Often I would criticize myself for wanting more rest or doing nothing at all. I would remind myself how I was supposed to be doing things at all times. This was a toxic trait I developed over time by wrongly interpreting the concept of productivity and sticking to it for a long period of time. However, during the lockdown this year, I have finally come to peace with myself about giving what my body needs instead of being a control freak. My body is a beautiful garden, what does it need today? Your body is a beautiful garden, what does it need today? Do you ever ask this to yourself?
Clichés exist because they are mostly precise, whether it be self-love is the best love or you only live once. Right now is the era of technology and social media, and knowingly, or unknowingly we all are trapped in the trend of following people who are completely different from us. It has made us too conscious about ourselves, our body image, productivity and relationships with other people. We tend to show off everything on social media and so do most of the people which I believe results in finding “the grass greener on the other side” eventually leading us to constantly follow others’ rubbish.
I have found this tendency of trying to be perfect and needing one to be productive and useful at all times in myself as well as my friends. Believe it or not, at one point of time I just couldn’t stop self-sabotaging by negative self-talk, getting out of focus and disorganization. During different sharing circles and conversations I had with people, I found out that I was not the only one developing such behaviors and realized the need to start loving myself more in order to get rid of this toxic behavior. I started listening to Sadhguru who would remind me that the biggest thing in life is that “I am alive today” and for my own good I should celebrate this life as much as I can. According to him, being joyful for the life you are and the time you have to experience this beautiful ride is the only thing that matters. Moreover, he taught me that I need not think, feel or do anything to feel complete because I am already a complete package in myself.
With these daily reminders, I set my mind to do nothing at all for some days but just watch Korean dramas and movies, eat a lot and spend time with myself without complaining about not getting things done or not being productive enough. I won’t lie, initially I was a disaster because things I hadn’t accomplished would bother me a lot but with daily reminders to myself from spiritual leaders, songs about self-love, quotes from Pinterest about the same and practicing it regularly; I finally have become tranquil and aware about what my garden needs every day. At the moment, I have completely detached myself from social sites which imposed the idea of toxic productivity on me and nowadays, I just love doing nothing at all. This is my personal experience about my first step towards loving myself more and fulfilling the needs of my beautiful garden- my body.
As a garden needs sun, seed, food, water, and soil (all at different times); you also need reminders, pep talks, TV shows, work time, relaxation, time in nature, etc. according to what your body asks for at different times. I hope each of us learn to give what our beautiful garden needs and what we need every day.
