Day 13 Silence is Golden

I have to discipline myself with garden tasks, because I find once you start a job in the garden it quickly mushrooms and becomes a big project.  With limited energy levels and concentration, it’s really important not to take on too much.  I get easily dispirited at the moment, the ‘critical voice’ within me rising to tell me that I can do nothing properly, as evidenced by my single state.  This is self-destructive, and as I am given to such a mindset, sometimes it feels better not to try, than to try and fail.  Again, I would propose that this reaction too, is unhelpful.  I used to write lists and have written elsewhere of my ex-husband’s habit of writing an impossibly long list of jobs to do in a day, then beat himself up, and somehow manage to blame me as well, when he only achieved two of the jobs, which in actual fact was about all a normal human being could expect to do.

I do write lists, but not as often, and sometimes in notebooks, so they can be crossed off and valued for the completion.  Another thing my ex-husband did was not to value his achievements, even if he worked hard for them, and that toxic attitude, so deeply embedded within me, can feed an already struggling soul.  So I am aware of all the traps I set for myself, but still things need to be done, and actually completing a task should be esteemed, if not actually celebrated.

I’ve been meaning to get round to trimming the hedge here for a few weeks.  The job has daunted me.  I have an electric hedge trimmer that is lightweight and easy to use.  I also have a petrol hedge trimmer, which I keep meaning to sell, but it’s on my non-list of jobs to do sometime.  Today I decided to set myself a small part of the hedge to do, and thus in the early evening sunshine I set to. The task was surprisingly simple and I completed my job, and did more besides, relishing the activity.

It’s very quiet in my house tonight.  There is a calm that is more than just silence.