well, that seemed like a pretty awful new year's resolution, so i tried to explain...
'i mean fewer fun things that still end up costing time, energy and money, and for which i don't actually have time, energy or money, but of which i hope they will dispel my persistent feeling that i don't have enough time, energy and money for the fun things in my life.'
it sounded like an interesting flippant thing to say, but the more i thought about it, the bigger it grew. until this morning when i finally understood how HUGE it actually is.
for those of you who don't know me, i work as a freelancer. which means that every single day i receive e-mails from people offering me assignments, and every single day i have to decide how many of these assignments i take on.
now, don't these sound like absolutely bloody fantastic working conditions? that's because they are! (and i won't even brag about the fringe benefits, such as the fact that i do most of my work lounging on my bed in my pyjamas, and get to stop often for naps, snacks and cuddles, not to mention forest walks...) (seriously, don't know of a single company that offers their employees such a good deal)
and yet... over the past seven years (which is how long i've had this business), i managed to give myself one full and three mini burn-outs.
HOW?
you may well ask... it stumped me too... for a long long time... i could sense the iceberg of it, but couldn't see it for the life of me...
until...
until the HUGE insight hidden in my flippancy to my friend revealed itself as a detailed map of the devilish circle i'd been dancing in.
this vicious circle looks like this (yes, you get to see more of my lovely scribbles...)
it begins with a (subconscious) decision to overwork. Now, by overworking i don't mean working a sixty-hour week, or at 3 am, or on Sunday afternoon. luckily i am saved from such lethal practices by motherhood and husbandry. no, overwork in my case is more subtle. it basically consists in taking on more work than i strictly speaking need and/or is good for me.
having pondered this for some time, i reached the conclusion that my overworking is always driven by a subtle form of greed (as in 'i could use just a little bit more cash today/this week/this month') and a subtle form of fear (as in 'there may be enough for us all today, but what if the source dries up tomorrow? i have to make sure we have enough for tomorrow (and the day after, and the day after, and the day after...)').
this overworking of mine always (always, ALWAYS) leads to stage two of the circle, which is overwhelm. Although the experience varies greatly in intensity, its quality is quite consistent: this is the feeling that there is no room (no time, no energy) in my life for me. if i dig a little deeper, it invariably turns into 'i cannot feel my body' and/or 'i cannot hear my inner voice'. it's a dry, uninspired, grey, busy, tense, time-obsessed, empty place.
to escape from the misery of overwhelm, i use a strategy that seems promising, and happens to be advertised all over my Facebook feed, which is overspending. this brings us back to my conversation with my friend, because my specific overspending habit consists of splurging money on lovely profound, in-depth, high-value and amazing retreats, workshops, and online courses, paying wise, lovely, profound, amazing, in-depth people to help me reconnect with my body and hear my inner voice again.
every time i do this, however, the price tag on my life goes up. After all, this soul work (the therapy sessions, the retreats, the workshops, the yoga classes, the online courses) is so essential to my life, and really when you think about it, you might say it's the most essential thing of all: that which makes it possible for me to feel my body and hear my inner voice.... Wow! Clearly, this has to be included in our family budget. In fact, put like that, it should be right up there with food and water as far as our family priorities are concerned.
but hey, that's not a problem. i'm lucky. i'm a freelancer. i get to decide how much i work. i will just add a few hours to my working week, and i'll be able to afford this therapy, retreat, workshop or course every single year (trimester, month, week...) and bob's your uncle.
phew... saved by the bell...
hmph.....
did i mention that this is HUGE???!!!???
because... i could also... let's see.... well, maybe not immediately take on that one extra work assignment, but instead go spend an hour in the forest, leaning with my back against an old old tree, sitting with my fear, sitting with my greed, sitting with the general discomfort arising from both. there, in the quiet, i might, no, i know i would, i will, feel my body, and hear my inner wisdom (for free and without the help of a wise, amazing workshop facilitator), and my body and inner wisdom will sit with me and my greed and fear until the greed and the fear abate. then i would know, because i would, i will know, and hear, that maybe i don't need the cash from the extra work assignment (because there is enough, because the source has always been plentiful), so i wouldn't take it. as a result of which, i guess, maybe, i would have more time, to spend in the forest...
like this:
how about that...
* far from me any intention of crapping on amazing workshops, therapies, retreats and online courses, but i have been wondering for some time, in a quietly-nagging-at-the-back-of-my-mind kind of way, how it is possible that we all seem to need all of this therapy, yoga, retreating and workshopping so badly, so badly... like water and bread... how did our mothers, grand-mothers, great-grand-mothers and all previous generations survive without all this stuff... how did they do spirituality, well-being, inspiration, body, inner wisdom? How did they dance? because they did, didn't they, they sure did, they left novels, paintings, poems, recipes, and dance steps, and the blood running hot in my veins, and the tilt of my hip, they left evidence in my kisses, in my children's dreamy eyes, that they too, they knew, about inner hearing, about wisdom, about the body...
** you know where they went, don't you, for wisdom, for inspiration, for the body, and the dance... to the forest, to the sea, to church, to synagogue, in the early morning, to public libraries, museums and art galleries, to their garden, to their kitchen, to their women, their men, their children... and all of it unmediated and for free...
*** in the interest of science and credibility, i did some data research. in 2004, the year i first started therapy, our family budget for the first time featured a fixed cost category 'V mental health and well-being' of 420 euro in additional healthcare costs to cover bi-monthly therapy sessions. it has grown every year since. and not a bit either. the projected budget for this category in 2017, a financial year officially labelled by P. and me as 'lean', amounts to 3860 euro. talk about inflation! and this is a projected budget, which means that it does not include any 'impulse purchases'. the actual costs of this category for 2016 were well over 5000 euro. That's almost two months of 'full-time' work .... wow! that got me quiet right there...
**** the fact that i can easily retrieve such data, and look at them without flinching or occupational apneu is all owing to Bari Tessler's wonderful year-long Art of Money program, which P. and i are gratefully following for the second time this year.
***** no, the irony has not escaped me. what can i say? the human condition is a complex thing.
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