| Recorded at | August 06, 2022 |
|---|---|
| Event | TEDxMileHigh |
| Duration (min:sec) | 12:53 |
| Video Type | TEDx Talk |
| Words per minute | 175.54 medium |
| Readability (FK) | 65.04 very easy |
| Speaker | KC Davis |
Official TED page for this talk
Synopsis
Ever had a hard time doing daily household tasks -- cooking, cleaning, laundry -- and felt like a terrible person for struggling in the first place? Therapist KC Davis is here to flip that negative internalized script with a simple yet perspective-shifting fact that may change your approach to life. Learn a gentler, more practical approach to mental health as Davis shares hard-won wisdom and helpful shortcuts on how to get by when you feel like you've barely got it together.
| 1 | 00:04 | Shortly after I published my book, | ||
| 2 | 00:06 | I got an email. | ||
| 3 | 00:07 | It said, | ||
| 4 | 00:08 | "Your book was the only thing that saved me from suicide. | ||
| 5 | 00:12 | You saved my life." | ||
| 6 | 00:14 | Now, for a book about how to clean, that's sort of odd, yeah? | ||
| 7 | 00:17 | (Laughter) | ||
| 8 | 00:18 | But what if a new approach to cleaning | ||
| 9 | 00:20 | could teach us a better approach to treating mental health? | ||
| 10 | 00:25 | I'm not an interior designer or a lifestyle influencer. | ||
| 11 | 00:28 | I'm just a therapist with ADHD. | ||
| 12 | 00:31 | And in February of 2020, I had my second baby. | ||
| 13 | 00:34 | Because with the first one, I had some postpartum anxiety | ||
| 14 | 00:37 | and my husband had just taken a very demanding job | ||
| 15 | 00:40 | that was going to keep him busy, | ||
| 16 | 00:41 | I developed a meticulous postpartum plan for myself. | ||
| 17 | 00:46 | My family would rotate in in shifts for the first 60 days. | ||
| 18 | 00:49 | The cleaning crew would come once a month. | ||
| 19 | 00:51 | The new moms group would drop off dinners. | ||
| 20 | 00:54 | And my toddler would go to preschool. | ||
| 21 | 00:56 | I was so proud of this plan, | ||
| 22 | 00:59 | and it ended before it even began. | ||
| 23 | 01:03 | Because 2020 is when the COVID lockdowns happened | ||
| 24 | 01:05 | and all of that support disappeared overnight. | ||
| 25 | 01:09 | In a blur, my days turned into breastfeeding difficulties, | ||
| 26 | 01:13 | toddler meltdowns and depression. | ||
| 27 | 01:16 | The dishes stayed in the sink for days. | ||
| 28 | 01:18 | The laundry pile reached impressive heights. | ||
| 29 | 01:21 | And there was often not a path to walk from room to room. | ||
| 30 | 01:25 | And when I should have been catching up on sleep, | ||
| 31 | 01:27 | I would lay in bed at night and think to myself, | ||
| 32 | 01:30 | "I'm failing. | ||
| 33 | 01:33 | Maybe I'm not capable of being a good mom to two kids." | ||
| 34 | 01:39 | I decided to post a joke video on TikTok one day | ||
| 35 | 01:42 | about my house-turned-disaster. | ||
| 36 | 01:44 | (Laughter) | ||
| 37 | 01:46 | Some funny shots of my clutter and my dishes | ||
| 38 | 01:50 | and my enchilada pan to a nice beat. | ||
| 39 | 01:54 | Sort of a laugh to keep from cry situation, surely. | ||
| 40 | 01:58 | And I got a comment. | ||
| 41 | 02:02 | "Lazy." | ||
| 42 | 02:05 | Yeah, that stung. | ||
| 43 | 02:08 | But I must be a glutton for punishment | ||
| 44 | 02:10 | because I kept posting videos about my messy house. | ||
| 45 | 02:12 | (Laughter) | ||
| 46 | 02:13 | Video after video of all of the weird tips and tricks that I was using | ||
| 47 | 02:18 | to try and get it back in order | ||
| 48 | 02:20 | while managing my feelings of being overwhelmed. | ||
| 49 | 02:22 | And I braced myself for more criticism. | ||
| 50 | 02:25 | But what happened was entirely different. | ||
| 51 | 02:29 | In the comment sections of my videos, | ||
| 52 | 02:30 | hundreds of stories came rolling in. | ||
| 53 | 02:34 | Stories like Amanda, | ||
| 54 | 02:37 | who, after losing her baby in the second trimester, | ||
| 55 | 02:39 | was standing frozen at her sink | ||
| 56 | 02:41 | because she forgot how to wash dishes. | ||
| 57 | 02:44 | Stories like Lula, | ||
| 58 | 02:46 | whose chronic health problems and depression | ||
| 59 | 02:48 | made it difficult for her to brush her teeth. | ||
| 60 | 02:50 | Story after story of people with depression, ADHD, | ||
| 61 | 02:55 | autism, burnout, bereavement, | ||
| 62 | 02:56 | all struggling with these daily tasks. | ||
| 63 | 03:00 | And it might seem odd to some of you | ||
| 64 | 03:02 | that someone could struggle with tasks that are so simple. | ||
| 65 | 03:06 | But are they simple? | ||
| 66 | 03:09 | Let's think about what really goes into something like laundry. | ||
| 67 | 03:12 | Everyone picture your laundry pile right now, OK? | ||
| 68 | 03:16 | How many clean clothes do you have left right now? | ||
| 69 | 03:19 | Can you wash tomorrow, or must it be today? | ||
| 70 | 03:21 | Do you need to prioritize, presort pre-treat anything? | ||
| 71 | 03:24 | Did you grow up with anybody that taught you how to do that? | ||
| 72 | 03:27 | You're out of laundry detergent, | ||
| 73 | 03:28 | if you work three jobs, when are you going to get to the store next? | ||
| 74 | 03:31 | If you get there, can you afford it? | ||
| 75 | 03:33 | And if you can, which one you choose? | ||
| 76 | 03:35 | And you get it all home, get in there, | ||
| 77 | 03:37 | Now pick a setting. Which one? I don't know. Google it. | ||
| 78 | 03:39 | By the way, you have memory problems, | ||
| 79 | 03:41 | so you'll remember that wash in about three days, | ||
| 80 | 03:43 | when it's mildewed into the washer. | ||
| 81 | 03:45 | It's OK, just re-wash it, and get it into the dryer. | ||
| 82 | 03:48 | You'll forget that too, and it'll wrinkle. Now dry it again. | ||
| 83 | 03:50 | Now all you have to do is get it out and fold it. | ||
| 84 | 03:53 | But also you have three small children. | ||
| 85 | 03:55 | And those three small children haven't given you a moment alone | ||
| 86 | 03:58 | in quite some time. | ||
| 87 | 03:59 | When you finally get that moment, you have to decide, | ||
| 88 | 04:01 | are you going to finish the laundry or eat a sandwich or take a nap? | ||
| 89 | 04:05 | Time's up, you didn't do any of it, you stared at the wall. | ||
| 90 | 04:07 | You have decision fatigue | ||
| 91 | 04:09 | because the burden of carrying a home all by yourself has burnt you out. | ||
| 92 | 04:13 | You see, for some of you, all of the steps and the skills | ||
| 93 | 04:16 | that go into care tasks run on autopilot. | ||
| 94 | 04:20 | But for millions of people, the autopilot is broken. | ||
| 95 | 04:25 | And what's worse, what if you had to do all of that when your mom just died | ||
| 96 | 04:29 | or your job just fired you | ||
| 97 | 04:31 | or you’re using every ounce of strength that you have | ||
| 98 | 04:34 | to just not kill yourself today? | ||
| 99 | 04:40 | If you have access to therapy, | ||
| 100 | 04:41 | it's unlikely your therapist will ever ask you about your laundry. | ||
| 101 | 04:46 | I've worked in mental health for about a decade. | ||
| 102 | 04:48 | I've been in therapy even longer, | ||
| 103 | 04:50 | and the only time I ever had a provider talk to me | ||
| 104 | 04:53 | about things like cooking and cleaning and brushing my teeth | ||
| 105 | 04:56 | was when I was in a psych hospital as a teenager. | ||
| 106 | 04:59 | Yet here were hundreds of thousands of people | ||
| 107 | 05:03 | in my comment sections telling me | ||
| 108 | 05:05 | that these daily care tasks were a major pain point in their life. | ||
| 109 | 05:11 | And so I started to wonder, what if we started here? | ||
| 110 | 05:18 | What if we started with these care tasks? | ||
| 111 | 05:21 | Could making daily tasks easier improve mental health quicker? | ||
| 112 | 05:28 | In the two years that I've been posting and writing | ||
| 113 | 05:30 | about the intersection of mental health and care tasks, | ||
| 114 | 05:33 | I've come up with a philosophy that does just this. | ||
| 115 | 05:36 | And it all starts with one simple idea. | ||
| 116 | 05:39 | Cooking, cleaning, laundry, | ||
| 117 | 05:43 | it doesn't make you a good person. | ||
| 118 | 05:46 | Or a bad person. | ||
| 119 | 05:49 | Listen to me. | ||
| 120 | 05:51 | Care tasks are morally neutral. | ||
| 121 | 05:58 | Now, I know that if you've been watching Martha Stewart for decades -- | ||
| 122 | 06:01 | (Laughter) | ||
| 123 | 06:03 | and scrolling the perfect Pinterest aesthetic every day, | ||
| 124 | 06:07 | that it can feel like struggling with these tasks is a moral failure. | ||
| 125 | 06:11 | Like, it's because we're lazy | ||
| 126 | 06:13 | or irresponsible or we're immature. | ||
| 127 | 06:16 | But having an organized closet doesn't make you a success. | ||
| 128 | 06:19 | And living out of a pile of laundry on the floor doesn't make you a failure. | ||
| 129 | 06:23 | You know where the shirt you want to wear is, it just ... | ||
| 130 | 06:26 | (Laughter) | ||
| 131 | 06:29 | It might take you a bit of sifting to find it. | ||
| 132 | 06:31 | (Laughter) | ||
| 133 | 06:33 | The truth is, it's not about morality. | ||
| 134 | 06:36 | It's about functionality. | ||
| 135 | 06:39 | Does your home work for you? | ||
| 136 | 06:42 | Not some hypothetical houseguest that is coming to inspect your closet. | ||
| 137 | 06:45 | (Laughter) | ||
| 138 | 06:48 | I mentioned Amanda, who had lost her baby | ||
| 139 | 06:51 | and forgot how to wash dishes. | ||
| 140 | 06:53 | She told me that when her husband would go to work, | ||
| 141 | 06:56 | she would lay on the floor next to the empty crib | ||
| 142 | 06:58 | and say to herself, | ||
| 143 | 07:00 | "What can I bring to my family if I can't even wash dishes?" | ||
| 144 | 07:05 | But that changed | ||
| 145 | 07:06 | when she began to see care tasks as morally neutral. | ||
| 146 | 07:10 | All of the sudden, the dishes in the sink | ||
| 147 | 07:12 | weren't representations of her failure as a wife, | ||
| 148 | 07:16 | but instead she would look at the pile | ||
| 149 | 07:19 | and think to herself, "What do I need to function tomorrow morning?" | ||
| 150 | 07:23 | And then pull two coffee cups out of the pile to wash. | ||
| 151 | 07:28 | She had her coffee the next morning, | ||
| 152 | 07:30 | and it was a little bit easier to get up off the floor. | ||
| 153 | 07:34 | When we liberate ourselves from the idea that we are a good person or a bad person | ||
| 154 | 07:38 | with care tasks, | ||
| 155 | 07:39 | we can stop thinking about the right way to do things. | ||
| 156 | 07:42 | About the way that things should be done, | ||
| 157 | 07:44 | and instead start thinking about what we can do | ||
| 158 | 07:47 | with our current barriers | ||
| 159 | 07:50 | to improve our quality of life today. | ||
| 160 | 07:53 | And this is the fun part. | ||
| 161 | 07:54 | Because you get to customize a life that works for you. | ||
| 162 | 07:58 | When Lula realized that her problems with brushing her teeth | ||
| 163 | 08:02 | were not moral failings, | ||
| 164 | 08:04 | she gained the confidence to speak to her dental hygienist, | ||
| 165 | 08:07 | and together they came up with solutions that work around her barriers. | ||
| 166 | 08:12 | She now relies on pre-pasted disposable toothbrushes | ||
| 167 | 08:15 | that she keeps in her desk, | ||
| 168 | 08:16 | floss she keeps in the living room | ||
| 169 | 08:18 | and a no-rinse prescription toothpaste. | ||
| 170 | 08:21 | Because by breaking down the component parts of a dental hygiene routine | ||
| 171 | 08:26 | and ensuring that each step was accessible to her mental and physical needs, | ||
| 172 | 08:31 | for the first time in a year, she's done every step in that routine | ||
| 173 | 08:34 | for two weeks straight. | ||
| 174 | 08:37 | She says that now that her teeth are clean, | ||
| 175 | 08:39 | she's a little less stressed about tomorrow's problems. | ||
| 176 | 08:44 | And this approach can work with any care task | ||
| 177 | 08:46 | that you struggle with. | ||
| 178 | 08:47 | Simply ask yourself, | ||
| 179 | 08:49 | "What am I trying to achieve | ||
| 180 | 08:50 | and how can I achieve it in my way?" | ||
| 181 | 08:55 | In a rare moment of folding clothes ... | ||
| 182 | 08:58 | (Laughter) | ||
| 183 | 09:00 | I looked down at the baby onesie that I was folding, | ||
| 184 | 09:03 | and I thought to myself, | ||
| 185 | 09:06 | "Why am I folding this?" | ||
| 186 | 09:07 | (Laughter) | ||
| 187 | 09:12 | Baby onesies don't really wrinkle. | ||
| 188 | 09:14 | (Laughter) | ||
| 189 | 09:15 | And even if they did, nobody cares if a baby's in a wrinkly onesie. | ||
| 190 | 09:18 | (Laughter) | ||
| 191 | 09:19 | Furthermore, I was probably going to change her | ||
| 192 | 09:22 | four times before lunch. | ||
| 193 | 09:23 | (Laughter) | ||
| 194 | 09:25 | This doesn't need to be folded. | ||
| 195 | 09:28 | I said it out loud | ||
| 196 | 09:30 | and literally braced myself | ||
| 197 | 09:32 | for the laundry police? | ||
| 198 | 09:36 | I don't know. | ||
| 199 | 09:37 | There are rules to laundry. | ||
| 200 | 09:40 | But for the first time, | ||
| 201 | 09:41 | I stopped thinking about the way that laundry should be done. | ||
| 202 | 09:45 | And instead, started thinking | ||
| 203 | 09:46 | about how I could make laundry functional for me. | ||
| 204 | 09:50 | And I looked down at the fleece pajamas | ||
| 205 | 09:52 | and the underwear and the athletic shorts | ||
| 206 | 09:54 | and the tank tops | ||
| 207 | 09:55 | and realized almost none of my clothes actually needed to be folded. | ||
| 208 | 10:00 | And I haven't folded any of it since. | ||
| 209 | 10:02 | (Cheers and applause) | ||
| 210 | 10:09 | I moved all of my family's clothes into one closet off the laundry room, | ||
| 211 | 10:14 | and now I just toss things into organized bins unfolded. | ||
| 212 | 10:20 | (Cheers and applause) | ||
| 213 | 10:24 | My new motto is: “Good enough is perfect.” | ||
| 214 | 10:27 | (Laughter and applause) | ||
| 215 | 10:32 | And everything worth doing is worth doing half-assed. | ||
| 216 | 10:35 | (Laughter and applause) | ||
| 217 | 10:41 | You have to give yourself permission to do a little. | ||
| 218 | 10:44 | To do it with shortcuts. | ||
| 219 | 10:46 | To do it while breaking all of the rules. | ||
| 220 | 10:50 | And replace that inner voice that says, | ||
| 221 | 10:53 | “I’m failing,” | ||
| 222 | 10:55 | with one that says, "I'm having a hard time right now. | ||
| 223 | 10:59 | And people who are having a hard time deserve compassion." | ||
| 224 | 11:04 | If it's too hard to shower today, | ||
| 225 | 11:06 | grab the baby wipes. | ||
| 226 | 11:09 | It may not be the normal way to do it, | ||
| 227 | 11:11 | but you deserve to be clean. | ||
| 228 | 11:15 | If it's too hard to cook dinner, | ||
| 229 | 11:18 | get paper plates, | ||
| 230 | 11:20 | heat up something frozen. | ||
| 231 | 11:21 | You’ll go back to cooking and washing another day, | ||
| 232 | 11:23 | but the day is not today. | ||
| 233 | 11:25 | And in the meantime, | ||
| 234 | 11:26 | you deserve to eat. | ||
| 235 | 11:30 | If you're too depressed to do your dishes, | ||
| 236 | 11:32 | get a two-gallon Ziploc bag and keep it in your bedroom. | ||
| 237 | 11:34 | Because if you put a dirty plate into a two-gallon Ziploc bag and seal it, | ||
| 238 | 11:38 | it will keep the bugs away. | ||
| 239 | 11:44 | And it'll be there for you | ||
| 240 | 11:45 | when you're ready to go back to the kitchen. | ||
| 241 | 11:48 | Because you deserve a sanitary environment | ||
| 242 | 11:52 | even if you can't get out of bed. | ||
| 243 | 11:56 | I could share with you hundreds of other genius solutions | ||
| 244 | 11:59 | that people have come up with | ||
| 245 | 12:00 | once they embraced the idea that care tasks are morally neutral. | ||
| 246 | 12:04 | In my experience, people will exhibit mind-blowing creativity | ||
| 247 | 12:09 | when they are only taught | ||
| 248 | 12:10 | how to speak compassionately to themselves. | ||
| 249 | 12:15 | So what if mental health treatment started here? | ||
| 250 | 12:19 | By shifting the idea of care tasks | ||
| 251 | 12:22 | as these external measurements of your worthiness | ||
| 252 | 12:25 | to just being morally-neutral tasks | ||
| 253 | 12:27 | that you can customize to care for yourself. | ||
| 254 | 12:34 | Because if it's true | ||
| 255 | 12:36 | that regardless of what you struggle with, | ||
| 256 | 12:40 | you are worthy of a functional space, | ||
| 257 | 12:45 | what else might you be worthy of? | ||
| 258 | 12:48 | Thank you. | ||
| 259 | 12:50 | (Applause and cheers) |