Being my normal self, I am returning to my normal day-to-day life after a vacation, not as soon as I would have liked, but here I am. During my time away, a number of hours were spent on self-reflection. I learned things about myself that I never knew.
I am a workaholic, and I am not proud of this. When I work, it pretty much consumes me, which is not healthy at all. I shouldn’t say it only applies to work. If I am not working, I find other things to focus on. Things like volunteering, crafting, or coursework. These may sound like great things to be into, but when not focusing on them causes me distress, I know there is an issue.
I need to feel productive. When I don’t feel like I am contributing or producing something, my self-worth takes a plunge. This mindset is unhealthy, so I decided to do something about it. During my vacation, I made the choice not to be productive. Even writing that now causes anxiety in the pit of my stomach. Anxiety aside, I did survive without being productive, and I was even able to relax.
Trust me; there was a lot of self-talk happening during my vacation. At times I would feel like there was something I should be doing or I was forgetting something. After those thoughts crossed my mind, there was this freeing feeling that came next. I reminded myself that I didn’t need to do anything and could focus on myself.
I think with ADHD, I jump from interest to interest, so I fast; I don’t take the time to evaluate whether what I am doing is enjoyable. So making a conscious effort to stop being productive worked well for me. Over my time off did things that I enjoyed and allowed myself to get lost in things without worrying that there was something else I needed to do. It made me think about the things I normally did and evaluate whether I did them for other people or for myself. A number of things I did for other people rather than myself. Realizing this was great because some things I thought I liked, I found out I didn’t like at all. Knowing 100% that I did or didn’t like something was a great feeling.
During this trip, I lived in the moment without worrying about the future. It was something I didn’t know I could do. Living in the now, I thought that was something other people could magically do, and I would never experience it. Thankfully I was wrong, and my life after vacation looks promising.