I’ve been thinking about what it is to be blocked. Not to be too much of a tortured artist about it all, but sentences have been haunting me lately. Like, I get these fragments of something and I dutifully write them down in the notes section of my phone and then I go back to them and they’ve already gone dead. It happens like that sometimes. The cusp of a brilliant idea that whips away as quickly as it arrived. I subscribe to the creativity being a ‘spiritual thing’ concept of life. Ideas being in the air, fish you can catch like Noel Gallagher says, and that if you don’t jump on it someone else will, like Elizabeth Gilbert says. Dare I say collective consciousness. Is a thing. It’s a thing. Eg. I finally have a helmet to ride my bike around East London in, and so do all these other hip and trendy girls like me.
I have a few pieces of scientific evidence for this as well, that I’ve discovered myself on my own merit. It’s like the elusive magic of life that can be proved by the thing that you cannot explain. In my yoga teaching days, I'd see it all the time. A consistently busy or even full class would from time to time out of nowhere be completely dead. One or two suckers on mats when every other week it’s positively vibing. And I’d always be like WHY IS IT EVERYONE OR NOONE? And, what does everyone know? What is everyone feeling? And sometimes I’d sell out one retreat relatively *easily* and then I’d run the same retreat, at the same time, the next year and it would be literal tumbleweeds. No rhyme or reason just vibes.
I think some people and businesses operate slightly differently and it’s not all based on vibes and energy. But bricks and water which survive storms and energetic dry patches with something else. But I am a projector, I’m made of water and there is no pattern and furthermore, the limit does not exist. I actually entered my time of birth into another site recently for another way of looking at life and I found out I am meant to constantly come up with new ideas. It’s part of why I plan all my classes in notebooks that get disregarded in piles and on top of wardrobes and don’t have a curriculum. Because it depends, it changes, as soon as the thing has lost its life, there’s no selling it. Quite annoying for planning the future, but quite cool for building trust with the system. The system: the universe.
So, really, what I have learnt the most is that business is a huge massive exercise in holding my nerve and following my instincts.
One more tangent before I return to the original thread is a tiny potentially triggering story. But last year I was running the exact same format of retreat that had been a genuine sell out success the year before. Same location, same time of year, same proposition. But it just didn’t sell. Every space I sold was like pulling teeth. And I really didn’t want to go. I cried in the car two days before I had so much bad feeling and absolutely zero vibes to bring. But I didn’t realise it was an option to call it off. So off we went, and it was a horrid flight, one of those get close to landing and then go up again because of something terrifying like visibility of the runway. And then we landed and we couldn’t get the car because of a credit card loophole and it was torrential rain. Andy managed to miraculously find us another car and we made it to the top of the treacherous uphill farmhouse. The farmhouse that was once my most peaceful spiritual place. The place I could exist with bare feet and crisps endlessly and never miss home. And I always miss home.
Anyway, the house felt different when we got there. The garden flooded and the rooms darker and colder. How was the most magical place I’ve ever known suddenly not magic? Anyway, we made the best of the first night and had pasta and played games and lit a fire. We woke up the next morning to no power or water (uh-o) and long story short: the road had FALLEN AWAY and we were mountain rescued. We spent a night on camp beds in a sports hall with old men from the village, imagined we would be trapped forever when locals told us we weren’t getting out of there for a long time. And, then, somehow bizarrely got driven out in emergency vehicles and taken to a hotel, a Mcdonalds and then next day home. But it was hecking weird. We left two cars up there and all our stuff (which against all odds showed up a month later on our doorsteps).
At the time I was 8 weeks pregnant and I didn’t have the energy to run that retreat. And then an actual landslide called it off and we were fairly ruffled along the way. I don’t like to go to the dark corners of my mind, but somedays I think it is because I went against my own instincts that I lost my baby. But that's probably not the reason. No one will ever be able to tell me, so, I let it all go. But it smacks me in the face as one of the biggest lessons of my life. I knew it. And I was too scared of letting people down to be honest with myself. We learn that lesson in tiny ways all the time. ALL THE TIME. And when I’m caught up in various spiritual narratives I like to think there are all the lessons I need to learn before I do get to be a parent.
Anyway, where was I? BLOCKS.
I feel like I’ve been in a creative short circuit. I get a fragment of an idea but it’s gone before I can really grasp it. And it’s frustrating to live there. And nothing ever comes to life from strangulation so I let myself watch episodes of Lost which I’m thrilled to see is on Netflix. And I think, ah-ha that’s probs the origin of my fear of flying. And I keep plugging my business in the ways I know how. And it seems to be landing a little flat, in the wrong timezone? To deaf ears? So I am in this enormous test of holding my nerve. Waiting. And the things I need to do? Probably not another Instagram post that people will hop through? Probably I need to tend to my plants instead.
When Tom is in a bit of a mood he wants to be left alone. I have habits of not leaving things alone (cutie). Like Fern said in our therapy session, sounds like you’re a bit of a woodpecker? Read: relentless. In fact, when I first quit my last known salary job when I was about 25 my mum said, I’m not worried about you because you are relentless. I prefer the word tenacious but it’s just semantics. Read: everything. Anyway, I’ve learnt that sometimes, leaving stuff alone is the best thing we can ever do. Remember what I just said about strangulation.
In a past relationship where we weren’t having sex as much as I wanted to, I used to bring it up all the time. Shall we schedule it, talk about why you don’t want to fuck me, mine this well dry? Weirdly it didn’t lead to more sex. But it did lead to a few very hurtful conversations etched into the inside of my mind thanks for asking. Drop it, put the bone down, when you are scratching around the dirt for reassurance it’s your sign to look somewhere else. Maybe go for a swim instead? There’s not much the water can’t hold. Joan Didion says it. Loops in my head all the time.
The slightly troubling thing is unlearning stuff. Loads of advice we’ve given each other for years isn’t actually good advice here. Loads of business advice that is handily given out for free or for a hefty sum does not actually apply here. The rules don’t apply because there are no rules, there is no formula and altogether now: the limit does not exist.
I’ve been sitting on this weird egg. It’s this egg that in theory represented commercial success, most likely cash money and looked from the outside eye like a no-brainer. In the holding of this idea I have struggled to find a single sentence and guys: I never struggle to find sentences. I felt like a tin can, Carrie Bradshaw and socks, (throwback to last week), I felt like maybe I’d told all my stories. On Saturday night at a hen party I screamed - and I mean screamed - just like a pill by Pink into the mic. And I thought god this really reminds me of the time I was in rehab (AS A JOKE BECAUSE GUESS WHAT I DON’T DESERVE TO SING HER SONG WITH SUCH PASSION). And on the way home I thought ah maybe my mediocre life is out of material.
Right so, I was feeling so stuck and blocked and not sure what there is left to stay and at the same time sitting on this egg. And this egg, I knew it was actually rotten. But still I gave it my warmth, my time, my sacred spiritual energy. Tom said we had to let the egg go. Not a good idea. A lie, actually. And for a time I thought it was my lifeline, my pathway to SUCCESS but I realised it was the opposite. So relief. And this morning I have officially let the egg go, told the truth, closed the doors that I thought were leading to my future. Are you with me? And then, just like that (hello Carrie?) just like that the words flooded in.
Best one yet. Loved it. #lettheegggo