This morning as I was cleaning off our porch and untangling the child's toys from the woodbox from the chicken feed from the electric cords, I was ready to get rid of all of it. Especially the stuff that wasn't mine, that I didn't see a use for, that I wasn't seeing used; mainly my daughter's toys.
Let me start by saying that it seems like they multiply; they're everywhere. Ugh! My husband and I step on them, kick them under the couch, move them from one side to the other of the porch. By the time I'd finished cleaning up inside and had started on the porch, I was done, so done, with the toys.
When I was a kid, my dad used to clean up by putting things into black plastic bags, which forced us to either go through the bag, or lose all of it to the trash. I'm afraid I have the same tendency, now that I’m an adult.
Luckily, I have a little* more training with my emotions. I recognized that the irritation I was feeling at cleaning up the ocean of toys was soft, OK, no, it was medium-intensity anger, and I was able to pause (before I really did stack up all the crap and haul it away to the dump) and consider: what are my priorities? What are my values with all of this?
My sadness helped me get grounded and I remembered the feeling that I had had when my dad threatened to junk all of our stuff. I felt disrespected, that he didn't value my things, and that hurt. I felt like I was less valuable to him because he didn't think my stuff was as valuable as his. Granted, this is kid logic working here, and there are some glaring gaps I can see now as an adult, but it doesn’t change the emotions that I felt then, or the validity of those emotions.
Coming back to the present, I certainly don't value my daughter’s toys over having a clean porch, but I know my daughter does. She has a terrible time letting go of anything that’s hers, and while I know that it's my job as a parent to set boundaries for her, which might come in the form of limiting toys, I knew that I wasn't in a state of mind to be able to predict which ones were really meaningful for her, and which ones were simply hers.
My sadness helped me pause and gain some distance, and my shame helped guide my actions so that I didn't do something I would later regret. It also helped me come up with some other solutions to the toy problem. I may instigate a one toy in/one toy out rule; and I may rotate her toys so that not all of them are able to be out at once. I may just have to let go of this fantasy of living in a clean house for the next ten years, or I could welcome in my apathy, since the toy tidal wave is really something I feel I have no control over. Once again, sadness is a necessary emotion here. And I do have control over tidying my office, so that’s something.
My morning of clean up has led me to understand some things about, well, things, that I didn't think too hard about before. My sadness, shame, and anger have helped me understand that even though I don't value toys in the same way my daughter does, I value that she values them, and I want her to feel respected, and that is what matters most.
*I am a licensed Dynamic Emotional Integration Trainer and Consultant, and I teach classes about anger, shame, and sadness. I am always learning about the ways that emotions interact with one another, and the ways in which I interact with my emotions, and using that to help me better understand myself, my family and community, and my clients.