There are people who enjoy doing their chores; for a very long time, I wasn’t one of them.  Chores were the bane of living an orderly existence, of avoiding my tripping over cast-off books or appearing to be a total slob to my friends and family.  I always resented chores, because they were usually unpleasant tasks that took me away from important activities or from just plain playing.  Not only were they a nuisance, but inevitably I had to keep doing them over and over again:  laundry, changing sheets and towels, sweeping the floor, pulling weeds, cooking dinner.  There was no end to the plague of chores.  Over time, though, my perspective shifted. . .

Sharing Chores

            My husband and I are two relative neat-niks, and both of us have always shared doing the chores.   In fact, he doesn’t mind ironing and does a much better job of ironing and folding fitted sheets than I do!  And we have help doing the chores, too.  But for some reason I still resented that there were things that needed to be done.  I thought I’d benefit by looking into my lingering resentment.

Deeper Changes

            Over time I’ve found that when I have a thought or belief that bothers me, I often don’t need to make a conscious effort to change a negative attitude that I’m carrying.   I try a couple of other things instead:  (1) I bring my attention to it, such as my thinking, “Oh, there’s resentment about sweeping again,” and (2) I carry the genuine intention that the belief can somehow be transformed.  Now this process doesn’t always work for me, because I don’t really want to let go of my resentment/suffering; I’d rather be a martyr and complainer.  I also began to realize that resentment wasn’t just present when I was doing the task; in fact, it would appear long before and preclude any kind of change in attitude occurring.  So when I thought about my chores, I would notice immediately that resentment was already occurring, notice it and breathe into it, and move on.  This simple approach created space for something different to arise.  With these practices, I discovered that my attitude about chores was shifting, and that I was coming to these tasks with a different mindset.

Just Doing

            Gradually, I began to notice that resentment, although sometimes still there, started to lose its intensity, which allowed me to be creative about my chores.  The only thing I did differently at first with this new freedom was just do the task.  If I was changing the sheets, I would have fun taking off the old sheets and tossing them into the air, and then carefully putting on the new sheets, noticing the texture of a sheet, its fading color, my interest in lining it up in a balanced way, and folding the corners as I’ve always done.  (You have to appreciate that my husband learned to fold his corners differently in the military, so I’ve enjoyed doing them myself the way I want to!)  When I have to fertilize or water my plants, I think of how they depend on me and how I depend on them:  if I nourish them, they share their beauty with me; if I take off dead leaves or stems, they are freer to flourish.  And the special carpet we have in our living room—well, it has a black background, and it shows every drop of lint.  I keep teasing my husband that “Pigpen” from Peanuts comes to visit when we’re asleep and plays on the carpet.  But I get a very special satisfaction, slowly and carefully vacuuming this carpet two to three times per week (depending on how often Pigpen comes), and seeing its blackness stand-out, unencumbered in showing its beauty.  Strangely enough, it has become a practice for me.

Reconnected

            So my chores actually keep me connected to my environment.  While I can often walk mindlessly around my house, I can re-connect to some of the most basic practices in my life:  eating, sleeping, cleaning, and washing.  When I fold laundry, I just fold laundry; when I make dinner, I just make dinner.  When I vacuum the rug, I just vacuum:   fully engaged. These chores allow me, over and over again, to re-nest, to re-create our home where we can be with each other, in a loving, nurturing way.  I am so grateful for a beautiful home that I can take care of, and that takes care of me.