Is Your Armor Keeping You Down?

It's the FlyLady, Marla Cilley!

The FlyLady can help you with your household clutter, your purse clutter, and the clutter within yourself.

For this column, you need to know the meaning of a couple acronymns:

FLY stands for Finally Loving Yourself
CHAOS is for Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome

You know, the kind of CHAOS where you don't answer the door when someone knocks because your house is too messy to let anyone enter.

The FlyLady will appear here weekly, usually on Monday afternoons. Her columns contain common sense approaches to house cleaning. I hope you'll not only check back here every week to read her column, but you'll also go to her Web site to learn more about the FlyLady's system.

IS YOUR ARMOR KEEPING YOU DOWN?

Have you been wearing your heart on your sleeve? Do you perceive that you have been wronged in some way by others? Are you wearing all the wrongs like a cloak of armor? Have these wrongs been the foundation for your whining? Are they what have kept you from FLYing?

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Armor is heavy stuff! When we blame others we need to look closely at our own actions. This is why we tell you that this is a NO WHINING ZONE!

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Tribes used to sacrifice a poor innocent goat for their sins. They would heap all their sins on the scapegoat and send it out into the wilderness. Have all the wrongs been heaped upon you? Do you feel like the scapegoat? Are you acting like a martyr? Have you been hoarding these wrongs?

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This is just like we do with clutter; we hold on to things past their usefulness. When we get our feelings hurt it is best to discuss it as soon as possible. The longer it festers, the worse it is on you!

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Are you hearing this? The person who has wronged you may not even know he or she has done anything to hurt your feelings and may not even care. If you don’t talk about it and clear the air, you will be the only one suffering. Discussing the wrong will let you know two things; they are mean and need to be prayed for, or they didn’t know they had hurt your feelings and they apologize. Either way you have released the wrong and it is no longer being hoarded.

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Some of you are going to argue that it is not easy to forgive and forget. If you notice, I didn’t say forget! When a snake shows its fangs, this is a warning! If you pick that snake up and put it in your pocket, whose fault is it when you get bitten?

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Forgiveness is the gift you give yourself. You get what you give. But if you give in order to get, you will always be left wanting!

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At the start of this New Year let’s symbolically take off that armor of wrongs! Put each wrong on a Post-It Note. Imagine that you peel each wrong off your sleeve and put it in an old pie pan. Then take it outside and put a match to them, or put them in your fireplace. As you watch your wrongs (the ones you have been hoarding) go up in smoke, send a prayer of gratitude up with it. Be thankful you no longer have to hold on to this and thankful that now you know!

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Leanne and I also have a whole chapter in our book, “Body Clutter,” devoted to forgiveness. I just listened to our new audio version. This chapter is powerful!

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My wish for you in this New Year is that you release the wrongs by forgiving others and yourself and open up your wings to FLY!

For more help getting rid of your CHAOS, check out the Web site and join the free mentoring group at http://www.FlyLady.net, or check out her book, “Sink Reflections,” published by Bantam, and her New York Times Best-Selling Book, “Body Clutter,” published by Fireside. Copyright 2010 Marla Cilley Used by permission in this publication.