Kc Davis Quotes

No one ever shamed themselves into better mental health.

You do not have to earn the right to rest, connect, or recreate. Unlearn the idea that care tasks must be totally complete before you can sit down. Care tasks are a never-ending list, and if you wait until everything is done to rest, you will never rest.

In fact, I do not think laziness exists. You know what does exist? Executive dysfunction, procrastination, feeling overwhelmed, perfectionism, trauma, amotivation, chronic pain, energy fatigue, depression, lack of skills, lack of support, and differing priorities.

You are not a failure because you can’t keep up with laundry. Laundry is morally neutral.

It’s stressful to try to summon up 100% motivation sitting on the couch. Let yourself use 5% motivation to do 5% of the task. Maybe you keep going. Maybe you don’t. That’s ok. Anything worth doing is worth doing partially.

Remember that anything worth doing is worth doing half-assed.

That is the life-changing result of internalizing that you do not exist to serve your space, your space exists to serve you.

Forget about creating a routine. You have to focus on finding your rhythm.” With routines you are either on track or not. With rhythm you can skip a beat and still get back in the groove.

Perfectionism is debilitating. I want you to embrace adaptive imperfection. We aren’t settling for less; we are engaging in adaptive routines

there are actually only 5 things in any room: (1) trash; (2) dishes; (3) laundry; (4) things that have a place and are not in their place; and (5) things that do not have a place.

You are not required to contribute to be worthy of love and care and belonging. We know this is true because you could be connected to a ventilator unable to contribute anything (and in fact be using lots of resources) and still be a worthy human being. We all have seasons of life when we are capable of contributing more or less than the people around us.

Care tasks exist for one reason only… to make your body and space functional enough for you to easily experience the joy this world has to offer.

more often than that the message says, “You were so kind and so gentle, it made me feel like I could really do it.” It was the kindness that finally motivated them.

You don’t exist to serve your space; your space exists to serve you.

If you go through your whole life thinking that every time you clean the fridge it has to be perfect, every time you take a shower it has to be perfect, every time you do a work project it has to be perfect, you will burn out and hate your life.

You deserve kindness and love regardless of how good you are at care tasks.

thank you for your concern, but I am not taking any feedback on this issue right now.” Or my personal favorite: “The key for me being able to begin to run a functioning home was when I stopped talking to myself the way you are talking to me right now.

When someone demands the benefits of being a part of a family but refuses responsibilities to that family of which they are capable, it’s a form of entitlement that exploits the other members of that family.

Take a look at the history behind the term self-care sometime. Start with googling Audre Lorde. It wasn’t always about yoga and hobbies.

Shame is a horrible long-term motivator. It is more likely to contribute to dysfunction and continued cycles of unsustainable practices.

Forget about what pop psychology did to the term self-care. All it means is to care for self. Your body, your mind, your space. And here is the great news: You do not have to care about yourself to care for yourself.

There are seasons of life when we just can’t get all of our needs met, but the mental shift of seeing rest not as luxury but as a valid need helps you get creative, or at least validates it’s okay to mourn how difficult life is right now.

the key to juggling is to know that some of the balls you have in the air are made of plastic & some are made of glass. When you are struggling to function, it’s important to identify what are your glass balls.

I realized that I only ever wanted to be skinny because I wanted to be loved and happy. But I already have that. Skinny hasn’t seemed very important to me since then.

For a lot of people, finding a method that bypasses the most executive functioning barriers or that makes a task a little less intolerable is better than what’s “quickest.” In the end, the approach that you are motivated to do and enjoy doing is the most “efficient,” because you are actually doing it and not avoiding it.

I so often look back on these seasons of limping through and say to myself with tenderness, “Wow, I was really doing the best I could with what I had.” And that’s the funny thing about doing your best; it never feels like your best at the time. In fact, it almost always feels like failing when you’re in it.

success depends not on having strong willpower, but in developing mental and emotional tools to help you experience the world differently.

Any task or habit requiring extreme force of will depletes your ability to exert that type of energy over time.

Self-care was never meant to be a replacement for community care.

Maybe you keep going. Maybe you don’t. That’s okay. Anything worth doing is worth doing partially.

Imperfection is required for a good life.

quit beating yourself up for having a skill deficit when what you really have is a support deficit. Self-care was never meant to be a replacement for community care.9 Striving to “be better” will exhaust the little energy you have, and it’s probably time better spent letting yourself cry and sleep and finding small pockets of joy to keep you going.

Who the fuck are you? Davy, were you on a fucking date?" Kurt wasn't sure how to express the anger coursing through him without an assault charge, and even though the asshole was no longer kissing or touching Davy, he was getting more irate. "What the fuck Kurt?" Ripping his mouth away, Davy panted. "What the fuck are you doing?" "Kissing you." Or perhaps devouring. "What makes it okay for you to kiss me and not Andrew?" The words weren't a simple question, but a sneering mockery. Kurt's anger returned full force and his hands moved to Davy's hair, yanking his mouth back within easy reach. "You're mine," he snarled before shoving his tongue back in Davy's mouth.

here is the great news: You do not have to care about yourself to care for yourself. So many of us have the cart before the horse here: you think you must first like yourself to start being kind to yourself. It actually works the opposite way: caring for yourself is the greatest tool for learning to care about yourself.

Sometimes you may not get up even with the change in self-talk. But you know what? You weren’t getting up when you were being mean to yourself either, so at least you can be nice to yourself. No one ever shamed themselves into better mental health.

A support deficit is not always someone’s fault. There are just some seasons of life we have to limp through.

Interestingly enough, the subtle shift from obligation to option created motivation for me.

Laundry is morally neutral.

you can’t save the rain forest if you’re depressed

Shame has never helped anyone's mental health.

Framing it as kindness instead of failure was the key to being able to wake up and choose to get things done the next day.

Organization means having a place for everything in your home and having a system for getting it there. “Tidiness” and “messiness” describe how quickly things go back to their place. A tidy person typically returns things to their home immediately whereas a messy person does not.

On a foundation of compassion and rest, with the view of care tasks as morally neutral, rejecting shame and perfectionism, you can begin to explore ways of caring for your body and space that best serve you.

Task initiation barriers usually present themselves as difficulties in transitions. So I’m sitting in a chair and I need to go do dishes, but it’s very difficult to initiate the transition from sitting comfortably in my chair to getting up to do dishes.

the gulf between what we know in our minds and what we feel in our hearts is often an insurmountable distance. In that moment, I couldn’t help but absorb that lie that my inability to keep a clean home was direct evidence of my deep character failing of laziness.

If I viewed a day of screen time and not doing any scheduled care tasks as a failure, it would be a lot harder to “get back into routine.” But I didn’t. Trolls and pj’s day was a day when we were being gentle with ourselves, allowing ourselves to take it easy and rest—a day of kindness. Framing it as kindness instead of failure was the key to being able to wake up and choose to get things done the next day.

It is not uncommon for abusive caregivers to use chores as a manner of punishment and humiliation, as a way to withhold love and inflict pain. This has a profound impact on the little self, and the messaging carries into adulthood. This usually has one of two effects: (1) you avoid care tasks because you see them as punishment and now that you are an adult you can finally get free of them, or (2) you are constantly and even obsessively cleaning because you have internalized the message that you are dirty or failing if anything is out of place.

Most people fear that if they embrace this type of self-kindness, it will simply enable them to stay unfunctional forever. I think this fear is unfounded. I don’t believe in laziness, but even if I did the good news is that self-kindness is extremely motivating. It might be that when you first start giving yourself full permission to rest without guilt you find yourself resting a lot. Maybe that’s what your body and mind need. Research shows that people who report feeling burnout can take months or even years before they start feeling recovered

Please do not bully yourself into doing care tasks. Shame is a horrible long-term motivator. Most of the time it is paralyzing, compounding the barriers one already has to completing care tasks. This sets up a cycle where the uncompleted task creates shame, which in turn saps motivation and energy, often leading to avoiding the task altogether

But sometimes the “right” way of doing something creates barriers for certain executive functioning skills.

Shame is a horrible long-term motivator. It is more likely to contribute to dysfunction and continued cycles of unsustainable practices.

What is one thing you could do for yourself today that would be truly enjoyable for tomorrow you?

the gulf between what we know in our minds and what we feel in our hearts is often an insurmountable distance.

Being kind to yourself while eating ice cream is healthier than hating yourself while eating a salad.

watched my house crumble around me. I tried every day to figure out how to take care of both babies’ needs at once, and I went to bed every night haunted by my failure.

Because you must know, dear heart, that you are worthy of care whether your house is immaculate or a mess.

If care tasks are morally neutral, then having not showered or brushed your hair in three weeks does not mean “I am disgusting” but instead simply means “I am having a hard time right now.

What does help is to just let yourself move as slowly as you need to. No timers. No agenda. You may not get it all done. But you get more done than you would’ve if you hadn’t done anything.

If you have a particularly rude or pushy person in your life, you can use my favorite boundary phrase, which is “thank you for your concern, but I am not taking any feedback on this issue right now.

You do not have to care about yourself to care for yourself. So many of us have the cart before the horse here: you think you must first like yourself to start being kind to yourself. It actually works the opposite way: caring for yourself is the greatest tool for learning to care about yourself. So

Jennifer Lynn Barnes, a YA author tweeted: One time, I was at a Q&A with Nora Roberts, and someone asked her how to balance writing and kids, and she said that the key to juggling is to know that some of the balls you have in the air are made of plastic & some are made of glass. When you are struggling to function, it’s important to identify what are your glass balls. Feeding yourself, caring for your children or animals, taking your medication, and addressing your mental health are all examples of glass balls. Dropping them would have devastating consequences and likely cause you to drop all the balls. Recycling, veganism, shopping local, and avoiding fast fashion are plastic balls. They may be important, but they will not shatter your life if you drop them in the way the glass balls will. Plastic balls will fall to the floor and stay intact so you can pick them up again. Glass balls will not.

As you embark on this journey, I invite you to remember these words: slow, quiet, gentle. You are already worthy of love and belonging. This is not a journey of worthiness, but a journey of care... Because you must know, dear heart, that you are worthy of care, whether your house is immaculate or a mess.

marie Kondo says to tri-fold your underwear. The admiral swears making your bed will change your life. Rachel Hollis thinks the key to success is washing your face and believing in yourself. Capsule wardrobes! Rainbow-colored organization! Bullet journals! How many of these have we tried? How many did we stick with? If you’re like me, the answer is probably none.

All of the thoughts in your head come from you. Sometimes you have angry thoughts about yourself such as, “God, I’m so worthless!” and sometimes you have sad thoughts about yourself like, “I really wish someone could help me and I feel alone.” This exercise is about purposefully preparing to respond to any angry thoughts—either in your mind or in a journal—with something that is kind, the way you would with a friend. If a friend said, “I am so worthless,” you might say, “I think it’s pretty normal to make mistakes. That doesn’t mean you aren’t worthy.” When you think sad thoughts, you can respond the way you would comfort a friend: “I’m sorry you feel alone. It’s okay to cry.” Even though you know it’s still you saying it to yourself and even if you don’t believe it yet, the exercise begins to help you decrease the number of distressing thoughts you have over time.

Dancing for Dopamine There is an old saying that “neurons that fire together wire together.” It simply means your brain can start associating feelings with certain experiences. For example, dance every day to the same happy song with your baby, or your pet, or a friend on facetime. After a week, play that song while folding laundry or doing dishes. Your brain has now associated happiness with your song and will provide the same dopamine reward when you hear it.

If you are in a season of life when there are simply more care tasks to be done than time or energy available to you and you have the means to afford help, it is the most functional thing to do. Does embarrassment stop you? “I could never let a housekeeper see the state of my home” is about as logical as “I could never let a doctor see the state of my health.” And so what if the housekeeper judges you? It is not their mental health you are responsible for but your own.

When barriers to functioning make completing care tasks difficult, a person can experience an immense amount of shame. “How can I be failing at something so simple?” they think to themselves. The critical internal dialogue quickly forms a vicious cycle, paralyzing the person even further. They are unlikely to reach out for help with these tasks due to intense fear of judgment and rejection. As shame and isolation increase, mental health plummets. Self-loathing sets in and motivation vanishes. Sadly, this is often compounded by

An Ode to Baskets Big baskets, little baskets, clear baskets, wicker baskets, baskets from the Dollar Tree, baskets that I got for free. Baskets of shoes, baskets of books, baskets in all my crannies and nooks. And here’s the key, here’s the trick: the baskets go where the stuff already went. Laundry that ends up on the dining room floor, put a basket there and there’s mess no more. The stress of a cluttered counter easily ends when you put it all in a box or a bin. If you’re feeling fancy you could purchase a basket’s cousin such as a tray or a lazy Susan. My organizational system is, on its face, just putting a basket in the right place.

But when you actually break down the amount of time, energy, skill, planning, and maintenance that go into care tasks, they no longer seem simple. For example, the care task of feeding yourself involves more than just putting food into your mouth. You must also make time to figure out the nutritional needs and preferences of everyone you’re feeding, plan and execute a shopping trip, decide how you’re going to prepare that food and set aside the time to do so, and ensure that mealtimes come at correct intervals. You need energy and skill to plan, execute, and follow through on these steps every day, multiple times a day, and to deal with any barriers related to your relationship with food and weight, or a lack of appetite due to medical or emotional factors. You must have the emotional energy to deal with the feeling of being overwhelmed when you don’t know what to cook and the anxiety it can produce to create a kitchen mess. You may also need the skills to multitask while working, dealing with physical pain, or watching over children. Now let’s look at cleaning: an ongoing task made up of hundreds of small skills that must be practiced every day at the right time and manner in order to “keep going on the business of life.” First, you must have the executive functioning to deal with sequentially ordering and prioritizing tasks.1 You must learn which cleaning must be done daily and which can be done on an interval. You must remember those intervals. You must be familiar with cleaning products and remember to purchase them. You must have the physical energy and time to complete these tasks and the mental health to engage in a low-dopamine errand for an extended period of time. You must have the emotional energy and ability to process any sensory discomfort that comes with dealing with any dirty or soiled materials. “Just clean as you go” sounds nice and efficient, but most people don’t appreciate the hundreds of skills it takes to operate that way and the thousands of barriers that can interfere with execution.

Jennifer Lynn Barnes, a YA author tweeted: One time, I was at a Q&A with Nora Roberts, and someone asked her how to balance writing and kids, and she said that the key to juggling is to know that some of the balls you have in the air are made of plastic & some are made of glass.

Quit beating yourself up for having a skill deficit when what you really have is a support deficit.

realized that I only ever wanted to be skinny because I wanted to be loved and happy. But I already have that.

You don't exist to serve your space; your space exists to serve you.

You can see this when a thin, white, rich self-help influencer posts "Choose Joy" on her Instagram....Her belief that the decision to be a positive person was the key to her joyful life reveals she really does not grasp just how much of her success is due to privileges beyond her control.

Many self-help gurus overattribute their success to their own hard work without any regard to the physical, mental, or economic privileges they hold.

At the end of the day I typically have a big pile of dirty dishes. I’ve been known to spend ten minutes organizing them on the countertop before loading them into the dishwasher. People almost always scratch their head and say, “You know the right way to do dishes would have been faster that what you just did.” And they aren’t wrong. It is, technically speaking, faster to load dishes directly from the sink into the dishwasher or, better yet, directly from using them into the dishwasher throughout the day. But sometimes the “right” way of doing something creates barriers for certain executive functioning skills. Sometimes the simple reason is that the right way is not enjoyable and so it gets procrastinated. For a lot of people, finding a method that bypasses the most executive functioning barriers or that makes a task a little less intolerable is better than what’s “quickest.” In the end, the approach that you are motivated to do and enjoy doing is the most “efficient,” because you are actually doing it and not avoiding it.

If you are completing care tasks from a motivation of shame, you are probably also relaxing in shame too—because care tasks never end and you view rest as a reward for good boys and girls. So if you ever actually let yourself sit down and rest, you’re thinking, “I don’t deserve to do this. There is more to do.

You are not lazy or dirty or gross. You are not a failure. You just need nonjudgmental and compassionate help.

I believe the moral gut check here isn’t “Am I contributing enough?” but “Am I taking advantage of someone else?

And remember, while you compare yourself to others, convinced that if you could be like them you’d be happy and worthy, there is probably someone comparing them-selves to you, thinking the same. We are all somebody’s Susie.

In my work as a therapist I have seen hundreds of clients who struggle with these issues, and I am convinced now more than ever of one simple truth: they are not lazy. In fact, I do not think laziness exists. You know what does exist? Executive dysfunction, procrastination, feeling overwhelmed, perfectionism, trauma, amotivation, chronic pain, energy fatigue, depression, lack of skills, lack of support, and differing priorities.

Just clean as you go” sounds nice and efficient, but most people don’t appreciate the hundreds of skills it takes to operate that way and the thousands of barriers that can interfere with execution.

Health and hygiene are far more complex than “eat healthy and shower.” You must possess the social skills to call the doctor and attend appointments. You must have the time and energy to fill prescriptions and, again, the executive functioning to take the medications every day. Even tasks that appear to be secondhand thoughts to most people—brushing your teeth, washing your hair, changing your clothes—can become almost impossible in the face of functional barriers.

favorite boundary phrase, which is “thank you for your concern, but I am not taking any feedback on this issue right now.

But sometimes the “right” way of doing something creates barriers for certain executive functioning skills. Sometimes the simple reason is that the right way is not enjoyable and so it gets procrastinated.

Think back to the last kind thing you did for another human or animal. Remember the compassion you felt? The gentleness with which you helped them? That person. This is your compassionate self. This self feels empathy for others because they are worthy of love, and this self wants to give it to them.

Chores → care tasks Chores are obligations. Care tasks are kindness to self. Cleaning → resetting the space Cleaning is endless. Resetting the space has a goal. It’s so messy in here! → this space has reached the end of its functional cycle It’s so messy in here feels like failure. This space has reached the end of its functional cycle is morally neutral. Good enough is good enough → good enough is perfect Good enough is good enough sounds like settling for less. Good enough is perfect means having boundaries and reasonable expectations. Shortcut:

It’s stressful to try to summon up 100 percent of the momentum to do something while sitting on the couch. Let yourself use 5 percent energy to do 5 percent of the task.

could exhaust myself making it look like a showroom all the time, but then I wouldn’t have time to take my kids to go get Halloween costumes today, or talk to a friend on the phone for an hour, or write this book.

tidy things up not because it’s bad that it’s messy but because it has reached the end of that cycle of functionality and I need to reset it so it can have another twenty-four hours of it serving me.

There are just some seasons of life that we have to limp through.

having a limited capacity is not the same as being entitled and accepting help is not the same as exploiting others.

Creating momentum is key because motivation builds motivation.

Next time you are trying to talk yourself into doing a care task, what would it be like to replace the voice that says, “Ugh, I should really go clean my house right now because it’s a disaster,” with “It would be such a kindness to future me if I were to get up right now and do _______. That task will allow me to experience comfort, convenience, and pleasure later.” It isn’t a hack, really. It’s not a formula guaranteed to make you get up. Sometimes you may not get up even with the change in self-talk. But you know what? You weren’t getting up when you were being mean to yourself either, so at least you can be nice to yourself. No one ever shamed themselves into better mental health.

Lots of decisions are moral decisions, but cleaning your car regularly is not one of them. You can be a fully functioning, fully successful, happy, kind, generous adult and never be very good at cleaning your dishes in a timely manner or have an organized home. How you relate to care tasks—whether you are clean or dirty, messy or tidy, organized or unorganized—has absolutely no bearing on whether you are a good enough person.

Care tasks are morally neutral. Being good or bad at them has nothing to do with being a good person, parent, man, woman, spouse, friend. Literally nothing. You are not a failure because you can’t keep up with laundry. Laundry is morally neutral.

Next time you are trying to talk yourself into doing a care task, what would it be like to replace the voice that says, “Ugh, I should really go clean my house right now because it’s a disaster,” with “It would be such a kindness to future me if I were to get up right now and do _______. That task will allow me to experience comfort, convenience, and pleasure later.

Upon your seeing a dirty kitchen, your inner voice may say something like, “I am such a hot mess,” but challenge yourself to think of something else it could mean. “I cooked my family dinner three nights in a row” is a true statement. If care tasks are morally neutral, then having not showered or brushed your hair in three weeks does not mean “I am disgusting” but instead simply means “I am having a hard time right now.” Let me tell you what the mess in my home means. It means I’m alive. Dirty dishes mean I’ve fed myself. Scattered hobby supplies mean I am creative. Scattered toys and mess mean I am a fun mom. The stacked boxes in the hall mean I was thoughtful enough to order what we need. The clothes strewn on the floor mean I had a full day. And occasionally mess means I’m struggling with depression or stress. But those aren’t moral failings either—and neither is that moldy coffee cup I keep not taking to the kitchen.

Followed by a few attempts to get back on track, which also fail. I never manage to recapture that initial motivation and in turn give up completely and feel guilty whenever I look at the thing.

Perfectionism is debilitating. I want you to embrace adaptive imperfection. We aren’t settling for less; we are engaging in adaptive routines that help us live and function and thrive. Good enough is perfect.