Productivity
In today's world, we all feel the pressure of being productive in your everyday life. At work, in your home, with hobbies, friends and family. This social pressure can feel restricting, if not suffocating. Today I will write about my own personal experiences with productivity (or the lack there of).
The Lazy Half-Wit
I honestly don't want to count the moments or periods in my life where I was unable to cope properly with any mental health issues, which led to me being too tired to function like a 'normal' person in society. Now let's not forget that 'normal' doesn't even exist, but I do think you can understand what I am getting at. I was low on energy, had no inspiration, barely any joy and almost anything was too much to ask or do. Unfortunately, I think a lot of you will be able to relate.
Whenever I was feeling like I was with these type of emotions, I was being very unkind to myself as well. I apparently thought that feeling like a useless sack of shit was not enough and decided to bash myself into the ground even more. I did this by thinking multiple times a day that I was a lazy half-wit for not doing anything productive throughout the day (even though it felt physically and mentally impossible to do). Now of course, when I am looking back at what was happening, I can see that this was totally not helping me in any way. Yet this was also something that I would always do to myself when I was not feeling good, or even still can do. But I will be writing more in depth about this type of behavior in a different post.
Don't be Ridiculous
When I started talking to others (AKA my therapist) about the need to be productive in order to feel like a proper human being instead of a lazy half-wit, I saw that I was being ridiculous. I was not only hurting myself everyday more by thinking that I am a lazy half-wit, I was also not seeing any of the good qualities and/or needs that I had. I realized that I always wanted to do so much with my time, but that I never knew what exactly to do. Sometimes you want to do a million things at once and when you can't choose, you just decide to do nothing. Which can make it so that loose some of that inspiration and feel unaccomplished.
After thinking about all of this, I saw that I had so much good in me, but that I did not allow myself to express that. I could feel that, because I didn't think that I was proper human being, I did not let myself rest and recuperate when I so desperately needed it. Not being productive wasn't ridiculous. Not letting myself be and giving myself the love I needed, was ridiculous!
Schedule it out
One of the biggest changes I made, was planning more of my day. I found that I felt most unproductive (AKA shitty) when I was not doing things I love throughout the day or at night. This was actually quite an easy solve. Each day when I had time for myself, I would reflect on what my mind or body currently needed. And then I would do something totally crazy... Because then I just did exactly what I wanted!
No, to be serious, spending those hours I had for myself by doing things I loved and/or needed, I allowed myself to feel proud and feel loved. I was knitting, reading, drawing, painting, doing yoga, watching TV or looking at my socials and I felt relieved. Relieved from the stress I put myself under, because I thought I was being 'unproductive and unworthy' when I was just the opposite and wanted/needed to do my hobbies.
Moral of the story
So I don't know any way to put it less annoyingly, but my moral of the story is: Listen to yourself and what you need. Do the things you want and do not care whether it is productive, because doing something for yourself is always a good thing!
Most of all, be kind to yourself. Especially when you need it.
