The Blog
The emotions, actions and thought processes of my creative work.
This is where I share what I’m doing and why, how I’m thrashing out problems and what I’m trying to achieve.
The Person I Am and The Person I Want To Be
As I began to think about creating my 30 at 30 list, I began coming up against the same recurring block: The Person I Am. I capitalise The Person I Am because it really does feel like a proper noun; a thing that exists that has a bearing upon me that doesn’t always feel under my control. It is within me, but also independent of me, telling me what I can and can’t do regardless of what I actually think about the matter.
My 30 at 30 List
This week, I turned thirty. For some this is might mean nothing more than an extra candle on the cake or for others it might signal the unwelcome arrival of the end of youth. But for me, thirty feels, above all, like opportunity. Following an undeniably life-changing 6 months I feel like I am just now starting to scratch the surface of who I really am, what is possible for me and how I can truly, deeply belong to myself.
Q1 2021 Review
Well the first quarter of 2021 is over and I can’t decide whether it feels like a click of the fingers or the longest drag of time I’ve ever experienced. Everybody I’ve spoken to in recent weeks has said the same thing – “it’s been the longest winter” – and yet I also wonder what I actually got done this quarter, what I did with each week. No sooner had I got my head around the week than a new one was already beginning.
Life Lessons From The Mountainside
You may have noticed that I spent much of January and February up a hillside. I walked every day that it wasn’t completely pouring with rain. I studied the map and walked every route from the front door at least twice. I started January with a bit of a pant going up a slope, and ended February 783m up a mountain.
But What’s It For?
A few weeks ago at my workshop about time there was an artist who couldn’t find the time to paint. This, as you can imagine, is something of a problem. I suggested that she paint just for an hour with no expectation in order to get back into the habit. “But what would it be for?” she asked, “I can’t just paint without there being a point”. “The point” I said, “is that it’s your life”.
Lessons From Writing 40,000 Words In A Month
In February I set myself a challenge: write 40,000 words in one month. There were big and little reasons for this. One is that I want to write a book, but every time I got an idea I would try to squeeze it into a structure and write out the chapter headings but that also squeezed the little spark of life out of the idea. So I decided that rather than start with the structure, I would start with writing. Just writing anything and see what would emerge out of it. In the middle of lockdown, it also felt like something to do and think about and focus on that wasn’t all of this.
It’s The Hope That Hurts
I wrote this at 2am during some full moon insomnia, and it ended up being a newsletter that really resonated. I have had lots of replies about this one this week, so I thought I would reproduce it here too.
When Is The Right Time To Give Up On Something?
I have been asked this question a few times; it pops up in podcast Q&As occasionally. It always twists my heart in my chest. It feels so sad, like watching the last fraying strings of hope give way within someone, watching them fold up their dreams and lock them away and go back to what they were doing before with crestfallen shoulders.
Guilt and Balance: Breaking The Productivity Addiction
When I was going through the responses to my annual survey, I began to see the same struggle coming up over and over again: guilt. More specifically, guilt about not being productive enough, whilst simultaneously not taking time for oneself: “I WANT more balance, but I always seem to feel guilty when I’m not at my desk”. Over and over, in different words and in different ways people were chastising themselves for not working more, doing more, achieving more – and not being more balanced.
The Eco Lightbulb Principle Of Change
What I am learning, acutely, about change is that it happens glacially over time. Obviously, we don’t want it to happen like this. We want to stand on top of a mountain under a beam of sunlight and shout “I Have Changed” and for that to be all it takes. We want the change of the films we grew up with, where the impossible situation resolves itself and the boy realises he loves her five minutes before the end.
The Small Things That Build Your Self-Trust
If you read my Q3 review you will know that this current season of my work is fraught with what I’m calling “opportunities for doubt” and practical pitfalls. With the protracted end of a relationship and the shouldering of all the financial responsibilities, I now need my business to step up for me financially (and probably emotionally too). My trust in myself to actually do this has been tested pretty much as rigorously as it can be the last few weeks.
The “Work Is Hard” Myth
“This is work and work is supposed to be hard”. How many times have you told yourself that over the course of your business? Perhaps substituting hard for painful, or miserable, or just a feeling that it’s not supposed to be fun? It might be something you’ve used to justify not doing a project that you were really excited about, or it might be the reason you agreed to do something your whole body was ringing alarm bells about. It’s work, and work is supposed to be hard.
What You Need To Know When You Feel Stuck
I created a business that gave everyone what they wanted, except for me. This wasn’t an a-ha moment of a realisation, a time I can pinpoint and say, “that’s when I knew.” It was an ongoing unpeeling of beliefs and actions until I came to terms, with hindsight, that that was the truth of it. I had set my business up for martyrdom. So it is quite a change that I now find myself teaching people to start with what they want, and more so that I am tweaking and transitioning every part of my business so that it works for me first.
Your Big Picture Is In Your Every Day
Do you ever write something and think, “huh, that’s good, I should probably take that on board myself”? I like to think of these moments as your soul, while it wrestles with all your conditioning, throwing a line of rope out to you in the hopes you’ll see it and start pulling. When you’re daydreaming and think, “Wow, that was profound” or explaining something to someone and realise “I never actually looked at it like that before.” These are all little nuggets trying to bring your attention to the knowing and truth inside of you.
In This House We Do Not Glorify Busy
Ever hear something come out of your mouth and have no idea where it came from? A moment where you float outside of yourself for just a moment, those words hanging in the air and think “well…that’s new”. Let me set the scene – it’s sunny, and I am lying on our front wall, propped up by bolster cushions and reading a book. My boyfriend walks out of the house and asks, “busy?” – in that semi-taunting, semi-shaming way that people do. My eyes flick up to him, and I say, “in this house, we do not glorify busy.”