The Art of Showing Up

by Rachel Wilkerson Miller

Showing Up for Yourself Every Damn Day

  Showing up for yourself takes place in your habits—the behaviors you repeat, often without having to really think about them. But I believe that we should be thinking about them. Because the things we do every day—the clothes we wear, the spaces we inhabit, the objects that surround us, the hobbies and activities we partake in—are more than just background scenery. They’re . . . it.

  Our everyday habits and routines define how we spend the majority of our TME. When they feel right, life feels a tiny bit better. When they are a source of frustration or discomfort or shame, life feels so much harder. And that is true regardless of what is happening with the so-called “big” stuff like your job, relationships, health, finances, and the culture around you. In this chapter, we’ll talk about how to notice the way you move through certain spaces every day, and to approach your habits and routines in a thoughtful, considered, intentional way—because ultimately, these seemingly small choices, behaviors, and settings are what make up a day, a year, a life.

  The Great Indoors

  After I moved from Houston to Brooklyn in 2014, my new apartment was quite empty. I barely had any stuff, or any money to buy stuff. (Moving across the country is not cheap.) There wasn’t much I could do about this; I accepted that my apartment would simply have to exist in that frustrating post-move transitional state for the foreseeable future. After a few dark and anxiety-filled nights alone in the apartment, I realized I didn’t need money to turn my apartment into a home. I couldn’t buy furniture, but I could tape a large empty shipping box shut, set a small lamp on it, and call said box a nightstand. So that is what I did.

  Even though most of my belongings remained in storage in Houston, there was something about moving my lamp from the floor next to my bed to a higher surface that made me feel like I was in a home. My home. It wasn’t a “real” nightstand, but it was a nightstand nonetheless—and one I had chosen solely because I knew it would make me feel a little better. It cost me nothing, but it helped so much, making the overwhelming and terrifying experience of a cross-country move (and a brand-new job) a little less stressful. When I think of what it means to show up for yourself in your home, I think of that cardboard nightstand.

  If you don’t really care about decor or art or having nice furniture, that’s OK! But your domain is your domain! It’s the place you can be your truest self: walk around without pants on, listen to your favorite music as loudly as you want, examine every weird spot that appears on your body, talk to your pet like they are a human being. If you don’t feel good at home, it’s so much harder to feel good out in the world.

  Throughout this chapter, I’ll use the term “home” and “your place” to refer to the physical unit you call home on a daily basis—whether that’s a single room, an apartment you rent, or an entire house. And when I say “space,” I’m referring to zones within your home (like your kitchen table, or your bed and nightstand) and other spots where you spend a lot of time—so your desk or office at work, your car, your yard, wherever.

  And when I use the word cozy here (and throughout the book), I mean “giving a feeling of comfort, relaxation, wholesomeness, pleasure, and intimacy.” It’s less about things that are physically warm (like blankets and tea), and more about things that feel special, pleasing, gentle, and wholesome, and that make you feel more complete and content.

  Your Stuff

  A lot of people mock the idea that everything we own should spark joy—the central idea in Marie Kondo’s mega bestseller The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up—but I’ve actually found it incredibly helpful. It’s so simple, but it has been something of a North Star since I read the book, helping me to save money and time and to be a less wasteful person in general. As Marie Kondo’s star has risen, I’ve heard a lot of, “BUT MY TRASH CAN DOESN’T SPARK JOY SO I GUESS I SHOULD JUST GET RID OF IT AND THROW MY GARBAGE ON THE GROUND, HUH????” and I’m just like, Anyone who thinks a trash can can’t spark joy has clearly never owned one they hate.16

  You don’t have to love your trash can, but I hope you can agree that the things we buy and surround ourselves with matter. It’s not frivolous to love a particular towel or mug, have extremely strong feelings about light bulbs, or read reviews of laundry baskets before you buy one. (It’s also fine to think all coffee makers are created equal or to source your furniture from garage sales.) Like the foods we eat and the people we spend time with, our belongings play a big role in how we feel, so it’s worth figuring out what items will make your place feel like your place. (And yes, it’s worth doing this even if you don’t have the resources to buy said items, or to overhaul your entire home right now.) As a beautiful essay on the inspirational website The School of Life puts it:

  The quest to build a home is connected up with a need to stabilize and organize our complex selves. It’s not enough to know who we are in our own minds. We need something more tangible, material and sensuous to pin down the diverse and intermittent aspects of our identities. We need to rely on a certain kinds of cutlery, bookshelves, laundry, cupboards, and armchairs to align us with who we are and seek to be. We are not vaunting ourselves; we’re trying to gather our identities in one receptacle, preserving ourselves from erosion and dispersal. Home means the place where our soul feels that it has found its proper physical container, where, every day, the objects we live amongst quietly remind us of our most authentic commitments and loves.17

  To get started, take a little tour of your place! Here are some questions to consider as you go.

  What items or spaces make you feel extremely cozy?

  These can be extremely small—a wall hook, a dish, a particular color. What specifically do you love about them? Pay attention to how different objects feel to the touch; to the lighting (try this during the day and then again after dark); to how things smell; and to what sounds you hear. Note: There might not be that many things that you feel excited about right now, and that’s fine!

  What items or spaces make you feel angry, sad, embarrassed, or annoyed or make your life demonstrably more difficult?

  These are the things that you curse on a regular basis, that you’re always apologizing for when people come over, or that make your life harder in some way. And the “make your life difficult” question is an important one—if you struggle to fall asleep at night because your window doesn’t have shades, that’s a problem. Also take note of which of these things bother you because they are broken and need to be fixed, and what, if anything, is just obsolete and could be tossed. Pay close attention to anything that causes you legitimate shame or stirs up bad feelings.

  Which (if any) of your observations—good or bad—are related to cleanliness or chores?

  For example, you might feel good about your nicely made bed or uncluttered kitchen table or feel anxious about the pile of clean laundry that needs to be put away. Speaking of chores, resist the urge to start fixing or tidying as you take your tour! I get the impulse, I do—but if you follow that urge, in a few hours you’ll find that your bed is covered with every single item that was once in your closet, and you are no closer to understanding what you like about your home.

  Next, think about other homes you’ve spent time in (e.g., your friends’ homes, your family members’ homes, and the home you grew up in).

  What are the best, coziest things about those homes? Again, be super specific; is it the colors that you love? The windows, the lighting, the floors, the textiles, the plants, the fact that there’s always a candle burning? Also think about anything that makes you feel bad or stressed out in those places.

  How do you feel about your home’s location and style?

  You might not be able to afford the exact neighborhood or type of home you want to live in, but thinking through your preferences can still tell you a lot about yourself and help you make more informed choices going forward. How important is it that you live in a bustling neighborhood? What about proximity to a park? Which do you value more—an older building with
charming molding or modern amenities like in-unit laundry? Think about what’s most important to your overall well-being.

  Once you’re done with this exercise, you should have a better understanding of what things—big and small—actually matter to you and have an impact on how you feel on a daily basis with regard to your space. From here, the task isn’t to go out and buy a bunch of new furniture, or to give up entirely because you can’t gut your house right now. It’s about understanding what you need and want in general so that you can figure out what you can do in the near future and down the line. The goal is to build a home you love and feel less guilty about the things you can’t or don’t want to attend to right now.

  As a next step, make a list of everything you’d like to change or add to make your home feel cozier, and note whether said change will take time, money, energy, or some combination. Then rank the tasks by which ones matter most to you, taking into account how much TME you care to spend right now.

  So, your list might look something like this . . .

  Very important/tackle ASAP

  Install towel rack in bathroom (money, time, energy)

  Call landlord to have broken door handle fixed (energy)

  Add cozy lighting to bedroom

  Hang the string lights I bought two months ago (time, energy)

  Find and buy a lamp I like (time, energy, money)

  Kind of important

  Deal with mail pile of shame (time, energy)

  Deal with closet of shame (time, energy)

  Hang stuff on the walls

  Print photos (time, money, energy)

  Buy picture frames (time, money, energy)

  Hang up said picture frames (time, energy)

  Someday

  Buy new rug for bedroom (money)

  Patch hole in living room wall (time, energy, money)

  Buy good knives (money)

  And remember: It’s OK if your “very important/tackle ASAP” list is short. Maybe all you can do for right now is open the windows to get some fresh air flowing, straighten that pile of laundry so it’s not falling over, stick up a Command hook for your keys, and add a better trash can to your wish list. Maybe all you can do for right now is realize that you care a lot about nice lighting and not tripping over power cords, so you’ll turn an empty cardboard box into a nightstand until you can afford to buy a real one. Maybe you’ll be surprised by how much these small changes can help.

  Basically: If you have the means to get a nicer couch and that would make you happier, then do that. If that’s a non-starter, maybe just take all of the shit off your couch?

  Chores

  Speaking of taking the shit off your couch . . . let’s talk about chores!

  I have a love-hate relationship with chores. I don’t love doing them—they are chores after all—but I love having done them. And even though there are some chores I absolutely hate (read: all the water chores), I still consider chores a crucial part of my showing-up routine.

  When my space is tended to, I feel less stressed, more comfortable, more focused, and better rested. Doing chores can also be a form of self-care in a more literal sense—because a clean, tidy home is going to be safer and healthier than one that is not.

  The opposite is also true: When my home isn’t clean and tidy (by my own standards), I feel far less equipped to handle life’s daily stressors and to show up for the people I care about. And I know I’m not the only person who feels this way. Doing chores regularly can be a good way to remove unnecessary stress from your life and make your home a cozier, more pleasant place to be. (By the way, if chores are a struggle for you because of bigger issues, feel free to skip or skim this section for now. You might find that the tips in Chapter 5 are more your speed.)

  To figure out what your version of a “clean home” and your ideal chore routine look like, revisit some of the observations you noted during your walk-through in the previous section. Here are some additional questions to consider.

  Do you care more about tidiness or cleanliness?

  Two very different things! To care about tidiness is to care about neatness—so: Items are stored in their proper place and arranged in an orderly manner, and clutter is at a minimum. To care about cleanliness is to care about filth—it’s wanting a space that is free of dirt, stains, spills, hair, dust, and germs. It’s surprisingly easy to care a lot about one while barely noticing the other. Think about which one matters most to you, or if they matter equally. (And the answer to this question might be “neither” . . . in that case, try to determine which one is more important to you.)

  What messy, cluttered, or dirty areas in your home make you feel bad or make life more difficult? What neat, clean, tidy areas in your home make you feel good or make life easier?

  Put some thought into what specifically makes you low-key mad every single day, what slows you down when you’re getting ready and getting out the door, what gets in the way of cooking or preparing food, what causes tension with housemates, and what makes it harder to engage in or enjoy the other things you care about (e.g., hobbies, entertaining, working from home, sleeping). And also think about the things that make you demonstrably happier whenever they are taken care of. All this can help you determine which chores specifically feel valuable and pressing to you.

  How do you feel physically during and after chores?

  Doing chores can be a literal pain. If you have arthritis, asthma, bad knees, or a disability, you might find it difficult to do a lot (or all!) of the chores you’d like to do. In some instances, you may be able to figure out tenable solutions. But you also may not be able to. And that’s fine! The point of this exercise is to figure out what makes sense in your life.

  How do you feel emotionally before and after you do chores?

  Rate how you feel about each chore on a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being “I will put this off for as long as humanly possible” and 10 being “I love this, I could do it every day!!!”). Do you dread chores more on a certain day of the week (like, say, when coupled with your Sunday Scaries)? Do you hate doing chores before you have people over because you don’t want to be rushed—or do you live for the thrill of it? Then think about how you feel after doing different chores. Do you feel proud and accomplished or annoyed that you spent any time on it at all?

  How are you feeling in general about the state of your home and your chores routine?

  How much time are you spending on chores? How often are you doing them? Does it feel worth it? What’s working? What’s not? What circumstances and choices have led to the current situation? Are any of those things you can change? And do you actually want to change them? And be honest with yourself about that last part. Just because you could do chores more often (because there are technically enough hours in the week), and think you probably should do chores more often (because you feel a lot of guilt about it) doesn’t mean you are actually going to—because it might mean giving up something else that’s a higher priority to you, and you don’t actually want to do that.

  From here, try to come up with an approach to doing chores that matches your life, and that you feel good about—because once you have an established baseline of what will make you feel good, why it makes you feel good, and the best way to go about doing it, you can spend less time beating yourself up over all the things you “should” be doing, and more time getting the damn thing over with and moving on. It might be as simple as figuring out a few smaller tasks that you can do every day (like putting the dishes into the dishwasher immediately after eating, or making your bed right when you get up). Maybe it’s doing chores on a different day. (Doing my chores on Friday nights was a game-changer for me.) It could involve researching vacuums and saving up for a good one that you love. Or it might be establishing a robust chore schedule. It’s really your call!

  And similar to your approach to nourishing yourself (and . . . everything else in this book), your approach to chores should reflect the life you currently live. There’s truly no benefit to
telling yourself you’ll clean a little bit every evening if you know you won’t; you’ll simply feel guilty every evening when you don’t do the thing. It’s better to be honest with yourself and come up with a plan you can actually achieve. If all you’re doing is building a shiny new tool that you’ll then use to beat yourself up, it doesn’t count as showing up for yourself.

  Making Your Space Cozier

  Here are some tips that offer the most bang for your buck.

  Decor

  Incorporate more colors and patterns that you really like, even in small ways.

  Prominently display the objects that bring you joy, even if they would normally be hidden away (e.g., keeping your beautiful mug on your desk or folding three complementary sweaters nicely and making an ombré stack on your bedroom chair).

  Hang art on the walls; even taping up some postcards or snapshots with washi tape can go a long way.

  Add small lamps and/or string lights, and use those instead of overhead lights.

  Invest in bedding (e.g. great pillows, a duvet you love, a pretty quilt, cozy sheets), which is especially impactful if your bed is very visible in your space or you spend a lot of time in your bed.

  Add more soft things—think: a cozy throw blanket, a fluffy bath towel, or a plush rug.

  Bring in a few plants and/or flowers.

  Mood

  Play music.

  Light candles.

  Open the windows.

  Turn off overhead lights.

  Close the blinds/curtains in the evening.

  Chores

  Make your bed.

  Tidy your clutter. Sometimes your stuff just has no place to go, but tidying it a bit will help.

  Declutter spots that are super visible or where you spend a lot of time.

  Clean your kitchen sink . . . and then dry it. (The drying makes the entire room look so much cleaner! It’s truly wild.)

  The Great Outdoors

  I have always been what one might call an “indoor girl” and thought of showing up for myself as something best done at home. But that started to change after I read The Nature Fix by Florence Williams, which outlines the scientifically backed ways in which nature—trees, water, plants, birdsong, fresh air, an absence of human-made sounds—makes us feel better. I decided to put some of Williams’s tips into practice and was kind of embarrassed by how much better I felt, pretty much immediately. It wasn’t even that hard! I just had to, like, make a point to look at flowers and trees instead of cars and garbage when I walked around the city. But it turns out, I wasn’t alone in my belief that I was too good for nature; Williams says that people routinely underestimate how much better nature will make them feel and blow it off as a result.18