I’ve been doing some thinking - you know what it’s like, when you stop and then realise how you’ve somehow allowed your brain to fill up with everything and you’re exhausted from over stimulation and somehow trying to fulfil everything you want or feel obliged to do! And then, just as you look ahead at the possible lighter, emptier days when you will recover, more stuff keeps happening!
A while back, when I was in the thick of motherhood with pre teens/teens, having just built a house which was a long way from interior completion, a part time job and an urge to keep up with my artistic practice as well as shopping, cleaning, feeding, taxiing and organising (none of which I resent - I loved being a Mum and my husband is a decent man who shares all this!), I remember feeling that I was never going to get to a place where I could feel relaxed because my own conditions for allowing myself to relax, were that everything needed to be DONE! When I looked at the enormity of the ‘mess’ around me - normal house stuff, abnormal house stuff ie it wasn’t even built properly yet, children still growing and developing, me not being the fully fledged artist I wanted to be and a feeling of being in constant motion, I realised that if I was going to wait until all this was DONE before I could relax, I would be waiting a helluva long time!
That was when, and it’s been a long standing theme in my life, I remember standing still in it all and hearing a phrase drop into my head “You need to find a way to rest in the mess”.
Since that moment I have tried to remember that my circumstances are unreliable in providing the right conditions for a relaxed state! Small things can reach a conclusion or be completed, but there will always be loose ends. I will never reach a point where everything is DONE! I take joy in the times where things are settled and relatively calm or ‘complete’ but I don’t rely on these for giving me peace of mind. It helps to have an organised house, children who are happy, good health etc but I’ve had to find ways to just ‘be still’ even when the unrest is happening all around me. Sometimes of course, this unrest comes from international or global events as we have experienced in the last 2 years and I think many of us have had to seek ways to keep our heads.
I have learnt that there are ways to keep my head clear and calm and these are not a revelation - stuff like writing morning pages, a regular yoga practice, running, being with my family on holiday, being outside, walking, conversations with close friends and family, laughing at ridiculous things, dancing, swearing with people who understand, having nice smells in the house, (hope I don’t sound like a smug lifestyle coach right now!!!) but inevitably I fall off track and it all goes to pieces. It’s just if you do these things often enough they create a kind of muscle memory and it gets easier to go back to them when you stray off course. I just know that the stillness has to start from within, which can be a challenge and we need each other for this.
So to the title of this blog ‘Back in the Driving Seat?’ - I realised that I much prefer to be a passenger, so I can stare out of the window at the passing scenery and notice the journey. I like driving and don’t mind doing it, but if someone else offers to I’ll alway say yes. And I guess this is how I’m feeling about going back into a ‘work’ mode having taken some time off over August. Do I want to be driving, feeling in control, having to be responsible for everything and hyper alert? Because that’s kind of what made me feel exhausted toward the end of July. I’m looking to relax about things, let someone or something do some of the driving so I can take time to watch the changing scenery as my life as an artist continues. I feel as if I need to let go of a few things and know that it is in safe hands. I don’t have to be in control of everything and grasp at every opportunity or option. I can sit back, ‘rest in the unrest’ of not being where I want to be, and allow things just to ‘be’ and see where it takes me.