Reframing Self-Love As Productive

If you’re anything like me, you were taught about the superior value of productivity from a young age. Often, at the expense of self-care.

It’s time we undo this back-asswardsy!

Let’s take a look at where it starts — in Sapiens, Yuval Harari lays out how before the Agricultural Revolution, humans “worked” 20-30 hours a week hunting and gathering, and lived relatively happy lives…all be they shorter and with more threats. With the discovery of planting seeds, reaping crops, comes the importance of planning, the future…time. “Good” harvests. “Bad” seasons. The impact of the unknown and uncontrollable— drought, freezing. And working harder to “control” it, “defeat” it, “dominate” it, nature. With this comes the creation of wealth, money, power. Eventually, the monarchy was birthed. While the king at the top feasts on his turkey leg and gulps his wine, those in his court live almost as lavish lives. There’s a steady decline in standard of living as the altitude descends from the top of the castle, until reaching the peasants outside the walls. Full on slavery results. Eventually capitalism is birthed. And it requires a constant state of acceleration to survive, hence…always be productive 😨!

The hoax is, are the kings really that happy?

In my last coaching meeting of 2024, my client chose to explore frustration she feels witnessing other people not working hard. She's been practicing slowing down, and she mentioned how she can feel resentment when all the other members of her family make sure to do something nice for themselves every day, like play basketball or go to the gym. We talked about how this type of irritation can signal something we really want for ourselves and aren't yet letting ourselves have. We also investigated allowing the uncomfortable feelings that arise when someone we love is doing or not doing something we fear will bring them harm...and being with those feelings before taking any action, which probably is then as simple as saying, “sweetie, I feel really scared when I think about...” What she really wants is for her son to be happy…and leave the world a little better than he found it.

Still in a place of fear, thinking about “what if” her son doesn’t write good college essays, she said “well, if I fail at something, at least I can say I worked really hard.”

I responded, well, what if that became...

“If I fail at something, at least I can say I loved myself.”

Another client, yesterday, father of a 10-month old, told me about the beautifully consise list of personal and professoinal tasks he made himself to do over the holidays, with a smooth plan of knocking off a couple each day…achieving year-end bliss! But when it came down to it, he ended up just spending a couple hours a day lying on the ground playing with wooden blocks with his infant daughter, instead.

“And I don’t regret it,” he proudly exclaimed! “It’s the first time I can remember not feeling the ‘Sunday Scaries’ at the end of a break.”

He’s feeling so filled up from not having checked off those items on the “To Do” list, and instead, from the love he showed his newborn and himself by allowing himself to rest, to be, to love, to play, to live.

I think it’s skillful to have made the list from the place he found himself before break. And skillful to have said “no” to it when facing a choice between “doing things” and spending time with his child. There’s an energy of stopping, stopping the doing, the addictive doing. And an energy of “yes,” starting the loving, starting the feeling, the fullfilling being.

I’m pretty sure I most learned about the “no” energy from Jerry Seinfeld 😂…

Years after watching (and having “forgotten”) this video, I was sitting on a monthlong silent meditation retreat. The mind had been very still — for hours each morning I’d sit with no distracting thoughts, finding a peace that felt light, blissful. Then, one day, a memory of something unpleasant that was happening just before retreat arose. Milliseconds later, without any conscious thinking, the first response that came to the mind was, “no thanks!” The thoughts vanished, and back to bliss I returned 🙃.

The Buddha pretty much sums it all up in verse 183 of The Dhamapadda: “To avoid all evil, to cultivate good, and to cleanse one’s mind—this is the teaching of the Buddhas.”

Say “no” to what’s unwholesome. Say “yes” to what’s wholesome. Cleanup the misperceptions.

There it is, all of Buddhism.

Putting this all together, and starting where we are, I think it’s safe and quite healthy to begin practicing reframing loving yourself as productive for those of us who suffer from this burden of perfectionism. Afterall, loving oneself is productive. Love, consciousness, is ultimately the only solid, durable, unconditioned thing that exists. When we meditate, draw, sing, dance, look at the clouds, spend time in presence with a loved one (pets included!)…we are filling ourselves and others up. So, I’d argue that self-love isn’t simply just productive, it’s maybe the absolute most productive thing we can do with our time 💡. On the other hand, the money we work for, the food we eat, the bodies we live in, the stuff we buy, the walls of the homes in which we reside…are all conditioned, are all born and die. At a certain point, it’s just giving that fat king yet another turkey leg 🍗🤦🏻‍♂️. Over nourishing these things is not only futile, it’s harmful. I emphasize “over” because we do live in this world, in these bodies. They require maintneance. Our needs become especially clear as we look at people in extreme conditions — disease, famine, genocide. But our needs are rarely as big as our egos would have us believe. My dear friend and mentor Thanissara told me of an encounter she recently had with a Palestinaian who has lost everything — his family, his friends, his home. And he talked about the deep joy and meaning he takes in supporting his community, in his practice, in his faith. That’s real. So let’s not get confused between what’s nourishing…and, in the words of another client, what’s “so addictive.” Let’s practice noticing when we shift from action that fills us up to that which depletes us. Meeting that moment with mindfulness — awareness and compassion — and then happily responding…

“No thanks!”

Constantly beginning again 😊