Good Inside with Dr. Becky - Why Mess Feels So Triggering

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

Why does a messy house feel so overwhelming? In this episode, Dr. Becky unpacks the deeper emotional roots behind why physical clutter—like the laundry pile or the half-unpacked suitcase—can feel like a personal failure instead of just “stuff.” She explores how mess stirs feelings of chaos, shame, and “not enoughness,” especially for parents carrying the invisible mental load.You’ll hear why mess taps into childhood messages, cultural myths around “good moms,” and our very real need for control and completion. Plus: practical tools for separating self-worth from clutter, listener questions, and a powerful reminder—you are not your mess.If you've ever felt like the state of your home says something about you, this episode is for you.Get the Good Inside App by Dr. Becky: https://bit.ly/4fSxbzkYour Good Inside membership might be eligible for HSA/FSA reimbursement! To learn more about how to get your membership reimbursed, check out the link here: https://www.goodinside.com/fsa-hsa-eligibility/Follow Dr. Becky on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbeckyatgoodinsideSign up for our weekly email, Good Insider: https://www.goodinside.com/newsletterFor a full transcript of the episode, go to goodinside.com/podcast.Today’s episode is brought to you by Airbnb. Let’s be real: Planning a memorable summer for your kids can get expensive! So if you’re looking for creative ways to make a little extra income this summer, here’s one idea: Start hosting on Airbnb. As parents, we know there’s nothing better than finding a kid-friendly home for a family vacation (read: books, toys, spill-friendly furniture)... so why not share your own place with other families? Hosting can fund your summer fun while giving another family a comfortable place to stay. Talk about a win-win! Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.com/host.Today’s episode is brought to you by Skylight Calendar. As parents, the mental load is real—to-do lists, doctor’s appointments, sports practices, work events, birthday parties… Should I keep going? If your family is anything like mine, it can feel like there are a thousand things to remember and your brain is running on overdrive. What if I told you there's a way to bring a little more calm and clarity to your chaotic, always-changing family schedule? Meet Skylight Calendar. It’s a central, easy-to-see touchscreen with clear colors, so everyone in your family can stay in the loop. As someone obsessed with efficiency, it almost feels like magic how seamlessly it syncs with all of the calendars you're already using—Google Calendar, Apple Calendar, Outlook, and more. I truly see this tool as your partner in sharing the mental load with your kids AND partner. And because life doesn't stop when you leave the house, Skylight offers a free companion app. You can add or update events, check off to-do lists, and stay in sync with your family no matter where you are. Another great feature: If you're not completely thrilled within 120 days, you can return it for a full refund. Ready to say goodbye to calendar chaos and hello to a more organized and connected family life? Right now, Skylight is offering our listeners $30 off their 15-inch Calendars. Just go to skylightcal.com/BECKY for $30 off. This offer expires December 31, 2025.Today’s episode is brought to you by Sittercity. We talk a lot about support at Good Inside—emotional support, community, not having to figure out parenting on your own. Sometimes, you also need logistical support. Like, someone to watch your kid so you can make that meeting, run those errands, or finally catch up with a friend. That’s where Sittercity can be a really helpful tool. Their platform gives you a trusted way to find sitters who are kind, experienced, and show up when you need them. You can read reviews from other parents, message sitters directly, and set up interviews—all in one spot. If you’ve been meaning to find a sitter but didn’t know where to begin, this is going to make it feel a whole lot easier. Go to Sittercity.com and use the code “goodinside" for 25% off the annual or quarterly premium subscription plans.

Alright, let's set the scene. It's Sunday night. It's summer. You get home way later than you wanted to with your kids. You walk into your door and immediately it hits you. You walk into that Amazon box you told yourself you would return and now you know what's one more thing on your list. You keep walking and oh my goodness.

You forgot to put the laundry into the dryer and it's just been sitting there soaking and it smells. Then when you finally get to the kitchen, there is your kids camp lunchbox, not unpacked. You open, there's a half eaten sandwich and as you throw it in the garbage, you want to scream out and explode and your whole world feels like it's collapsing on you.

If mess is triggering for you, if it feels like those dishes in the sink or that water bottle that's under the couch or those bags in front of you that, yeah, in theory you could unpack later but you literally just can't sit on the couch and watch a TV show until it's already done. If that feels like, oh my goodness, that is what is happening in my brain and my body all the time, I promise you, you're not alone. There's nothing wrong with you. And this is an episode you need to finish.

And then maybe save, also send to a friend so you can talk about it. I am right there with you. I am in part talking about this for myself. Mess, visual clutter, oh my goodness, it brings up so much for me and I want to explore it with you. I'm Dr. Becky and this is Good Inside.

We'll be back right after this. Why is mess so triggering for us? Okay, there's actually a couple of reasons. I think that when we have this visual mess, the sink is full, I don't know, the sand is everywhere, the clothes are still in the laundry basket even though we wanted to do laundry before the end of the day. Why it stirs up so much in so many of us. Number one, in general, our triggers are our teachers. I'm gonna say that again, it really matters. Our triggers are our teachers. That might be a new idea because if you're like most of us, we think our triggers are a sign

of something being wrong with us. They're not, they're really trying to tell us a story that we haven't yet fully comprehended from our past. And we often have to kind of extrapolate beyond the concrete thing that triggers us to think about what it might represent and the lessons we learned early in our life about those themes.

For example, let's just reflect on this together. How was mess, I'm gonna put mess in quotes, how was mess thought about in your home growing up? Think about visual mess. Think about emotional mess? Think about academic mess. Think about relationship mess. Did I grow up in a home where a wide range of feelings was tolerated? Did I grow up in a home where I had to be a fairly narrow, specific, very put together version of myself and was that encouraged in my home? You might be thinking, okay, how does how my parents dealt with my feelings relate to the fact that I really go ballistic when there are still dishes in the sink? It's because our body inside has learned lessons about who we need to be to feel valuable and

worthy. And so if being perfectly in order, perfectly presentable, if you grew up in a, ah, do not air your dirty laundry kind of family, which is an interesting phrase. It's a phrase that indicates mess even though that usually refers to our internal emotions. Then it makes sense the visual mess of your home would bring up a really big emotional reaction. So that's one. I know for me, I was kind of a quote perfect good girl growing up. I had my earmuffs, I had my shit together, like all the time. And it actually took me a while into adulthood to realize there were kind of downsides of that growing up.

Because it was so praised, you know, by everyone around me and I thought that was so core to who I was. And I think the downside was, ooh, well, when life gets messy, my internal life, my emotional life, my relationship life, my parent of three kids coming home late on a Sunday night in July, reality of what my home looks like life, I am not so well equipped to manage

because part of me is screaming, this is not who I am. Like this is unsafe. This is a three alarm fire. Another reason why mess can be so triggering is something I actually just recently started thinking about that I just want to share with you because I'm kind of developing these thoughts as I go. So a recent UCLA study found something

that I think was so compelling and so validating. They looked at stress responses. They literally looked at cortisol levels in our body, right? Cortisol doesn't lie. And they looked at how cortisol spikes, meaning how stress spikes, when you're looking at mess and clutter. And they looked at differences in general between women and men.

Guess what they found? Women have higher levels of a stress response. Their actual cortisol levels in their body are higher when looking at mess than men. Of course, these are general patterns, which tells me something that's completely in line with what I think a lot of us experience. We're not making it up that mess in our house is stressful. Our body actually perceives and takes in visual mess, often in a different and much more heightened way than many of our male counterparts.

So if it feels like, oh, I have a husband and I swear we can walk into the same house coming home late on a Sunday, and he is able to, I don't know, sit on the couch or just take a deep breath, and I feel like I'm in a war zone just trying to survive. You're not making that up. Your body actually registers those visuals very differently.

This has actually now been established, which is so validating. Now, I think there could be a couple of reasons for this, but the one I've been really thinking about that I want to share with you, and I'm so curious to get your thoughts, please do drop comments and tell me what you think, is if you're the parent who holds the majority of the mental load in your family, kind of the invisible clutter of our brain. For example, on a Sunday night, my kid has to get to bed

because we're first in pickup as opposed to being fifth. So she has to be ready extra early. Oh my goodness, that's where the water bottle is. I guess I didn't have to order those three new water bottles I ordered last night. Now that's one more Amazon box to return. I mean, I'm just getting started. But if you're the parent who's thinking about that kind of stuff constantly,

your brain is already at full capacity for mess. Think about it. Think about how messy it is to be the mental load holder. I know for me, three months before a certain soccer class opens up, I'm thinking about it. Because I know the date and time I have to sign up. And if I don't sign up in the 30 seconds after that email goes out, my kid is not gonna be in the class with their friends. That is so messy. I can't

close that file. I can't check that off. And so my brain feels very busy and undone. The bucket of things that I have to do and are not yet complete Feels like it's at a hundred percent full all the time Then I come into my house and I see a whole situation of more things that need to be done My body has a very different reaction to that then a parent who is not carrying that mental load or in a way that brain clutter and mess. So I just want you to think about that.

Are you the person who carries the majority of the mental load? First of all, let me say thank you for doing that. That is very real work. I think the hardest work we ever do is the real arduous work that is invisible. It's almost crazy making, but I know how real that is because I experienced it too. And I want you to then give yourself some compassion.

I promise you compassion isn't dangerous. Maybe how much I hold from a mental load perspective has something to do with how much capacity I have for visual mess and clutter in my home. Now I know insight alone doesn't change anything. I always used to tell clients that in my private practice. Insight is important. It is a precondition for change. It doesn't just lead to us not yelling and rage cleaning, but it is such an important foundation. And so why are so many of us so triggered by mess? A lot of it has to do with early on lessons

we learned about the version of ourselves we had to be clean and put together. And a lot of it, I also think, has to do with the connection to being the parent who holds the mental load or kind of the mental mess and clutter. -♪ -♪ -♪ So, the other day, I went on Instagram, and I just decided, hey, I want to ask you about

your relationship with Mess. And I thought I knew what the poll responses would be. But I was kind of shocked. And so I'm going to give you a moment to think about it. I'm going to read a question. I want you to think how you would answer it. And then I want you to think about kind of the responses in general. And then I promise you I won't make too long.

I'll share the answers. Okay, here's the first question I asked. How important does it feel to have a clean house when visitors come over? This is a question I asked you, our amazing Good Inside audience. And here are the choices I gave, okay? First response, critical. I immediately panic clean. Two very I don't feel okay unless the sink is empty. Three somewhat I tidy what they'll see. Four not really I tell myself they'll get it. How important does it feel to have a clean house when

visitors or friends come over? Here's the response. First of all, this was one of the most highly engaged polls I've ever put up which lets me know This is a topic on so many people's minds. So again, you're not crazy. You're not alone if this is a thing for you only 2% of Parents told me that having a clean house when visitors or friends come over is not that important because they'll assume they'll get it. 98% of parents know that this is a big topic for them. 28% said it's somewhat important. What that means is for 70% of the parents I asked,

having a clean house feels very or critically important. If you wanna know the split, very important was 32%, critically important, I immediately panicked clean was 39%. That basically means if there were a hundred of us in a room, 40 of them would say, I panic clean. This is critically important. And so please, I just want you to know you are not alone. This is not a sample size of one.

I know in your home, and sometimes it can feel like this, our partner or our kids around, you're like, oh my goodness, am I a monster? For you just to know you're not the only one who panics in these situations? I just think it is so, so helpful. Now here's the other important poll I asked. Where do you feel the most when your house is messy before people come over? My chest tightens, my brain spins, I feel shame, all

of the above. One-third of you, 33%, say all of it. Your chest tightens, your brain spins, you feel shame. 30% said the biggest thing is shame. Which goes back to why this is triggering in the first place. The truth is nothing ever really triggers us if it doesn't carry shame, right? Shame is kind of this feeling of aloneness or badness, unworthiness, almost like this deep unconscious

sense of unlovability. And to some degree, yes, going back to that Sunday night, I'm just a little bit late, but the 20 minutes coming home late feels like eternity. The Amazon box, the kind of unpacked bag, the sunscreen, the water bottle. It feels like each of those things is saying to me, you are not good at being a mom. Other people do this better than you do. Other people have figured this out. This isn't that hard. You are broken.

One of the things I just wanna give you knowing how much shame there is here, is to some degree we feel shame when we haven't separated our behavior, what we do or what's in front of us, from our identity, who we are. See, that's what just happened, right? When I was voicing it myself,

my messy house is saying to me, I am a failure, I am a monster. And so this mantra has really helped me. I'm not gonna lie, it doesn't help every time. Nothing helps every time, but it's helped me sometimes. And I think that's the best we get. My house is a mess, I am not a mess. My house is a mess, I am not a mess. My house is a mess.

I am not a mess. I actually really want you to join me in saying it out loud and maybe you're somewhere where that would be awkward, but just maybe embrace the awkwardness. I feel like someone might hear it and they'd be like, oh, kind of what I needed to hear. Maybe you'll make a new friend, okay? My house is a mess.

I am not a mess. And if you can see me, we have these two hands. My house is a mess. That's my house. It's a disaster. And if you can see me, we have these two hands. My house is a mess. That's my house. It's a disaster. It's true. I am not a mess. I'm not a disaster.

My house is a mess. I am not a mess. I want you to hear that as something I whisper to you as many times in a day as you need it. All right, I wanna move on to some parent questions I got about this topic. So many of you asked such poignant questions,

I'm just gonna go through a couple that came up a lot. Okay, when my kid leaves their stuff everywhere, I feel like they don't respect me or they don't respect their possessions. How do I stop taking things so personally? Okay, first of all, I just think this is a beautiful question because I know for me when I'm spiraling, this is not the question I ask.

My question sounds like this, so it's okay if your does. Why doesn't my kid respect me? Why doesn't my kid respect their belongings? I am not often so thoughtful as to say, how do I stop taking it personally? It just feels true. So if your house being left a mess, if your kid having their towel on the floor every time you see it, makes you think that your kid is looking at you in the eye and saying, I don't respect you. I don't respect how hard you work to get

me a nice towel. Like I have been there myself where the towel feels like it's talking in a very, very attacking way to your soul. Now this question has that layer of self-reflection where there's an acknowledgement that, ooh, I'm taking it personally. So I'm gonna roll with this question because I know we are taking it personally in that moment and I like this parent's kind of ability

to think about it in that way. I think one of the things that has helped me in moments is always kind of going back to the difference between least generous interpretation and most generous interpretation. So this is new for you, get ready, this is going to blow your mind and be helpful in literally every area of your whole life, even that has nothing to do with parenting. of your whole life, even that has nothing to do with parenting. When we get really upset, almost always we're using an LGI, least generous interpretation. And it is the easiest thing for our brain to come up with for a lot of reasons. Most people in our life growing up used a least generous interpretation with us.

And also our brain sees something annoying, it just short circuits to having a kind of this is annoying, someone is doing this to me interpretation. So let's take the towel on the floor or the fact that, you know, my kid's jacket is like, I'm picturing my own house. It's like the jacket is right by the door, the crocks are over here, the water bottle is here, the camp backpack, the towel somehow was somewhat out of the backpack, but as far away from the laundry as possible, it's like a trail. Least generous interpretation.

My kid doesn't respect me. My kid is spoiled, right? My kid thinks I'm just gonna pick up after them. Here's the thing about a least generous interpretation. It immediately puts us as kind of an enemy with our kid. I mean, if I start thinking that, I really don't like my kid in that moment. It's the part of parenting we don't talk about enough.

We interpret something our kid does in a way very frequently that in that moment just makes us not like our kid. And then you know what's gonna happen if I start seeing my kid as the enemy? I'm gonna act like an enemy right back. What is wrong with you? Did you not see the trail of shit you just left in the hallway? You think I'm gonna act like an enemy right back. What is wrong with you? Did you not see the trail of shit you just left in the hallway?

You think I'm gonna pick that up? I signed you up for this camp. The least you could do is pick up one thing. Okay, people often say to me, you are so good at acting. I always love this. I think that is the most creative interpretation. I think the most realistic interpretation is I've obviously said that.

Obviously, I'm human too. All of that is an LGI. So together, let's come up with an MGI. What is my most generous interpretation of why my child left a trail of items between our front door and their cubby where they could have put everything away in an organized fashion. Now, there's not one right answer, but here's what MGI does that is so powerful. It changes our perspective from this, where my aperture, like a camera's aperture, is so narrow. My kid doesn't respect me.

My kid thinks I'm going to pick their stuff, to doing this. Hmm. Instead of being certain my kid is an awful kid, now I'm just wondering. And as soon as you wonder with a most generous lens, I promise you, good things happen. So what might be an MGI? My kid had to pee as soon as he came home and knew I wanted things out of the backpack, but just couldn't get together and ran to the bathroom. Now, I'm not even saying this is true, but as soon as I make up an MGI, you know what happens first?

I like my kid again. I also like myself again, more than in that first moment I do. Another MGI. I have a much more sophisticated understanding of what coming in from camp and putting your stuff away looks like than my seven-year-old son does, maybe even than my 13-year-old son does. I can hold things in my head and sequence in a way my child can't.

See, what an MGI allows us is it allows us to like our kid, it allows us to not take it personally, and it allows us to approach our kid and then, and there's so many ideas that now come to mind, there's so many things I could say to my son next that would actually help him build the skill of staying organized, none of which will happen if I intervene from that angry LGI perspective.

Okay, let's go to the next question. I grew up in a house where dishes were never left in the sink overnight. I immediately thinking of a story. I'll come back to it. But now sometimes I do it and it makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong a story. I'll come back to it. But now sometimes I do it, and it makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong. Is this really bad? Ah.

I just want to give you a hug as a first step. And there's so much wrapped up here. And I'll tell you a story from my own home and my own childhood that I hope starts to answer your question without even saying it directly. So I remember being at a boyfriend's house, right, when we were dating, and waking up there, we're in college, and I'm my now husband, I was, you know, visiting him, and I remember getting coffee in the morning, okay? And the coffee thing was like almost empty. And so I was like, all right,

I'll make some new coffee. And I went to the filter, like where the filter was, and all of the kind of wet coffee grinds from the previous pot were still there. I think I was like 20 at the time. I was beyond confused. I thought the coffee machine was broken, okay? And then I realized in my house growing up,

my dad would always make coffee. And immediately after making the coffee before pouring the first cup even for himself, he would take the filter, empty it out, wash it and put it back clean. I kid you not, at age 20, I don't think I had ever seen a coffee filter that still had the grinds in it. And I felt really judgmental. Like who doesn't do that? I mean, I've later realized that my family

was definitely in the minority. Most people just wait to do that because it's annoying. And you don't even know if you're gonna have a second pot or whoever's gonna make the second pot can do that themselves, whatever it is. And this became like a thing for me where I then increasingly started making coffee on myself and I felt this deep internal conflict like before I poured the first cup.

Do I have to empty out the filter? Like can I enjoy my cup of coffee while the coffee filter still has these wet grinds? Is that selfish? Is that bad? I think so many times in adulthood when we're saying is this bad? Am I bad? I think so many times in adulthood when we're saying, is this bad? Am I bad? We're kind of wrestling with a different question.

Can I give myself permission to do something in my adult life that is just very different from how the adults in my life growing up did those things? And then we're not really even talking about coffee grinds or about stuff in the sink. I think we're talking about separation and figuring out what do we want to take from our family of origin, what values of our families are still values of ours.

Like, yes, I want to carry that on. And what are values we have in adulthood that are different from what our parents had that become the ones we live by? And I know you might be thinking, so your value you wanna pass on to your kid is about coffee grinds. It's not. Like if I actually think about what this question and my experience have in common is

is it okay to do something for myself before something else is cleaned up and tidy? Is it okay to engage in self-care instead of house care? Is it okay to have a moment of pleasure before a moment of efficiency? Is rest a reward or is rest a right? I don't wanna pretend that I have the answers to those questions exactly. And if you've heard me say anything like this before, I actually think the power is actually

always in asking ourselves a question, not coming up with a definitive answer. And so those are the sets of questions I'd even say to you, hit back 30 seconds. Just listen to the questions again, maybe do it again and again, and just see how the questions land. See if they do widen your aperture about what might be possible and what really feels important inside you.

We covered a lot today. And I hope that even if mess still feels triggering to you, which it will, one thing doesn't make everything better. That you have a little less mess in your head in terms of understanding it. Sometimes having clarity in the things that are so confusing for us makes the thing just a little bit easier. I know talking about this with you today actually really helped me and I'm hoping I had that impact on you.

So two things as we end. Number one, please know, even if right now or the moment you walk into your house today, it is a mess. You are not a mess. You are enough. And second, I love hearing from you about the podcast. I read every single thing you write, every email, and every single review. So if this episode or the podcast in general resonated, please take that moment to rate and review it.

It really means so much. I'll see you next time.