The value of going away ...

"Distance and difference are the secret tonic of creativity. When we get home, home is still the same. But something in our mind has been changed and that changes everything"

Jonah Lehrer

(via Austin Kleon's awesome book "Steal Like An Artist")

Making changes

So it's only been a short while since I wrote this long-winded excerpt from my "return-from-holiday" headspace and I am holding my own against the onslaught of busy-ness and overwhelm. It takes a good amount of determination, willingness, concentration and consciousness to make the changes we want to make - in ways we feel match our values. 

Case in point: after a busy week last week (the return to school) I was due for a night out with my girlfriends while my children were in melt-down. It was when the melt-down turned to blood-letting (dramatic? yes!, real? yes!) I decided that it was prioritising time: my nightout or my children? With the babysitter on the way and all systems set to "go" I shut it all down, changed my plans, made my exhausted children my priority - and it was the right decision for me.

I was disappointed to miss that night out. I wanted to reconnect with my tribe ... but I knew I wouldn't be doing it whole-heartedly while knowing that what my kids needed right then and there was their Mom/Mum.

But here's the thing: I felt GREAT! I had made a decision that fitted my values. My behaviour matched my values so there was no conflict.

Are my friendships important to me? Absolutely.

Are my children important to me? Yup!

Is one more important than the other? Not always ... there are times when the children need to wait their turn too. This was one of those moments when I knew that I would feel better staying home than going out; that whatever benefit I would get from a glass of wine with the girls would be erased by my uneasiness during the evening.

It's a constant challenge to stay conscious of the pitfalls, to review the priorities and come up with a game plan. It's not always easy to work out which action to take.

But it sure beats overloading, trying to do it all, fitting it all in, and coming away with a sense of having had it all, but not having done any of it well.

Thoughts?

sarahxx

It's spring ... somewhere.

After more than 7 years in the northern hemisphere, I appear to have suddenly reverted to living my home (southern) hemisphere’s seasonal pattern. The planet’s south has passed the magical date of 1 September and launched itself into spring. That means the north is on it’s way into autumn – not exactly the traditional time to begin the behavior of ‘spring cleaning’.  It appears to be part of an elaborate plan of resistance to taking back my “old” life in an effort to have more of what I truly want and less of what I have settled for. 

I am clearing, cleaning, culling, washing, airing, tidying, and making space between the stuff. I am recycling all manner of work-related paper that I was sure I would ‘do something’ with one day. I am vetting carefully the social engagements I accept.

I am choosing nothing over 'something' ... instead of settling for less-than. 

I have to admit that, aside from a few attempts in the area of spring cleaning (even on-season), I haven’t done this properly in years. I put it down to a recently restorative two week holiday where I didn’t cook, clean, grocery shop, do laundry, organise a babysitter, follow a routine attend social events or work.  The holiday created space for awareness and reflection – for detaching from my life.  

Post-holiday, I feel a strong resistance to falling back into the old way simply because it was “the old way”. An automatic response that pre-holiday was simply there – perhaps even something I would have labelled ‘natural’- is no longer the leading force in my actions. 

Instead, there is a delay … a moment when I find myself thinking “umm is this what I want? Is there a better way/different response/alternative thinking I could be using? Do I need this in my life? Is it bringing me closer to Self and the ones I love? Am I living my values” 

Of course it’s not a sweeping change. It will come as no surprise to you that there are times when I just do it the old way because it doesn’t feel like there is time to suddenly create a new one. Other times I choose to do nothing instead of just doing the same ole, same ole.

There is a very strong sense of coming up for air – from daily life, from habit, from a kind of sludgy place where I always felt I was struggling to keep my head above water. 

For years, when asked what I want I would respond “a simpler life”. Now I feel like I am creating it. 

Why did it take me so long?

I suspect it comes down to letting go – to just simply having the chance to STOP and step back. Doing nothing of the normal allows us to reflect on the ways we normally spend our time and energy.

It's spring somewhere ... 

sarahxx

Is your motivation is intrinsic?

Setting goals and having dreams is something we are all encouraged to do. Having courage, living our values, doing the work, growing and evolving - we are also encourage to do these. The key to lasting the distance and making sure you move along the journey you want to be on is intrinsic motivation. 

My experience since writing this post has been interesting. Eight years of thinking about it, talking about it sometimes but vaguely, writing about it privately … and then wham – there I am sharing it with the world. After pressing the initial ‘send’ I decided to take it a step further and email the link to my family – knowing that they don’t regularly read my blog meant knowing that this experience was not going to be known by them unless they stumbled upon it.

Then I published the link on FaceBook. Now all the people I have known across the years from school through to now were sharing this piece of my life. Freaky stuff!!

The traffic on my site peaked quickly. I watched it do so, and watched myself racing around my mind grasping for a hiding place … followed quickly by a reminder to myself that this is what I had created and I needed to suck it up, stand in the discomfort and breathe (which I did).

When you put yourself out there (like I did) you have to be quite clear about your motivation for doing so (which I was). There needs to be somehow an understanding of the process that is involved – I don’t mean “how” you are doing it, but more like “why” you are doing it and what it means for your own individual evolution. Yes, large parts of it relate to sharing with others so they know they are not alone - but altruistic notions may not be enough to get you through the cold, lonely, vulnerable, terrifying, incredibly painful and difficult experience of having it ‘out there’

Intrinsic motivation is the key. Do it for your Self. Tie it to a value: self evolution; self witness; self-awareness; letting go … tie it to anything that is for you - and you alone.  That is what intrinsic motivation is. 

Those moments where you want to run and hide will be tough – but if you know that you are doing it in service of a value you hold, you can sit in the vulnerability and know that you are living a whole-hearted, full life. 

Sarahxx

Shut-down vs sharing into the big, loud, silence.

The responses to this recent post have been few and varied: private emails; public posts; one or two phonecalls; and the rest has been about big, loud, silence.  While that silence could be enough to convince many of us that shut-down is preferable, there is a point at which shut-down becomes scarier than sharing. 

Many of us take the plunge and tell someone about the ‘stuff’ inside us… in the hope of being heard.  Many of us take that risk only to find that we are free falling into the big, loud, silence – or the discomfort of others as they change the subject, grapple for words to respond to us, tell us about their experiences instead, avoid us, tell us we are imagining it or that someone else has it worse than us, or that we just need to ‘get over it’. 

Once we have risked it once and found the vulnerability and silence too much to bear – what next? We push it down, we deny it, we take it to mean there is something wrong with us, we resolve to ‘sort it out’, we make a note-to-self not to tell anyone else … we begin the shut-down. 

Gradually we become skilled at the shut-down … until the day when we are not. The day when it starts to leak. The day when we turn to alcohol, drugs, food, work, sex, co-dependent relationships, self-harm in all its forms, anything we can find that stops the leak – even temporarily. 

Even with our new ‘coping skills’ we struggle along, battling the truth at every turn, convincing ourselves that shut-down is the only solution – because telling someone, sharing, sitting in the discomfort of our feelings is waaaaay too scary...

... until shut-down becomes scarier than sharing. Until we cannot stem the leaks anymore. Until we are watching as our life starts morph around us.

Then we realise that that shut-down is no longer a solution.

Change only occurs when the pain of staying the same becomes too great.

Are you there yet? 

Sarahxx