The Mindful Migraine

As I was watering the parsley pot plant on my kitchen windowsill this morning, I tried to figure out why it looked a bit sadder than normal.  I realized that the soil was saturated.  Someone else – possibly everyone else – in my family was watering the parsley pot plant.

My mind started doing what my mind tends to do (like that time with my reptilian brain), and what my brain tends to do, is spin out:

• Who was the mystery plant-waterer?
• What made them start to help now?
• Wasn’t it my job to water all the pot plants in the house?
• When did it officially become my job to nurture all the pot plants?
• Why was it my job to look after the plants as well as the pets, the family, the laundry, the contents of the kitchen cupboards…?
• Is it wrong to be annoyed at someone when they’re trying to help?
• Is there such a thing as over-nurturing?

And then, as it’s does, my mind started to go even further afield, and I remembered a tonne of other tenuously (un)related ideas:

• Miley Cyrus singing ‘I can buy myself flowers’.
• Dubious platitudes, such as, ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’.
• The primary school teacher who told me to “let the kids sit in their discomfort longer”, meaning they SHOULD experience boredom, loneliness, and hunger, and recognize these as normal emotions, and then experience how to get themselves out of that state of being without your intervention.
• My husband, who’s a sailor, saying “always look after the vessel – the crew can take care of themselves, but without the vessel being properly maintained, we’re all going down”.
• The motherhood analogy where you imagine yourself dispensing jellybeans (love and attention and energy) to everyone in the family, until it all runs out and there’s nothing left for yourself; no jellybeans for poor mummy.
• The parents for whom the jellybean analogy is a reality, and due to the cost-of-living crisis are going without dinner so their kids can eat.
• The global epidemics of starvation and obesity…

As I tipped out the water from the bottom of the parsley pot, I wondered:

• How do we choose what tasks to delegate and which ones to retain?
• Whose fault is it that we choose to hold on to so many duties rather than ask for help?
• How do we find a balance between helping everyone else and making enough time for self-care?
• Where do I sit on the spectrum that spans from self-neglect to over-indulgent-self-care?
• Am I a water-hungry nurture-needy pot plant or more of a cactus?
• How do we acknowledge that chronic pain is a disabling disease which is a burden on ourself and our families, without ‘leaning in’ too far to the negativity and becoming crippled by self-pity?
• How do we ‘sit in our discomfort longer’ when our discomfort is pretty uncomfortable?
• How do we look after the vessel, eat the jellybeans and buy ourselves flowers without feeling guilty for ‘putting ourselves first’…

‘And so on and so forth’ as they used to say.

I don’t have answers to any of the questions.

To be honest, once the parsley was drained, I dried my hands on a tea-towel and put the kettle on for my morning half-cup of coffee. Distracted by the clouds out the window, I wondered whether to risk a load of washing… I think I’ll risk it, otherwise they’ll be two loads of washing to deal with tomorrow… on top of a soggy pot plant.

Until then, take care, Linda.