How I Almost Ruined My Weekend
I garden. I’m not sure I’m confident enough yet to say “I’m a gardener”, but I’ll get there one day.
I grow an assortment of veggies every summer. I do it because I care about the environment and because eating a carrot that grew in my yard tastes a million times better than anything I’ve ever purchased.
It also offers me an opportunity to practice things like mindfulness, creativity, persistence, and patience. Being in the garden is kind of like going to the gym. I enjoy it, I always feel better AFTER I do it, but sometimes I have a hard time motivating myself to actually do it.
One of the most surprising things about gardening is that it has been very effective at challenging my thoughts and beliefs about productivity. I have been programmed (Thanks, Capitalism!) to prioritize a schedule and productivity goals above all else, often at the expense of my mental and physical wellbeing. But my garden doesn’t care. It doesn’t play by the rules of Capitalism.
Let me explain….
My plan was to garden this past weekend. I had some weeding and spring cleanup to complete plus two new raised beds to install. The long weekend in May is the perfect time for all the garden things for many reasons.
The snow has melted and I can plant things without being worried about the ground freezing.
The mosquitos haven’t hatched yet so I don’t have to worry about finding the bug spray.
The kids all had plans that didn’t require too much of me, so I could focus.
The holiday gives me extra time to make lots of progress in the garden and still have some time to do normal weekend things like meal prep and connect with friends.
However, the weather had other plans and it rained all weekend.
Instead of being excited for spring showers, the badly needed moisture for my region, or the opportunity to curl up with a good book (or the newest season of Outlander on Netflix), I was stressed that I was going to fall behind schedule on my master garden plan - tense body, racing mind, trying to plan the rest of the weekends of the summer to account for this schedule delay kind of stressed.
Once upon a time, I blamed performance anxiety and this type of stress on everyone else - my demanding boss, the culture of my organization, my judgy colleagues who might think I was lazy.
However, none of those were part of my current experience.
In this case…
🌱 There was no (external) boss. Just me. With my own expectations.
🌱 Similarly, I was the creator of the culture in my own garden. Why was I creating such a demanding schedule with unrealistic timelines?!?
🌱 I had no judgy colleagues (or neighbors). In fact, one even texted me to say how great my new garden boxes looked, even though they were just sitting there on the grass with nothing happening in them yet.
I had internalized all those toxic messages and was now holding myself to some imaginary structure that was causing harm.
I’ll write more about what I did to help me shift my mindset and my physical experience and ultimately enjoy my weekend (in spite of the rain) in my next post.
In the meantime, I would love to hear… what are the types of things that feel stressful to you, outside of work? Send me a note at amy at hummingbirdconsulting.com.
