A broken washing machine made me realize that I had friends I would impose on and friends I wouldn’t. (See Dirty Laundry Vulnerability Here.)
After I explained the dirty laundry versus non-dirty laundry friend distinction to a dear prayer partner, she replied, “Same goes with your emotional dirty laundry.” During the rest of our conversation, we referred to several prayer items as “emotional dirty laundry.”
I thought about our conversation as I checked off errands that day. I wanted to be the friend that could accept someone’s emotional dirty laundry, even if I couldn’t make it clean. I wanted my friends to know they were safe with me.
More importantly, I wanted to be the mother whom my children saw as safe to handle their emotional dirty laundry. During most of their childhood and adulthood, they only brought me their physical laundry to sort and clean. Focusing on my to-to list—including physical laundry—created barriers to emotional laundry.
How is your emotional dirty laundry? Giving? Receiving?
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