Philosophy

Just checking out the redesign of Chris Gillebeau's site, and was most captivated by his philosophy.

I really like it.

The problem with being a multi passionate

...is that your brain never switches off. There are always things you could be doing, things you want to try, things you are inspired by. Most of the time I can keep that mental noise in check by doing a little bit of something most days.

The point when it becomes a problem is when you are sick and rendered immobile, like I was today. Your pounding head means you can't do anything, and in fact is probably a signal from your body telling you that you shouldn't do anything. And yet you have a full day where you don't have to be working at your paid job, when you could be sewing, or taking photographs of your products to put online, or publicising your upcoming market, or doing some massage study, or...or...or...

Just. Stop.

And I did just stop, you'll be pleased to know. I climbed onto the couch under my doona, in a patch of sun, and slept from about 10am to 5:30pm with brief awake period for lunch. But it's hard not to feel like I've lost a day somewhere. Which is ridiculous because, well, I was sick.

For most people their not-at-work time is precious, but for those of us who have a really small cache of energy to draw on, it becomes even more precious. Rest is super important, or else I won't be able to do anything, but I still need to squeeze in all those other things. Well I don't need to. But the creative stuff is important to me and I need to make space for it, especially if one day I want to move my work life in that direction. So much of what I'm doing now is laying groundwork (like learning how to sell things online well, and like studying to get my Cert IV in massage, and like building up the Spire Market) and yet it doesn't really fit. Does that mean I shouldn't be doing it?

I guess the thing is to remember I'm not on a timetable. I don't have to achieve anything by any particular time. I have to fulfil my responsibilities, but the rest can go slowly, and that's okay.

6. Use a magazine image/word as a prompt

I'll just use the whole page, shall I?

Sometimes motivational slogans can be a bit twee and annoying. But I quite liked this page. It was in a magazine called Tickle the imagination, another freebie in our BHB unconference gift bags. I had never seen this mag before but I really like it; it "celebrates the handmade and creative community in Australia". Well that's right up my alley, isn't it?

In fact it's quite a good summary of the whole BHB unconference, really.

My creative dreaming phase has kind of slowed down, due to my job taking over my energy and brain space. It's quite hard to hold work and creative pursuits in tension with one another, especially when you only have a certain amount of energy to devote to either. That's why I'd eventually like my creative pursuits to be my work. But it's such an awkward, frustrating time in between when you're testing things out and trying to make things work, but you don't have enough time to devote to it properly, so it ends up just being a bit half hearted and never quite gaining momentum. I can't remember which BHB speaker said it, but someone said that they were terrified to quit their job to pursue creative business, but they realised that's what they had to do; they had to take their creative business seriously and devote serious time to it, otherwise it would never thrive. And to their surprise and delight, the money came in and the business grew because it was being treated as a business.

I don't know when I'll be ready. I'm still feeling this out. I need to make a plan. In the meantime, I will stick this page on my wall and look at it a lot.

Pointless worrying about the unknown quantity (aka sometimes I get tired)

Something I often get anxious about is not knowing what my energy levels will be like on any given day. If you've never experienced a bone wearying exhaustion that seems to come for no reason (ie, the tiredness comes not because you've been running a marathon, or just moved house, or been awake for 72 hours straight, but because you've just been...alive) then that worry might seem completely alien. Or you might say, "just make sure you get plenty of rest!" and think that plenty of rest would help.

Yeah, not always.

Sometimes the tiredness is so acute that I don't know if I ought to be on the road. Sometimes I have the appearance of being awake and alert but my brain is basically on screensaver and my limbs feel like lead. Sometimes I sleep and wake up even tireder than I was before I lay down. Sometimes I'm so tired, all I can do is cry.

Working against me are two things: thalassemia (which is a genetic blood disorder that basically means I don't get enough oxygen going round in my blood, so I can get tired very easily) and depression (which is an inexplicable bastard of a thing that basically could bite at any time, so I can get tired very easily). And also, to a lesser degree, having an introverted personality where I recharge by being alone rather than with groups of people. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy groups of people, it just means that my capacity for interaction is limited, and rapidly drains me rather than energising me.

But the depression is the thing that keeps me focused on the what if? instead of just taking life as it comes.

So this week I have two things which I am trying not to be anxious about. From Monday to Thursday I'll be at staff retreat in the Blue Mountains, with a fantastic group of people, eating food, looking at God's word and thinking big picture things about work. This is all good. And my colleagues are aware of my need for rest, and respect that. But just the nature of being in a house full of 10 other people, you have lots of conversations, you participate and engage, because that's the whole point, and I know that when I come home on Thursday night I'll probably just crash.

Then on the weekend, it flips and I'll go from being in a house full of people I know and who want to engage with me to being in a room full of people I don't know, having to push myself to interact. On Friday, I fly to Melbourne for the Big Hearted Business (un)conference, which I have been greatly anticipating for months. It will be two jam packed days of (hopefully) inspiring talks and activities and being around many creative people who have similar thoughts, dreams and struggles.

I'm going on my own so I'll have to talk to people I don't know. I'll have to explain who I am and what I do, because that's kind of the point. And I'll have to travel around by myself in a city I don't really know that well, so will have to be paying attention. Aside from which, I want to suck the marrow out of this (un)conference! I want to come away with renewed passion and vision for my creative work! I want to launch off into the stratosphere and...

Thud. I keep coming back to "but what if you're too tired? What if you're too tired to take in information at staff retreat? What if you're too tired to explain things? What if you're too tired to get around Melbourne and you get lost? What if you're too tired to interact with people? What if you're too tired to take anything in all week and it's all just a waste? What if..."

Silly brain! Why worry about things you don't know about?

Two of my favourite Bible passages which I feel I should tattoo on the back of my hands (it's okay, mum, I won't):

Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses every thought, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 4:6-7

and

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
Matthew 6:25-27

Take that, brain. I'm going to have a great week with great people. And there's nothing you can do about it.

Dreaming

I have too many things buzzing around in my head. Like cicadas, all of them making a racket and none of them being able to be properly listened to.

Contributing factors:

• I bought the Designed to Sell Unconventional Guide and started working through it.
• Last weekend, I did the introductory massage course at the Australian College of Massage. It was a great weekend; I learned a lot about technique and posture, and got to give and receive about five massages. Verrrrry nice. Of course as soon as the first day finished, I wanted to enrol in the Cert IV, get accredited and start my own clinic.
• This coming Saturday, I'm working at Goodness Gracious Me gratitude lifeclass (which is being held at the Scripture Union building where I work, so my colleague Des and I volunteered to work it so we could get a free ticket to the class) and will no doubt give me a bit of a boost.
• And in May, I'm going to the Big Hearted Business conference to nourish my creativity and try to work out how to change the world with it.

Maybe, having stirred them up, eventually all of this will help the cicadas to quiet and allow me to try and make some sense of it all.

Okay, so here's the big dream of what I would love to be happening in a few years.

Let's assume that mum and I will stay in our little house for a few years yet. Despite the downsides of the main road, we love the house and the garden. Oh, the garden! It's like a tranquil little rainforesty paradise.

Come through the many gateways to my creative wilderness...one day...

Ever since we moved here I have had dreams of building a studio in the backyard, with windows facing into the greenery, where I could do my creative work and not be sleeping, working and creating all in my bedroom (not to mention storing all the copious amounts of fabric and paraphernalia that goes along with making anything).

I want to build a little multipurpose studio, with lots of light, good sound/temperature insulation, a bathroom, and storage space. It would have a work table for sewing, spot for writing and a space in the middle for a massage table without it feeling like when you get a massage at a beauty salon or something and it's basically the size of a closet and you spend the whole time feeling sorry for the therapist because they can't move around properly.

Something like this from Garden Studios (only with some sort of storage solution):

I would be able to sew and write and design there. I would be able to tidy things away into the excellent storage and set up the massage space and do regular massages to keep some regular cash flow coming in, while selling my creations (both sewn and written). I might have to go and work somewhere for a couple of days a week, also to keep regular cash flow coming in. But the rest of the time I would be concentrating on creating, on giving joy to people, on making positive, relaxing spaces where people would love to come, on filling up my creative/nourishment tank.

But, again, that costs lots of money of course! So it's a long-term dream. I don't know how I'll get there. But that's what's buzzing around in my head at the moment. I need to be patient and recognise that these things don't have to happen right now. Everything takes time. But it helps to have a direction to step in.

And this is at the forefront of my mind, always:

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

James 4:13-15

Advice to creatives: Rachel Power

There was a lot that Rachel Power said in her talk, 'Giving yourself permission to create' at the Big Hearted Business Conference 2013, that resonated with me. But one thing that keeps making me smile in recognition and further fuels my desire to create is this:

Don’t ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive and go do it, because the what the world needs is people who have come alive. 

A painter friend of mine recently told me that for her without art there is only shopping, and I completely understood what she meant. 

If we’re not producing something, we’re consuming something. For artists, writing or drawing or making music is what keeps us satisfied. Ignore that and you’ll end up spending way too much time in Ikea trying to fill that hole. It gets very expensive, and, worse still, when creative energy isn’t being used to make art, it can just as easily bend its talents to evil ends. When I’m not writing, I find my powers of imagination go to feeding my fears and anxieties instead, or to ugly bouts of self-scrutiny and criticism.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Who knew that my best budgeting strategy might be to indulge my creativity?

creative inspiration and...massage?

I spent this afternoon with Sammi and Karen, and we watched some talks from last year's Big Hearted Business conference. Oh there was gold in them thar hills.

I need to think and process more about what we watched before I write about it, but suffice it to say I'm inspired to grab onto the creative entrepreneurial ideas that have been percolating in my head lately and try to make a go of it.

It may not seem related, but it is: I have just enrolled in an Introductory Massage course at the Australian College of Massage to see whether I'd like it enough to do a Certificate IV. You may wonder what that has to do with anything, but it's all part of my plan. My serene, relaxing plan. Bwa ha ahhh.

I'll explain later.