Thanks to covid, being cooped up at home+ mind being in a world of its own, a lot of thinking and self-introspection has been happening.
And many a times, am circling back to “conditioning” – how we have been brought up, what we are told as we grow up, what are the expectations that people had/continue to have from US (irrespective of our age)
It is Sunday – 10:15 a.m. I am sitting on the bed feeling lazy.
Nothing wrong with this scene, except my mind is constantly telling me “I need to shower and cook lunch” [even though I know it’s not gonna take me more than 20 minutes to get everything on the stove and cooking] There is this nagging sense of guilt that I’m whiling away time, not being productive..
I keep pushing that thought way and I know for a fact that I’m not shirking any of my duties or responsibilities but it’s almost like there are a pair of eyes peering into the back of my head going ‘you are useless, you are a waste l, you are wasting time, you are not doing anything, what’s the point of your existence.’
Over the years I have learned that is perfectly alright to do things at my own pace and that I am more than capable of handling things (irrespective of how challenging or crazy they are), I am worth more than what people give me credit for… Since I took charge of my life and been working on myself the last decade or so, thankfully it doesn’t affect me as much as it used to, but again my brain is puzzled, ‘why do I feel this way? why have I been conditioned to feel this way?’
Even during weekdays when I have my to-do list and I know that it’s not going to take me more than 4-5 hours to complete all the tasks and I do get around to completing them, whenever I am taking a break or just chilling or reading a book, there is always this little voice in my head with “are you being productive”, “is there something you should be doing instead of doing what you are doing”?? Ugh..Crazy, right?
Recently I attended a Group Therapy session and I discovered this is a problem not just with me but with pretty much everybody around us and again goes back to how we when brought up, how we have been told that we need to be busy/doing something on the other through the day and that’s the only way we prove the world that we are worthy of taking up the space that we do..Such BS i tell you..
So coming back to my current scenario- i just told myself – I will shower in another few minutes and get around the cooking. Till then, I will do whatever else I want to do – it could be replying to emails/reading a book or just lazing on the bed listening to music or just not doing anything and it’s fine.. heck, it’s perfectly Ok – there’s nothing to feel guilty about.
Today morning spoke to a friend- he lives alone with his dogs and he was still in bed and spoke about how he is probably going to spend most of the day in the bed and I told him I’m jealous & he was a lucky bug.
Guess What? When I am done doing what I have to do, I am going to chill – am looking forward to catching the cricket match in the afternoon … that’s it, no other plans for the day .. also it’s a full lockdown in my city – so yayy!!
So what has your life been like free covid post covid during a lockdown or otherwise do you also put additional pressure on yourself for no apparent reason? Do you also blame it on conditioning? Do share, would love to know…
An interesting set of videos on
How do I strip away my conditioning? | Krishnamurti & Eric Robson
Want to break free from the conditioning of your past that runs so much of life? – Alex Shailer
