In group supervision, a colleague is telling us about a client stuck in a negative loop of self-defeating behaviours despite constantly expressing a desire to change and make his life better.
Instead of focusing attention on doing things that he rationally and logically knows will make him feel better, he slumps onto the sofa each evening playing video games in which he can escape from himself and try being Geralt from ‘The Witcher’ who spends his days as a monster hunter, or Lara Croft from ‘Tomb Raider’ who discovers ancient civilisations and fights off baddies with her bare hands
The saying goes that doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result is the definition of insanity, but it’s often the definition of comfort.
I was thinking about how easy it is to get stuck in the same dissatisfying patterns this morning while I went around the garden, the dew still thick on the grass, picking up the slugs and snails, full from eating all of my vegetable plants.
I’m beginning to lose count but I think I’ve now planted the same seeds at least three times and maybe more. Sure, I’ve made a token attempt at establishing a defensive strategy against the slimy little critters, but I know my heart isn’t in it.
The self-help industry thrives on the basis that most people who want to create change would prefer that someone else do the hard yards for them.
I’ve worked with many people who appear to think that simply purchasing a book will be enough to create a miraculous shift in their emotional fortunes, but even those who go as far as reading it are often still some way short.
There’s something compelling about the idea that someone else has the answers and that all you have to do is copy their homework.
I, like many of us, sometimes throw money at a problem hoping it might provide a solution but it’s rarely successful.
Buying an expensive bucket of wool pellets, some organic sprays, and sinking ‘slug pubs’ into my raised beds seems to have had little impact on my success at growing leafy greens.
Having suffered the same issues for years it’s clear that I’m a bigger part of the problem than I like to let on.
Whenever I’ve done something reasonably well I have given it, for a time at least, proper consideration and thought.
As I already have all sorts of problems maintaining focus and attention, the lure of doing something different which takes me away from a pursuit that seems to be serially unsuccessful and disappointing is very powerful, so an absence of immediate and straightforward success is part of the reason that I can’t grow decent beetroot and why a lot of people get stuck in low mood, dysfunctional relationships, crippling anxiety, and addiction.
It isn’t just the slugs and snails that disrupt things, it’s my waning interest and impatience too.
Whilst I may diligently and enthusiastically plant seeds in modules and trays during March, by May my commitment is already beginning to wane. Painstaking ‘pricking out’ and ‘potting on’ is the sort of thing I enjoy watching other people do whilst I marvel at levels of patience so far beyond me they are inconceivable.
The other problem I have with vegetable gardening comes from what looks like a scarcity mindset but is also an extension of the comical anthropomorphism I wrote about here.
If I manage to get my vegetables to a point where they are ready to harvest I have great difficulty doing so because the thought of no longer having them after all that work is debilitating.
Last year’s carrots were still in the ground this spring because the pulling of them was so satisfying and their slender perfectly formed bodies so attractive that I wanted to save the joy and found I preferred chatting to them while I was throwing stuff into the compost rather than eating them.
When vegetables from the supermarket are for consumption but the ones you’ve grown in your garden become your friends you know there’s something amiss.
This too is, of course, about comfort and the difficulty I have in pushing past familiar and known routines to establish something different and potentially more rewarding.
The routine is always the same, just how I seem to like it.
I always sow seeds in March, plant them out if I’ve managed to keep them alive, have them all eaten by the slugs, plant another lot, lose interest when it gets too hot (i.e. over 22 degrees), and then feel so protective of the few vegetables that make it through against all odds that I can’t bring myself to eat them.
As insistent as I am about becoming a good vegetable gardener, I don’t appear willing to change to make it happen.
So what creates the disconnect between part of us wanting to move in one direction and another part seemingly intent on standing in our way?
Fear of failure and/or success is often a part of the reason.
What if I really applied myself to growing vegetables and still found I absolutely suck at it? That might feel worse than going at it half-arsed and hoping for the best. Even if I succeeded, how would I deal with the pressure to keep doing well and turn out impressive cucumbers year after year?
For some, the idea of happiness is a burden in itself. If you feel happy, isn’t it inevitable that a fall will come at some point afterwards, in which case it might be safer to stay within the familiar comfort of dissatisfaction where nothing feels all that good but at least you know what it’s like.
What if you don’t believe you’re deserving of happiness? That too is more common than you might imagine.
We can feel so at ease with these self-defeating and dysfunctional ideas of ourselves that the thought of sustainable change can bring about an identity crisis where a choice between being who we are and someone who, as far as we can tell, has never existed is terrifying.
At least I know who I am as a hopeless and hapless gardener so remaining stuck there is much easier than taking a step into the unknown.
A rare success in the garden is the flourishing Pyracantha which has come on leaps and bounds over the past year. It’s grown so big in fact that its branches are leaning across the washing line making it hard to dry the clothes and inviting the spiders and bees that frequent its blossom-laden bows into my underwear and pillowcases.
I ought to take a pruning saw to the most invasive of its limbs before it collapses, but I think I might just plant another row of Cavelo Nero first.
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