Why I Love Rug Cleaning Videos (aka Healing is Messy)
I love rug cleaning videos.
You know the ones - overhead camera, white tile floor, some person in colorful boots and a filthy dirty rug.
Over a time-lapse period of 15ish minutes, the rug goes from gross to great.
It’s icky in the beginning. There is SO MUCH DIRT. And the more they wash the more dirt comes pouring out of it. And just when you’re thinking ‘that’s looking better,’ they flip the rug over and there’s the muddy footprint waiting to get rinsed off the tile. Blergh!
And most of the time when I watch these videos, I don’t think too much about it. It’s just a satisfying little distraction, something to sort of meditate on in the midst of scrolling.
But the other night while watching an especially satisfying one (new techniques! I saw the person’s face!) I started thinking to myself, ‘why do I even like these?’
There’s probably a scientific answer to that (ASMR?), but what really struck me about it that night was how much it’s like the work of healing.
In the beginning it’s so messy! It can seem like an overwhelming amount of work. Will this rug ever be clean again? Will I ever be well / happy / whole again?
It’s so repetitive and cyclical. The same tools and techniques are applied again and again, each time revealing more of the beauty beneath what’s been trodden in to the fiber, something seemingly beyond saving begins to show it’s still vibrant. It just takes work to strip away the dirt - the trauma, and conditioning and expectations the world has trodden in to the fiber of my being.
Power wash, shampoo machine, squeegee, get down on your knees and scrub by hand. Dump a bucket of water on it. Watering can of shampoo. Broom style scrubber. Rinse. Repeat repeat repeat.
Okay I’m glad I don’t need quite that much shampoo. Or power washing, come to think of it.
But I do need rest, recognition, therapy, body work, energy work, meditation, hydration, coaching, processing, learning, integration. Rest, rest, rest.
And repeat what helps move that “dirt” again and again so I get to the next layer.
When I compare my healing journey to a rug cleaning, I think I’m in the part of the video where it looks pretty good, and I appreciate how far I’ve come. And now it’s time to flip that sucker over and truly release what’s been processed and healed.
And I’m also reminded that although these video makes it seem like it’s happening so quickly, it’s really not. It’s a time lapse, sped up version that doesn’t show the breaks in the action, the time to swap out tools, to refill the soap containers, and buckets, to turn that power washer on and off.
Those boots move out of the frame A LOT. That’s the resting. The integration. The recognition of how well I’m doing. The work is ongoing. Sometimes I need pause and consider the state of things and decide what I’m going to do next. Even the intrusion of ads reminds me that sometimes life distracts me from doing the things I need to do to heal.
Its hard work - the rug washing and the healing. But they are both satisfying.
I may not be a mysterious pair of Wellington boots wielding a sudsy watering can, but I am here to support your healing journey with energy work, whether you’re at that first roll out and muddy rinse, or you just need a little sweeping. Booking sessions online and in-person for the holidays, the new year and beyond.
Together on the muddy tile floor of healing,
~ Courtney