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But I Said I Didn’t Mind

But I Said I Didn’t Mind

It’s Okay to Mind


As I stood in the kitchen washing dishes, the words of a fellow teacher moseyed on through my mind – then hit a brick wall and fell out with a splatinto the sink. Katie had suggested any act could be a mindful one. Yet standing here in solitude washing dishes, while our twenty-plus guests chattered on with joy (and perhaps without gratitude for being served), I wanted absolutely nothing to do with her mindfulness practice. The very thought of it actually created a fiery frustration in my core. What I wanted was recognition, praise, and reward. But I said I didn’t mind – and so the dishes and I partnered in an angry scrub-fest that didn’t serve either of us very well.


While I walked away from the situation feeling broken, the dishes didn’t. The dishes dried up and moved on – waiting for the next opportunity to be used. I did not seek out this opportunity, and in fact, avoided hosting another large gathering for quite some time. It wasn’t until the year my business boomed and my husband came home (semi-retired from Corporate America) that I let go of this grievance. How did I let it go? I found my voice.


When my husband came home to help me raise our babies and a business, I continued to take on all of the daily activities my previous work-at-home mom life had required of me – alone. I washed the laundry and the dishes. I cooked and I grocery shopped. Sometimes I let him come along. And then suddenly, we realized not only was my business suffering – but so were we as a couple. I spent day after day showing him that I didn’t need him, when in fact I did! I desperately needed him to take over many, if not most, of our important routines.


Interestingly, when I voiced this revelation, he jumped right in. This brought me back to the dishes some many years before, and I wondered – just for a moment – what would have happened had I asked for help? Would I have been served? Loved-on? Appreciated more? What we accept becomes the norm. What we say we need – and don’t – becomes our experience of life. In not asking others to jump in, I deprived them of a gift. And I deprived myself of one too. As Glennon Doyle says, “We belong to one another.” Let’s act like it, raise our voices, and take the steps necessary to mindjust a little bit.

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