Hello dear coach!
I don’t want to do the washing-up because there’s this huge pile of plates and cutlery in my sink and I feel overwhelmed.
C – sink full of dishes
T – There’s so much to wash all the time.
E – overwhelmed
A – I don’t wash the dishes, I often think of them
R – the sink stays full
The only time when I felt compelled to do it was when I constrained my family to have one glass, one plate, one fork, etc. each. I could maintain my routine because I knew that was useful. It went like this:
circumstances – only one plate for each member of my family
thought – I have to wash the dishes right now if I want us to have another meal soon
emotion – motivated
actions – I wash the dishes
results – the sink is always empty and my dishes are always clean
I loved it but I’m not allowing myself to do it again because it feels like the easy way out: if I do that, then I’m changing the circumstances instead of working WITH them. However, my results are not so great now…
I guess I should be working on that resistance to wash the dishes. It’s probably a way for me to show my husband that he’s bought too much stuff, that we don’t need all that, that it’s ridiculous, that I don’t need to wash them since the cupboards are still full with clean dishes.
Constraining the available dishes, on the other hand, would / could make my family members more responsible for the amount of teaspoons they can use per meal, for instance. But in order to do that, I should probably tell my husband of my intentions… Would it be like a boundary, like: “I’m only going to wash one plate per person per meal, but I’ll do it every time. If there’s more to wash, I won’t do it.”? Because what I really really want to do is actually remove most of the dishes from the kitchen!
Thanks for your help!
Nadège