I have just arrived home from a two week break to see my Dad and Sheila in Spain.
My husband couldn’t come because of work and he has been so busy that he was unable to give my hanging baskets the attention they needed. And so they look a wee bit forlorn and slightly withered (and dead in patches). It’s not his fault - he hasn’t had a spare minute. While I’ve been sunning myself on the beach, he’s been working hard into the night.
I love pottering in my small patch of garden.
It’s an intrinsically mindful, relaxing pastime. Dead-heading my potted plants, watering them, observing in awe the miracle of nature as new shoots and flower buds pop up.
As I watered the plants this morning, desperately trying to inject some life back into them, it made me consider how fragile the balance can sometimes be .
Thinking about my own ‘wellbeing’ , I considered how much my body and mind revive and come to a place of calm when I look after them rather than expecting everything to carry on and things to be okay when I am running on empty - like my poor hanging baskets starved of water. For some reason, I seem to think I am some form of ‘superwoman’, who can just keep going regardless, without any regard for how much my wellbeing needs to be protected and nurtured if I am to maintain life at full throttle as it usually is.
Things that really help me to feed my wellbeing are:
Sleep
Eating healthily
Being active
Being organised
Having a sense of order in my home (it’s chaos today with holiday washing everywhere and the house needs a bloody good clean but I’m ignoring it )
Taking time out for formal Mindfulness practice
Integrating informal Mindfulness practice into my daily life
Not rocket science, obviously, but for me, these things all link in together to enable me to navigate the weekly challenges of family life with two teenagers and a full time job (working with more teenagers) whilst (hopefully) maintaining some sense of calm , optimism and happiness.
And of the things on this shortlist, it is my Mindfulness practice that has the most profound impact. Without it, I get tunnel vision - trapped in the constant stream of mental ‘doing’ , invariably tinged with self-criticism and impatience. And before I know where I am, my wellbeing has started to deplete, leaving me rather like the withered hanging baskets and potted plants that greet me today after two weeks without enough TLC.
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