Written September 2022
It’s been months since I last wrote.
For the past week that fact has been tugging at my brain like a child wanting attention from a preoccupied parent. I don’t know why it’s happened now.
Before that, I was fine about it. I was totally in my own process, moving through some big internal shifts, letting go of many things in my business, saying yes to things that have nothing to do with my business at all…and the biggest of all, letting that be okay.
I’m seeing more and more that work is not the be-all and end-all of my life. It feels big to say that. Work has been the sole owner of my creativity up until now. It’s been a director of my energy and the boss of my emotional well-being.
No more! They’re all fired! The employees are rising in rebellion!
Work will always be important to me. I LOVE to create, connect, make something happen.
I nearly wrote ‘I’m lucky enough to love what I do’ but honestly it hasn’t felt like luck that led me here. It was hard graft.
Training for and then running a marathon. I wonder if runners at the end of a marathon think ‘what now?’. All that energy, all that time, all that focus. and its done. That’s kinda how I felt back in June when I stopped writing to you.
I knew that if I carried on it would be like the runner who finishes a marathon and jumps straight into training for the next event. No time to rest and reflect and enjoy the post-run glow. What a sad image.
I’ve been enjoying the post-run glow of 5 years of graft for this business. Quietly working with my 1:1 clients doing the deepest work ever. Refining and getting so clear on what works for me and what doesn’t. Releasing some big components that didn’t feel nourishing and welcoming new ones that do.
There will be more to share, including a new website that has been chipped away at without any time pressure, one that I’ve felt was nearly complete a few times only to receive the very clear guidance that it had to be changed completely again! Oh life, you do indeed have a sense of humour!
All this to say, I know you will have heard the idea of trusting your own timing many times before.
I wonder if you’ve ever really truly practiced it though?
Because I hadn’t, not really.
When you do, so many instances of where you might not allow your unique timing are shown to you.
Comparing yourself to others.
The times when you internally deem your art not to be quick enough, accurate enough, cool enough, clear enough.
To truly trust your own timing you have to see it in each of those moments and soften, relax, and sit back down into your own heart.
Your art is enough. No matter how long it takes. No matter how many rough drafts. No matter what your mind says about it. No matter what other people are doing.
Truly letting the timing be okay means a total shift in culture. What if what you’re creating takes 5 years? 20 years? Damn, what if it takes your entire lifetime? Can that be okay? This is what I’m practicing right now.
So although my mind wanted to write to you when the website was done, unveiling what this period of reflection has garnered like a smooth shiny stone tumbling out of a rock polisher, you have these words instead. Because I refuse to let the pressure of modern life rush something as precious to me as my creative expression.
This is not an Instagram post and I am not an influencer, I don’t want to serve up highly curated, perfectly staged bs. I want to share the raw, captured in the moment, present, pulsating LIFE that is moving through me.
This is my art today, and I’m okay with the fact it took me months to share it with you.
