Gardening with ME: the art of resting in the garden

You would think having a lovely garden to sit in, you would find me regularly resting there. You would think.

However, the one curse of being a gardener, even one with ME, is that after five minutes of sitting there enjoying the flowers, the buzz of the bees, the antics of the birds, the sun and a gentle breeze, you start noticing jobs that need doing. And you think, “I’ll just do this…”, and it starts from there.

Just jobs. When I was first diagnosed with ME, I saw a counsellor for a while, as part of helping me trying to come to terms with my diagnosis. She noticed that I kept saying, in relation to household and garden tasks, “Well, I just wanted to do X, then I was exhausted”, and coined the term: just jobs. We worked on me trying to stop finding something just to do before resting, with some success when it came to household tasks.

But I have really struggled changing this behaviour in the garden. I go outside to spend five minutes enjoying the blooms, notice that something just quickly needs doing, and before I know it, I’ve just jobbed myself into exhaustion again.

Part of the problem is, that I enjoy doing jobs in the garden. I love ‘playing with my plants’, which is what I call these tasks. There is a lot that I now get my gardener to do, such as all the mowing, digging and planting larger plants, adding manure, and most of the weeding, etc. But there is still a lot left to do. Potting up an alpine plant that’s outgrown its current pot, pruning as part of the three D’s (dead, diseased or damaged), deadheading (removing spent flowers) and taking cuttings. And then there is the garlic, awaiting harvest.

So, have I found a way around the ‘just job’ problem in the garden? A little. I use the Visible app to plan each day how much I think I might be able to manage, which of course includes common tasks like meals, the occasional shower, appointments, as well as gardening jobs. And I have Visible to go off, loudly, if I go over my anaerobic threshold for more than two minutes. I write lists, breaking tasks down into smaller sections, and go outside with a firm intention to ONLY do one just job from the list for the day. Ok, maybe two.

Lately, I’ve been working at being more intentional about only doing one, only one, just job before going outside. If I notice something else, it goes on the list. I allow myself to just sit outside for a little while and enjoy the lovely space I’ve created. Sometimes I even go out with the intention of just resting in the garden, no just jobs at all! A novel idea, indeed.

I’ve found listening to my favourite podcasts helps, because to be able to take in what I’m hearing, I need to sit quietly and just listen. The problem is, the plants tempt me. I can hear them say, “could you just give me a quick prune, come on, it won’t take long”. I turn up the sound on my tablet, but sometimes, the plants are louder. Sigh.

So no, I haven’t mastered the art of resting in the garden. I’m getting better at it, but like pacing, it’s a very slow change in behaviour. The gardener in me, and ME in the garden, is a balancing act that still needs refining. Anyway, I’m off to do a just job. I am just going to sit outside and enjoy the garden. Really, I am.