that time-lapse video? And they actually initiate cleaning up. And just a quick shout out to Rachel Droyy for giving me and really giving us all this amazing cleanup hack. Again, Rachel, this isn't my way of saying that clean is actually better. But there are times when we do want to put things away and organize and having your kids help doesn't

put the entire burden on you. Thank you, Kevin, Christine, and Rachel, and all of our collars who shared their experiences around this common trigger of mess. Let's tie it all together with three takeaways. One, often what's at play when we're triggered by mess is the theme of enoughness. Practice pausing, putting your hand on your heart, and actually saying the words to yourself, I am doing enough. I am enough. And when you're in a messy room, remind yourself, even with this mess, I am doing enough. Even with this mess, I am enough. Two, think about the self beliefs that get evoked inside you when you're around mess.

That's somehow being in a messy house. Tells you you're not a capable parent. Being in a messy room means you don't have control over anything in your family. Try to hold this reflection with curiosity and compassion, as in, huh, that's an interesting leap I made, rather than with the judgment of that doesn't make any sense. 3. Let's rethink that term, homemaker, or at least redefine what success means when you're someone who works inside your home.

What does it really mean to do that job well? Do you actually want to inherit so many of the ideas of generations before us? Or do you want to redefine what job success looks like? Thanks for listening to Good Inside. There are so many more strategies and tips I want to share with you. Head to Good Inside.com and sign up for a good insider, my free week of email with scripts and strategies delivered right to your inbox. And follow me on Instagram and Facebook at Dr. Becky at Good Inside for a daily dose of parenting and self-care ideas.

Good Inside with Dr. Becky is produced by Beth Roe and Marie Cecil Anderson, an executive produced by Erica Belzky and me, Dr. Becky. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review it. Or share this episode with a friend or family member as a way to start an important conversation. Let's end by placing our hands on our hearts and reminding ourselves, even as I struggle, and even as I have a hard time on the outside. I remain good inside.