Lately I have been trying to shift my perspective about maintenance. I am trying to love it more and to be grateful for its rewards. It’s really the best possible approach, because it’s not going away. Maintenance refers to all those activities that we must constantly attend to on a regular basis, if we want to feel healthy and enjoy a functional orderly existence.
I sometimes have felt burdened or even resentful that I had to be so careful about my diet, take my supplements, exercise, care for the house and garden, prepare meals, grocery shop, pay bills, do laundry, and then do it all again. And again. All of these are tasks that you can never cross off your list, because you just need to constantly redo them, in order to take good care of yourself and your loved ones. On one level this is hardly a revelation, and maybe suddenly really noticing it has something to do with my age. I was less aware of the centrality of the requirement for maintenance when I was younger. I did not have all of the professional and parental responsibilities that I have now and the body was more forgiving.
Maintenance is humble. It is very grounded in time and space. Maintenance is not about achievement, making progress, getting ahead or creating. There is nothing glorious or glamorous about it. And yet I have come to feel that it is a most worthy activity, which reliably benefits us when we honor it and give it the attention and respect it deserves. How much better we feel when most of the time we eat a diet that is the right one for us. When we rest deeply and exercise regularly. When we thoughtfully regulate our lives and tune into ourselves, saying yes and no depending on what is truly appropriate for us at that particular moment in time. When we create space for connecting regularly with people, nature, meditation, prayer and rituals that are meaningful to us. In some ways, in order to maintain most skillfully, we need to cultivate consciousness regarding all the habitual choices we make on a daily basis.
I was recently invited to be a guest on the Phoenix Helix Podcast, which is a podcast about reversing auto-immune conditions. The topic was overcoming self-sabotage, in the context of auto-immune healing. Much of self sabotage does seem fundamentally related to resistance to submitting to the relentless demands of maintenance. Self-sabotage can have many different reasons and serve multiple functions, and we explore all of this in our conversation.
Here is a link to the show.
Wow, thank you. “Thank you”, to the main writer and, “thank you” to everyone for their comments. I really needed to see this. If there were a handbook on life I would want to include this.
I read your lovely post as I ate my lunch. Standing up to clean up my dishes, I realized that while I’m aware of enjoying the finished “product” – dishes cleaned up, counters wiped, food put away, I’m not always present to the process, too. So, thanks to your influence, I slowed down and appreciated the process as well as the finished result. Thank you for this reminder, Judy.
There is so much to be present for, and its such a gift to ourselves and others, if we can remember.
Thanks for this, Judy. It really resonated with me at this moment. I also find that maintenance as you’ve described it brings the reward of more space–mental, emotional and physical space–to do other creative things…not that some maintenance activities (like cooking and gardening) can’t be creative–they can.
Thank you for taking the time to write. I never know if what is on my mind will resonate with my readers. And yes, gardening and cooking can be very creative, but there is also the important part that is just pulling weeds and having the basic staples on hand. And I agree, maintenance is the foundation for so much else. It provides the fertile ground.
This is one of my favorite pieces thus far on this blog. As a person
for whom ” humble maintenance” doesn’t always come easily, I have grown in my appreciation of its deep and far-reaching effects as I have aged. I have found (even just of late!) that doing this humble maintenance can be very clarifying and even open doors that I was not previously seeing. And maybe I wasn’t seeing them because I had alot of clearing away to do be be able to see them.
I also love Monica’s statement above re: being ABLE to do some humble maintenance chores. At my present age of nearly 62, I am increasingly aware of what a huge blessing my current hard won excellent health status is when in the company of others my age .In 1997 I had a huge health crash and since 99 have been on the path to wellness. I am a far healthier woman than I was in my mid forties when that health crash occurred. And much of what I do to nurture and sustain my health could be viewed now through the lens of humble maintenance. Yes, I learn new things here and there, but mostly, I am an old dog at this now and have habituated these healthful humble maintenance patterns into my life, so that there is very little thinking involved anymore.
I remember in the early years when I expended much more energy because it was not yet all second nature to me. Now, it pretty much is. No big effort involved. But it took the doing and the persevering and the re-tooling after a set-back, to get here.
And of course, the understanding that it is for life. Well, more than that. That my life – the life I want – the quality of life that I have – is dependent upon this humble maintenance and eschewing of all the twistings and finaglings of self sabotage.
Surrender!
I absolutely love the use of the word surrender in this context. Surrender as a truly winning strategy. It takes humility to surrender, and the act implies so much self respect and perspective. What a beautiful comment. Thank you.
Judy and Monica,
You two will also love this quote, likely a bit inaccurate first thing in the morning: Lewis Mumford the “Pentagon of Power”
“Show me the records of maintenance,
and I’ll show you the nation that will survive.”
Have a super day,
Chuck
http://corepsych.com/critical
I would modify it to thrive.
Well said! Quite agree – on the same Path.
Chuck
Nice piece Judy!
I really like this post. thank you…I’ve been feeling unable to stay on top of things and this helped me relax again a bit….and it made me think of the Zen saying:
“Before Enlightenment chop wood carry water, after Enlightenment, chop wood carry water.”
there is beauty in the mundane too, I’ve found…I call it “adventures into the ordinary” … which I’ve also used as a tagline on a twitter account.
you know, when I was able to get out of bed again after having been bedridden for a couple of years I was able to find joy in mundane chores…It gave me a whole new perspective…to be ABLE to wash the dishes, do the laundry, sweep the floor…what great privileges. I learned to not take these things for granted. I appreciate that hard earned lesson.
Thank you for this beautiful comment. I love the chop wood quote. I heard it before, but when you quoted it in this context, there was suddenly had a whole different depth to it in my mind.
I know what you mean about appreciating the very simple things. Thick Nhat Hahn gave a lecture where he referred to the blessing of the non-toothache. And I think you are also so right about the pleasure and privilege of being simply able bodied.