When clients pay it forward for house cleaners, how do you show gratitude?
If you’re not sure how to show appreciation while accepting kindness, it’s okay.
And if you have trouble accepting gifts, the answers you’ve been looking for are here.
Listen: Pay It Forward for House Cleaners
Watch: Pay It Forward for House Cleaners
Hey there, I’m Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question, and I get to help you find an answer. You can find this and 400 other answered questions in this series on our YouTube channel.
Pay it Forward in House Cleaning
What is pay it forward in house cleaning, and how does it work? How do you pay it forward if someone has been paying you during the pandemic and you haven’t actually shown up to clean?
There’s a house cleaner that called in and asked this question.
“Hi, Angela. I have a client that is paying me even though I’m not coming to the house during the pandemic. And I would like to know how to show my appreciation that she is doing this.”
A Lot of House Cleaners are Uncomfortable When People Do Nice Things for Them
Firstly, there are lots of house cleaners who are uncomfortable when people do nice things for us. It’s uncomfortable because we are the givers, we are the people-pleasers, we are the one that blesses the lives of other people.
So, when people bless the lives of us, sometimes it’s a little bit uncomfortable and we don’t know how to receive that. Let me share with you the basics in how miracles work. I love miracles, and I grew up in a religion that says, ask, and you shall receive. Now, there are no regulations as to how many times a day you can ask.
So, I started asking all the time. But here’s the catch. If you’re going to ask for a miracle, then you have to also be willing to receive it. It’s such a foreign concept for most of us.
Some Customers Will Give You That Miracle
So, here we are going into a pandemic. Money is tight. We’ve asked for a miracle, and then our customers pay us money and we haven’t even shown up to clean. And so, the first thing we ask is “Should I give the money back, or should I do something nice for them.”
It makes it weird when someone tries to give you a gift and you can’t receive it. So, when you try to reciprocate and try to give something back, you try to do more, it starts getting weird. It convolutes the reason why they gave you the gift.
So, the very first thing you need to practice, and it’s one of the hardest lessons that I ever had to learn, was accepting the graciousness of others. So, when someone gives you something with no strings attached, your job is to not attach any strings.
Practice Accepting When People Do Nice Things for You
This is indeed an interesting concept. So, here’s the challenge for you, and you may want to do something nice in return, but you need to practice for 30 days to accepting it with no strings attached.
Now, when I did this exercise, I was at a customer’s house cleaning and she said, “Would you like a tomato sandwich?” Well, I didn’t because I was in a hurry. But for 30 days, no matter what happened, I had to accept it.
So, I said, “Yes, thank you very much.” So, she made me a tomato sandwich. And I ate it and it was delicious. Thank you very much.
Some People Will Offer You Things You Do Not Want
Another woman was cleaning out her closet, and she said, “My husband has all these extra clothes that he’s not using. Do you want them?” Well, no, I didn’t want them. I’m not a man. I’m not going to wear his clothes. They don’t fit me. I don’t know any men that live nearby that I would give them to. I didn’t have a use for them.
But here’s the thing, when someone gives you something, to practice receiving for 30 days you have to take it no matter what. So, for this particular instance, I said, “Yes, thank you. I’ll take them.” Then on my way home from the job, I dropped them off at the Goodwill Industries.
I passed them on so that they could go through the giving process, from her heart to the heart of someone who needed it. It wasn’t me. I was the middleman between, but I received it and then I passed it on.
People Started to Give Me a Bunch of Things
So, what happened over the course of 30 days, people started giving me a bunch of things. And it seemed like I had opened the doors or the flood gates of receiving. And then I was like, yes, this is awesome because now I know how to receive it.
As well as, I have a bunch of stuff I don’t need, don’t want, can’t use, but I can give them to other people. Now, it’s weird, because as I started passing on and re-gifting the stuff that came through my life. There were people that were like, oh my goodness, you’ve changed my life.
This is exactly what I needed at this moment. So, sometimes the thing you get is not for you, but you have the connection of the person that needs it. So, when you receive it and you pass it on, it comes through you to the person that actually needs it.
Always Trying to Pay Someone Back Gets Uncomfortable
So, as far as receiving, and there are times people want to give you something, and if you try to always gift them back, like pay that person back, it does get weird and it makes them uncomfortable.
And they may say,“Well, she doesn’t know how to receive gifts, so I’m going to stop giving her gifts.” And then instead of the miracles flowing through you, you’ve put a halt on it. And then you’re always asking, and you’re praying for more, and you’re hoping for more, and you’re wishing for more, and you’re struggling for more, when in fact it was coming to you, and all you had to do is open the doors and be a channel for which that could flow.
So, it’s an important concept, and because we are people pleasers, we want to be the ones that give.
If You Want to Give You Must Receive
But if you are going to give, you must also receive it, it’s such a cool concept. So here is the pay it forward part. As your life is blessed, there will be other people down the road, on your journey, through your path, whose lives you are going to be able to bless.
And as you bless their lives, there’s no expectation of anything in return. It’s not a game of keeping score. It’s a game of asking and receiving and using it to the very best that you have, blessing the lives of other people, and then making it count. It’s a flow, it’s an energy. And so, when someone gives you something, you say, “Oh my goodness, thank you so much. You’ve just blessed my life.”
That’s it. There’s nothing else for you to do. And then as your life becomes abundant and you are able to bless the lives of others, then you pay it forward.
Learn to Accept Instead of Making it Weird
That’s how that works. If the air conditioning man came and you gave him a tip, and then he showed up later that afternoon with some homemade bread and said, “Well, you gave me a tip and I wanted to give you something back.”
All of a sudden, it just got really weird. So, stop the weirdness, just learn to accept. How do you show your appreciation for her? You say, “Oh my goodness, thank you so much.” And if you want, you can write her a personal, handwritten thank-you note.
“You’ve blessed the lives of me and my family during this pandemic when we’ve been out of work. You’ve kept food on our table. And for you, I will eternally be grateful.” That will go so far. And that’s all she’s looking for. You don’t need to do anything else.
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