Sunday 5 August 2012

Bite sized chunks

I woke up this morning in a weird mood. This doesn't happen to me very often thankfully, but when the  black dog does start to descend on me, I have to take my self off and do something - usually involving dirt and plants. So this morning I went down to the allotment at about 7.30am. At first I was filled with panic, it was so overgrown. All I could see was a jungle of weeds (and our allotment plot is a who's who of pernicious weeds), and what few crops that were remaining had been attacked by slugs and snails. I know that when I get that 'this is too much to cope with feeling' I need to take it a bit at a time and not look beyond the bit that I am working on, so I started harvesting and digging up the last of the broad beans and starting my counter attack from there.
It got me thinking about what a useful approach this can be in other situations that feel overwhelming because there seems to be so much to do. It's a tactic I should use more at work. There are times when my 'to do' lists become the problem rather than the solution, if like the allotment this morning, I look at the whole thing rather than taking each bit at a time.
So I got some digging done, harvested my paltry potato crop and started planning in my head for next year. This year's rain and slug and snail problem has literally washed out all my aspirations. However just as I was leaving today, I looked at my autumn fruiting raspberry canes - which are flourishing with hundreds of fruits coming on. My default positivity was restored and I went home to cook a masterly veggie breakfast.