joy and rest

It’s incredible what rest and joy will do for the human spirit. I’ll be honest self discipline has taken a bit of a hit recently. It's just been a bit more difficult for reasons that aren’t totally within my own control. I edited one whole paragraph yesterday and that was it. It’t not the books fault, this is all me this time. But I’m okay with it because I took a nap yesterday. 


See it’s important to listen to your body and take care of anything that’s lacking. Well in this case I haven’t been sleeping well, been going on for weeks if I’m being transparent, but I finally listened to me body cues and needs and took a nap for once. Fun fact about me, I only really nap when I’m under the weather or dealing with a time change. So taking naps aren’t my normal, but I’m all the better for it today. It helped a little yesterday but a ton today. 


So here’s my big revelation for the week, take care of present you to take care of future you. Small steps still add up along the way and no step is too small. 


Now the joy part. When I’m feeling down the last thing I want to do it feel up, so-to-speak. I get offended by joy when I’m not feeling it because it looks exhausting. But the reality is that laughter actually is a medicine of sorts for the soul. I’m learning to let my blue feelings mix with my yellow ones, because that is where life happens. 


I think I would be a little less high strung if I completely did away with self imposed deadlines. I started last month with one and its been more of a challenge than I thought. I’ve only kind of met it, the first stage of editing went by like a breeze but the second, which is by far more work, overall, has been slower. I only gave myself a month to edit through the whole thing. Mind you it took my close to 4 or 5 for the first go through. So I was pushing it at best. I think I’ve decide to just let the deadline go and work as best I can while still taking care of myself and attend to that which takes precedence. 


Sometimes things don’t fall into place the way we’d expect or like them to, but in my life often they work out better than I could have planed for. So I’m going to go with the flow a little more and take the pressure off. This is my first novel after all, I’m going to make mistakes and I’ll be better for it. So here’s to making mistakes and living life, may we all do so with joy and rest. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

september 1st

September 1st, its the beginning of things. It’s the beginning of the end of the year. At least in my head September has always felt like the beginning of the end. I’m happy to know that the sweltering heat is nearly past and its almost sweater time. I like the fall, mostly because it feels like the rest before the rest, it feels like the closest to what my heart looks like, but partly I like the fall because I like the word falling.   This week I did what I could, which doesn’t look like much but I ate well and washed my face often and I tried.  I got back into the studio yesterday and was immediately overwhelmed. To start with my work space was a mess, as it has been for months, and finally yesterday was the day I couldn’t take it anymore and tidied up the table that serves as my workstation. It was probably 20 minutes of finding homes for things and trying to remember how I had had it organized in the first place. But it was 20 minutes well spent, because at end not eve...
Read more

Learning

Over the years I’ve learned many things about myself and how I function. For example: if I need to force myself to wash my face I put on make up, because I figured out that the need to not sleep in my make up supersedes my laziness. I’ve discover lots of what I call hacks in my own functioning. As I’ve written about before I grew up struggling with depression, so one of my biggest challenges, even when I don’t feel depressed, is to get motivated. So I’ve found some of my own personal quirks that I can almost trick myself into doing the healthy things instead of relying completely on motivation. This is also true when it comes to my art.   I’ve learned that I can’t sit in my studio for hours on end, the most productive and best work is done in the first and second hour. Anything more and I start to get too into my head. I also need to have somewhat of a plan before I even walk down the stairs. Otherwise I get overwhelmed just looking at all that I could do, or I start random proje...
Read more

Almost There

Nowadays it is the norm to go to collage or university even when you don’t know what you want to do. It’s preached go to school and figure it out while you’re there. It’s taught that your job is your life and it is all you really ought to try to achieve. Even as young as 14 this didn't sit right with me, I always dodged the questions. What do you want to be, what school do you want to go to, what would you like to do with your life. Because I learned from a young age that artist wasn’t the answer that they were looking for.   I learned to fly under the radar because I knew my dream would be easily crushed, but I am stubborn. So I did my best in school and then I made my great escape. Now almost five years later I am about 3 steps away from achieving what I set out to do.  I have about three things felt to do and then I will not just be an artist who makes things frequently, I will be one who sells these things too. I have an 8 painting series ready to be sold, and that is...
Read more