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hippybngstockngI got a major giggle this morning out of yet another person joining Flylady, and I feel like I have to say something, again. I commented on her journal, but I think this merits a full entry on mine because I keep ending up talking about her to various people.
Okay. Yes. I am a practically a full-blown flybaby, it's totally true. I read a chunk of the mails, and I even bought the silly dusters, and both Saving Dinner cook books, I have little clings all over the house, and I even carry the "I'm so PROUD of you" pen, even though it's a ball point (we HATES ball point). I firmly believe she has helped me begin to save myself, and that her system is good. But there's where things get cloudy...
I am reminded of my feelings about going to church. See, y'all might not be aware of this, but I do kinda believe in God, I'm just between religions right now. I like the concept of God, I can even say that I feel like I am more comfortable with the idea of a being causing the world to exist than it being random. I don't like being forced to believe all the same things as any one particular group though, so I get twitchy about the concept of taking my belief in God into a church/group setting. Go figure.
I have a hard time opening up about it, and calling myself a flybaby in the same way I have a hard time telling people I might be a Christian. They start assuming you believe every last thing about it, and they put you in a particular bag and they start thinking things about how you must view the world. I have a lot more in common with the flybabies than I do with Christians, but I still have a really hard time copping to either. I'm a flybaby because right now I need Flylady and her constant slapping, not because I need to sell someone's personal philosophy, or because I want to be part of some big group. I'm a flybaby because my life was a cocked up mess because of having too much stuff, and I really needed someone's help to sort out my head before I could deal with it. I am so thankful for her I could gush about her forever. I had to grow into that feeling though, so I could never expect anyone else to feel it with me unless they wanted to. I could never tell anyone I think every last thing she ever says is right or good. Heck, sometimes she really pisses me off, but she's just a human so I let it go...
But I certainly read her stuff, and she really helps me, she fills me with warm fuzzy feelings about cleaning I never thought I could feel, makes me think about letting go of pain and torture and sentimentality (and the random clutter objects that are weirdly associated with them) and this is really helping my life. I feel like I am breaking free from something, namely my stuff and my old way of dealing with it, and myself. I associate this change with Flylady because it's been through her urging that I've come to this place a little faster than I was getting there all by myself. I love to tell people about this change in me, and Flylady, BUT I don't see myself ever buying the T-shirts, the car magnet, or making the pilgrimage to one of the massive flybaby parties and meetups that happen from time to time. I can sense I don't follow enough of the flylady stuff to ever fit completely into their group. It has little to do with Flylady though, just like my belief in God has little to do with my inability to sit through church. I think if I went, it would only be to meet her and say thank you in person, heh, perhaps that's why I never bother going to church.
The church analogy keeps on working for me, see, because just like I don't expect anyone to understand or share my belief in God, or my reasoning for choosing to believe, I also don't think I should be in a group telling people that what they really need is Flylady. Maybe they do, maybe they don't, and like I fucking know... I don't deny loving her, and I tell a lot of people they might get something from reading her, but a lot of the time I figure they won't unless they really want or need to. I know everyone is different. I get a lot out of her because of my particular past, and how cleaning was handled when I was young. I am seriously damaged about cleaning, and it makes me really upset. Flylady has this way of making me chill the fuck out without having to flip out at someone, or go on strike, or whine, or feel bad about myself. I can read some flylady and come to a "Why the fuck am I freaking out about this STUPID THING" kind of place, and go deal with it, or at least form a reasonable plan of dealing with it. Other people might read her stuff and wonder who would be stupid enough to need all this, heck, I often wonder if anyone really IS stupid enough to need all of it. If there really are people that stupid, I wonder how they survived long enough to earn enough money to have email. I would never presume to tell someone they NEED Flylady, only that they might get something out of reading her if they have one or several of a certain set of problems. I am fully aware of how hard it is to read Flylady sometimes, she's a person, and people are funny and not always in the HA HA sense. I can totally see where Flylady is not everyone's cup of tea, just like I wouldn't want to join an email service run by my mom. It's a lot like how I can believe in God, but can't bring myself to take the Bible, Jesus, or church very seriously without getting just a little bit pissed off.
So here's what I wanted to say about it: I'm not going to tell anyone they NEED Flylady because I truly feel you don't really need to join Flylady to get the benefits of her system. I delete loads and loads of her stuff, and I know I don't follow it religiously. I miss a lot of the reminders, but I do enough of it to where my house is usually pretty darn clean, and is becoming more and more clutter free as time goes on, and most importantly I don't freak out about it so much anymore. It doesn't take reading her emails to accomplish this though, just thinking about some of the things she says and making them part of the stuff in your head all the time is enough. Really basic stuff some parents probably screamed at you growing up, like picking up after yourself immediately, not putting stuff off for later, not letting stuff pile up, ya know, basic taking care of yourself type stuff... Her radical suggestion has to do with using a timer, and only doing things in small jobs so you don't overwhelm yourself with things- This branches out into the realization that if you try to tackle a big thing all at once, you will put it off eternally because you feel like you can't "do it right". She proposes that perfectionism is actually the thing that keeps most people in piles of crap, and I can totally see that- I spent years not dealing with things because I felt I lacked the time to do it the RIGHT way. There is NO RIGHT WAY, there's just DOING IT. Her other radical suggestion is that making these changes takes TIME and can be hard, and that you can't expect miracles or you will be disappointed. It's still really basic, nothing actually shocking there. All that being said, I think Flyady is still a good thing for some folks because she puts it all in one place for those of us who need a good clue slap a lot of the time. If you can accept the clues easily, or were born knowing them, you probably don't need the slaps.
However, if you do need constant slapping and know it, or if cleaning really does get you down every single time you do it, she really might be a good thing for you if you can get used to her. She helped me let go of a lot of anger, guilt and perfectionism that was holding me down, and the constant slaps are like reinforcement of that for me. I get choked up with thinking about how things were before, and how much I don't want to go back to that, so I'm deeply thankful for her help.
I'm also frequently filled with the need to launch into a huge flowery thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mamishka who sweetly pointed her web site out to me one day when I was venting here about the house and the stuff, and how I thought it was going to eat me alive. It was a simple gesture, and I'm not even sure Meems got that much out of Flylady, but I practically want to squeeze the stuffing out of her sometimes because of how much it has helped me that she mentioned it. That's the reason I do tell people about Flylady, and I do go on about how I feel kinda saved by her at times, because you never know when someone who really needs her might be listening.
Okay. Yes. I am a practically a full-blown flybaby, it's totally true. I read a chunk of the mails, and I even bought the silly dusters, and both Saving Dinner cook books, I have little clings all over the house, and I even carry the "I'm so PROUD of you" pen, even though it's a ball point (we HATES ball point). I firmly believe she has helped me begin to save myself, and that her system is good. But there's where things get cloudy...
I am reminded of my feelings about going to church. See, y'all might not be aware of this, but I do kinda believe in God, I'm just between religions right now. I like the concept of God, I can even say that I feel like I am more comfortable with the idea of a being causing the world to exist than it being random. I don't like being forced to believe all the same things as any one particular group though, so I get twitchy about the concept of taking my belief in God into a church/group setting. Go figure.
I have a hard time opening up about it, and calling myself a flybaby in the same way I have a hard time telling people I might be a Christian. They start assuming you believe every last thing about it, and they put you in a particular bag and they start thinking things about how you must view the world. I have a lot more in common with the flybabies than I do with Christians, but I still have a really hard time copping to either. I'm a flybaby because right now I need Flylady and her constant slapping, not because I need to sell someone's personal philosophy, or because I want to be part of some big group. I'm a flybaby because my life was a cocked up mess because of having too much stuff, and I really needed someone's help to sort out my head before I could deal with it. I am so thankful for her I could gush about her forever. I had to grow into that feeling though, so I could never expect anyone else to feel it with me unless they wanted to. I could never tell anyone I think every last thing she ever says is right or good. Heck, sometimes she really pisses me off, but she's just a human so I let it go...
But I certainly read her stuff, and she really helps me, she fills me with warm fuzzy feelings about cleaning I never thought I could feel, makes me think about letting go of pain and torture and sentimentality (and the random clutter objects that are weirdly associated with them) and this is really helping my life. I feel like I am breaking free from something, namely my stuff and my old way of dealing with it, and myself. I associate this change with Flylady because it's been through her urging that I've come to this place a little faster than I was getting there all by myself. I love to tell people about this change in me, and Flylady, BUT I don't see myself ever buying the T-shirts, the car magnet, or making the pilgrimage to one of the massive flybaby parties and meetups that happen from time to time. I can sense I don't follow enough of the flylady stuff to ever fit completely into their group. It has little to do with Flylady though, just like my belief in God has little to do with my inability to sit through church. I think if I went, it would only be to meet her and say thank you in person, heh, perhaps that's why I never bother going to church.
The church analogy keeps on working for me, see, because just like I don't expect anyone to understand or share my belief in God, or my reasoning for choosing to believe, I also don't think I should be in a group telling people that what they really need is Flylady. Maybe they do, maybe they don't, and like I fucking know... I don't deny loving her, and I tell a lot of people they might get something from reading her, but a lot of the time I figure they won't unless they really want or need to. I know everyone is different. I get a lot out of her because of my particular past, and how cleaning was handled when I was young. I am seriously damaged about cleaning, and it makes me really upset. Flylady has this way of making me chill the fuck out without having to flip out at someone, or go on strike, or whine, or feel bad about myself. I can read some flylady and come to a "Why the fuck am I freaking out about this STUPID THING" kind of place, and go deal with it, or at least form a reasonable plan of dealing with it. Other people might read her stuff and wonder who would be stupid enough to need all this, heck, I often wonder if anyone really IS stupid enough to need all of it. If there really are people that stupid, I wonder how they survived long enough to earn enough money to have email. I would never presume to tell someone they NEED Flylady, only that they might get something out of reading her if they have one or several of a certain set of problems. I am fully aware of how hard it is to read Flylady sometimes, she's a person, and people are funny and not always in the HA HA sense. I can totally see where Flylady is not everyone's cup of tea, just like I wouldn't want to join an email service run by my mom. It's a lot like how I can believe in God, but can't bring myself to take the Bible, Jesus, or church very seriously without getting just a little bit pissed off.
So here's what I wanted to say about it: I'm not going to tell anyone they NEED Flylady because I truly feel you don't really need to join Flylady to get the benefits of her system. I delete loads and loads of her stuff, and I know I don't follow it religiously. I miss a lot of the reminders, but I do enough of it to where my house is usually pretty darn clean, and is becoming more and more clutter free as time goes on, and most importantly I don't freak out about it so much anymore. It doesn't take reading her emails to accomplish this though, just thinking about some of the things she says and making them part of the stuff in your head all the time is enough. Really basic stuff some parents probably screamed at you growing up, like picking up after yourself immediately, not putting stuff off for later, not letting stuff pile up, ya know, basic taking care of yourself type stuff... Her radical suggestion has to do with using a timer, and only doing things in small jobs so you don't overwhelm yourself with things- This branches out into the realization that if you try to tackle a big thing all at once, you will put it off eternally because you feel like you can't "do it right". She proposes that perfectionism is actually the thing that keeps most people in piles of crap, and I can totally see that- I spent years not dealing with things because I felt I lacked the time to do it the RIGHT way. There is NO RIGHT WAY, there's just DOING IT. Her other radical suggestion is that making these changes takes TIME and can be hard, and that you can't expect miracles or you will be disappointed. It's still really basic, nothing actually shocking there. All that being said, I think Flyady is still a good thing for some folks because she puts it all in one place for those of us who need a good clue slap a lot of the time. If you can accept the clues easily, or were born knowing them, you probably don't need the slaps.
However, if you do need constant slapping and know it, or if cleaning really does get you down every single time you do it, she really might be a good thing for you if you can get used to her. She helped me let go of a lot of anger, guilt and perfectionism that was holding me down, and the constant slaps are like reinforcement of that for me. I get choked up with thinking about how things were before, and how much I don't want to go back to that, so I'm deeply thankful for her help.
I'm also frequently filled with the need to launch into a huge flowery thanks to
mamishka who sweetly pointed her web site out to me one day when I was venting here about the house and the stuff, and how I thought it was going to eat me alive. It was a simple gesture, and I'm not even sure Meems got that much out of Flylady, but I practically want to squeeze the stuffing out of her sometimes because of how much it has helped me that she mentioned it. That's the reason I do tell people about Flylady, and I do go on about how I feel kinda saved by her at times, because you never know when someone who really needs her might be listening.
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no subject
Date: 2005-08-28 12:33 pm (UTC)Hee. Duncan came home from his Ontario trip talking about Flylady quite a bit. I figured that you must have gone on and on to him. :)
no subject
Date: 2005-08-28 03:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-28 05:04 pm (UTC)I saw flylady last year actually and I ran for the hills too... you'll be back... she'll get to you too buwwahhahahahah
Your mileage may vary... ;)
Date: 2005-08-28 05:24 pm (UTC)And it's cool about your post, I didn't think you were meaning me specifically, since I know there's lots of them out there. I think I've got at least 5 (some of which you have as well). I'd been thinking about that post for a while because I keep seeing her mentioned all over, and I feel like I mention her a lot too and wanted to make sure people knew I understood the feeling of not being able to deal with her annoying shit :)
Sounds like you and I have the same sink!
Date: 2005-08-28 05:48 pm (UTC)What makes me a geek is that I keep swearing about its grossness, and have plans to make a really good sink a major criteria of the next place we rent. She has me in her power! *snorts*
Re: Sounds like you and I have the same sink!
Date: 2005-08-28 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-08-30 08:14 pm (UTC)