My Mexican Mom’s “Como Tienes” Life Motto Keeps Me Less Stressed and More Organized
My mom, like most people who grew up in Mexico, has a saying, proverb, or phrase for just about any situation. Whether it was a funny rhyme when my sister or I would scrape our knees playing outside, or something insightful about love and relationships, these sayings stuck with us well into adulthood. There has been one in particular, though, that has become my favorite and is still my mom’s ultimate life motto.
While I’m unsure if I inherited my passion for cleanliness or learned it by watching my mom, it’s such a major part of my personality that it’s one of the first things people learn about me. Perhaps I owe it to the saying my mom would tell us as a way to encourage us to clean up our rooms: “Como tienes tu cuarto, así tienes tu mente.” It roughly translates to, “The state of your room is the same as your state of mind.”
The original saying refers to “home” instead of “room” (which are the words I live by now), but it was my mom’s way of letting us know that a clean room meant less stress, as well as a guarantee that she would stop bugging us about cleaning it up.
When I first left my mom’s house, I rented a room in a family’s house while I went to college. It was a jarring experience not only because it was my first time away from home, but because this family lived quite differently than I was used to in terms of cleanliness and tidiness. My room, however, was my sanctuary in a space that ultimately wasn’t mine. It was during this time that I first started repeating my mom’s saying to myself; it helped me release the stress I felt from not being able to control how clean the rest of this house was.
I’ve lived in a few more places since then, including returning to my mom’s house and moving in with my now husband, and this motto has continued to stick with me through all of them. It feels like a way to recalibrate my domestic life and state of mind when I’m feeling overwhelmed, which usually manifests itself as a messy home.
In times of high stress and anxiety, my mom’s motto reminds me to keep calm and focus that energy on making my space neat and clean. It’s also a great distraction that allows me to step away from whatever problem or stressor happening in life, and come back to it with a clear mind and even clearer home.