I talk a lot about making space on this blog. It probably all started with this epiphany (or maybe re-phany, since we tend to know the important stuff but ignore or forget it)
Space, akasha, the void. It’s where the magic happens. The alchemical weirdness that is creativity, for example. Or yoga. Or meditation. Or a good night’s sleep. These things tend not to turn up when we are compressing our time with too many commitments, compressing our minds with too many shoulds.
Compressing our true voice behind masks and shame and what we think people want to hear.
I had a long conversation about this with my friend Alison a little while back. She’d started a blog, a personal blog, and she had asked for my thoughts. My thoughts? I couldn’t find her voice because she’d cloaked her truth behind wordplay.
Which is what I told her, and she then went away and wrote the piece you are about to read.
So different! So real. She made space to talk about all the parts of herself, not just the bits she thought the world wanted to see. I love it because when I read this, I hear so many thoughts that I have, and Alison is expressing them, out loud and without shame. It’s where we all should be – not whinging,just acknowledging and accepting.
Amen and Namaste!
Alison, just being. So yoga!
On creativity and letting me be
Nadine told me a couple of weeks ago that I was welcome to write a guest blog for this most excellent site any time (and sorry to say it Nadine, ‘cos I know it makes you squirm, but you inspire me too!). Unsurprisingly, I have been mulling over what to write, sometimes having a great idea on the way to a café and then thinking it was a rubbish idea by the end of the first cup.
Then this morning I read her latest blog post on Accepting and something struck me about just letting it be. Whatever emerges on the screen might just be what people want to hear.
Or maybe not. Which is also ok.
I did a great writing course a few years ago called Unlocking Creativity. Here are the three most valuable steps I have probably ever heard with respect to creativity:
- Keep the pen moving
- Capture first thoughts
- Don’t be afraid to write junk
In writing, this means you keep going and you don’t look back. You write ahead of yourself. You don’t play nasty critic at the end of each line. You let your true voice out and only then do you go back, with your pen, and make some changes. Be very gentle at first until you can take your own criticism and that of others.
So, letting it be. Letting me be.
There is so much about myself that I need to Accept:
Accepting that even skipping continents and collecting passports doesn’t get you far enough away from yourself.
Accepting in my mid-twenties that maybe there is something chemical about depression and starting to take happy pills. Discovering a few years ago that there is an extra layer of complexity to me, which manifests in anxiety and irritability – and I also have to take pills for that.
Accepting that I have always been so unhappy in whatever job I’ve had that I’ve had a find a way to escape. This would be an escape to some fabulous six-month backpacking stint, where I would end up sitting in café after café, writing half-baked memoirs, finding comfort in the mundane rather than the exotic, and basically wasting a sh*t-load of money.
And here I am. I gave up my job seven months ago and fell into self-employment. For once I decided just to leave the job instead of the friends, the city, the country and all my stuff thrown in for good measure. I work less for more, I have more time on my hands, and annoyingly, here I still am!
Heck, I am doing probably the most creative, rewarding work I have ever done, but it doesn’t seem to be quite enough. I haven’t captured that first thought yet. I am still afraid of writing junk.
So, my acceptance is about sitting with just how utterly imperfect I am and trusting in wherever I am going:
- Yes, I want to take afternoon naps a lot, so what?
- So, I am happier and more productive when my boyfriend is around than when I’m alone in this cute flat – that’s ok too. I was alone all my adult life before I met him. I have done my Alone Time, thank you very much.
- No matter how many years of talking and analysis I have done, there are some wounds from my childhood which open easily. And I harbour grudges like millstones. It’s exhausting. But at least I know that and I can try to change it. Nobody is perfect.
- Sometimes I am the life and soul of the party and other times I don’t want to talk to anyone. Well, variety is interesting, isn’t it?
- The idea of being on medication for the rest of my life doesn’t fill me with pride. But it’s a shame that medication should be taboo. Maybe in time I will find another answer, but for now, it’s turned my life around.
- I’m messy and find housework tedious to the point of tearfulness - I know some people secretly love ironing, but there really aren’t that many Stepford Wives out there.
- My life must look very cushy from the outside and here I am, complaining. I would want to punch this person if I met them. But we all know human beings are more complicated than a set of Circumstances. Perhaps I could practice empathy for someone else next time instead of immediately envying them.
- And I can’t get myself back into exercise – yes, but I have before and I felt wonderful doing it.
There is still a niggling thought that I have more to say.
Well, maybe I’ll just start saying it then, instead of stifling it as I have done all my life.
And maybe I’ll go back to my yoga mat, a loving and gentle place which also scares me because of the amount of Letting Me Be it involves. My new life starts after this nap. And if it doesn’t, that’s ok too.
Moving from Stability: Understanding the Pelvis in Posture (Online workshop)
Light Up Your Life
No comments yet.