Earlier today, I looked around and realized that I had been slacking on cleaning, and it was time for me to clean up around me. The past week has been a great mental battle (I will speak about that in another blog post), so I had not been keeping up with cleaning (Thank God for WFH).

As I started to clean, especially cleaning the floors of the different rooms, I tried my best to clean up without stepping into the mess. I had my broom in one hand, the dustpan right beside me, and I was trying to figure out a way to clean up without physically stepping into the mess; there was no way around it. For me to truly clean, especially as I had allowed the dust to accumulate, I had to step into the mess if I wanted to accomplish anything of substance.

As I came to this realization, standing there, staring at the mess I had allowed to happen, it dawned on me – ‘how often do we try to take the same approach with life?’ We see the mess that we may not have created but have allowed to accumulate around us and within us. We get to a point where these messes; be it in our relationships, in our finances, our mental health, our physical health; get too much for us to bear, but we want to fix it, to clean it up from afar. We want to see these messes as something outside of us, a detached part of us that we do not have to engage with head-on. This isn’t so.

To ‘clean’ the mess in our life, no matter how little or how big they are, we must step into them. Stepping into our mess allows us to:
1) Take responsibility for the part we played in allowing them to happen.
2) Gives us a unique vantage point wherein we can decide how best to tackle the mess.
3) Allows us to acknowledge if we need help or other resources.
4) Empowers us to decide what to do in the future to avoid a similar mess.
5) Enables us to be a part of our solution, not a victim of our problem.

We cannot clean up our mess from afar. Just like I could not clean up the floors of each messy room from the doorway. I had to step into the mess, determine which broom, cleaning tool, and what cleaning strategy would provide the best result (clean rooms & floors).

So I encourage you today, identify the mess that is irritating, hindering, or tormenting you. Choose to step into it with intentionality. Take responsibility where you need to. Decide how best to tackle the mess. Reach out for help if you need it. Decide on how to minimize getting to this point again in the future, and celebrate the champion you are for being a part of your solution.
“It does not take months or years to change your life; you change it step by step, day by day, Now!” (Reklau)

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