My Personal War Strategy for Young AdultsÀpẹrẹ

DAY THREE: Breaking Toxic Cycles - CLEAN UP YOUR ROOM

Have you ever heard the words, “clean up your room” and cringed? It seems like you only hear that when you’re at a moment where cleaning up your room is the last thing on your mind. 

I remember these moments well. I also remember thinking, “what if I’m fine living in my mess.”  As a matter of fact, I have learned to step over the mess, hide stuff in the closet, store whatever under my bed, and ignore anything that annoys me. If I lost you because you simply cannot relate, stick with me because we’ve all got a little mess somewhere. It’s time to CLEAN UP OUR ROOM! 

Before you start cleaning though, question: Have you ever wondered how your room continues to get messy time and time again? Better yet: WHO messes up your room? If we only react when things get “messy” then we have completely missed the point. The greater question is: what habits are stopping me from keeping my room clean in the first place?

Breaking messy cycles requires being honest about what led to the messy condition in the first place. By the way, I’m not talking about your room anymore. Our thoughts, emotions, and spiritual walk have a tendency of getting messy over and over again. Maybe it’s a sequence of events that you had no control over, maybe it was a desire to be accepted, or it was the inability to speak up. Whatever the cause, discovering the root can help to establish some ways to set boundaries and avoid the same toxic habits. Let’s look at ourselves as a building with “rooms.” Our body is a temple, and within our temple there are these “rooms” where our heart, spirit, emotions, thoughts, and choices dwell. If those rooms are messy, then it can impact how we function, blur our vision, and alter how we look at our circumstances. Today I think you should take a moment and choose to clean up your room. 

Moment of Reflection: Take a moment to reflect on what is in the “room” of your mind. What thoughts have you allowed to live rent-free but are costing you peace, hidden from yourself and others? What is in the “room” of your heart? Who/what has stolen the innocence of your heart that you have now hardened to avoid confronting the person/situation? What is in the “room” of your stomach? What have you ingested simply because it was given to you but was not necessarily good for you?

Now that we have assessed the mess, we can create boundaries to protect the mess from happening again. Make sure that your boundary is set back far enough so that when life deals you its hardest hits, the triggers will serve notice that you are now breaking toxic cycles. Setting your boundaries at the point of trespassing is too close for comfort; breaking cycles requires intentionality in placing boundaries out where you can see them in advance. You have to be steadfast and ready so that you can clean as you go instead of waiting for the “mess” to pile up.

Prayer: God, thank you for the ability to clean up my “messy” ways. There are toxic things that I have encountered both willingly and unwillingly, but, God, I ask that you wash me clean of the thoughts that consume my temple. Help me to be intentional about “keeping my room clean.” Thank you for the patient love you have towards me. Amen.