Soft not hard

Two years ago this month I took Tom back to my parents to get some pictures of me picking plums and swimming in my creek. I had the beginnings of an idea. The idea was based on a feeling, and the feeling: Call me by your name. Maybe that film spoke to me so much because it was half about agonising undeniable but impossible love, and half about delicious bodies of water, peaches and pleasure. It felt right for my brand. Even though I didn’t know exactly what the brand was for.

When my yoga career was dying, I made various attempts at resuscitation. Not really because I wanted to, but because I needed to. I didn’t have a plan B (not a realistic one anyway), but I knew it wasn’t right either. That year I had my final yoga retreat that never happened. It hardly sold and I remember someone reflecting to me that talking constantly online about what a drain teaching yoga was and then trying to sell a retreat in Italy wasn’t a fantastic marketing strategy. Anyway, nature's hands and torrential rain and landslides meant it couldn’t happen and we all watched our money and vibes pour down the drain.

I don’t really think about that experience much because it was such a surreal time. I was in early pregnancy with limited capacity and a few weeks later I’d lose the baby and my retreat being a success or not wouldn’t touch the sides. Even when it was happening, and we were strapped into harnesses by a mountain rescue team, and sleeping in a village hall, I wasn’t really feeling much beyond the moment in question. I wouldn’t call it trauma, but I would call it a very strange time and a very good test of my relationship. When I think back, it’s like watching a film of someone else, I am above my body. Maybe it’s because what happened next separated me from the girl who lived through that and made me into something else.

So just before the plum and creek swim after the retreat, I applied for a load of jobs and sent messages to everyone I’ve ever known looking for leads for work. Even though I can say it amounted to nothing :) it was a brilliant time of focus. I treated it like my job and having purpose and calls and replies made me feel like I might be getting somewhere. People from my past were so willing to help where they could and I even went to meetings in buildings where people work their jobs and had a lot of promising chats. Because God had other plans for me, it went nowhere, like I said and I circled back to something. The something that I ALWAYS circle back to: I’ll do it myself.

I literally think of the little red hen all the time. The little red hen is me: I'll do it myself said the little red hen. Does that reference mean anything to you? I can’t remember the moral of the story but I have a feeling it’s that we need help. LOL. Anyway, we do and that came later. Mine was just never to be employed. So somewhere in the haze of applications (I realistically applied to three jobs), and trying to drum up copywriting work from people I knew 10 years before, I had the glimmer of an idea. And then sharply, Write for your life came to me. Katie emailed me out of the blue asking if she could make me a new website as part of her portfolio and I had the chance to reinvent myself so we just did it.

I wrote a bunch of copy for my website that has changed now. What I thought it was going to be was different to what it is. But the vibe, and the beginning of something was there. By the end of the summer I had an idea for my first group programme and I threw it out on Instagram and very easily filled it with six people. Some things about it went really well and some things needed to be changed. But there was a feeling the whole time: I’m onto something here. So I repackaged it, put the price up and did it again. People signed up easily and I once again felt, this is something good.

This week Tom kept talking about how we need a new broom. I found it almost impossible to engage in the conversation so he went ahead and researched best brooms for cat hair and well what can I say, we got a delivery yesterday. He wakes up before me and as my eyes were opening about 7.20 this morning I could hear him and the broom downstairs. Apparently it really does the trick. I’m not just telling you the broom story because it’s compelling, I’m telling you because Tom is often thinking about things we could do to improve the house. Or he might be thinking about a T-shirt he really wants and spending time looking for it online. I never am. I wondered this morning if maybe one of the things about what I do means that my capacity for ideas is quite full.

The energy required to start something new can’t be underestimated. It’s partly why I understand why I didn’t do it sooner. I was unfulfilled teaching yoga for a long time before I did anything to change it. It actually just didn’t seem like a possibility. Even though I had a lot of time on my hands. By the end (lol) I was teaching a class or two a day mostly online. So imagine how many hours I had left to play with. But what did I do with those hours? Walk round Hackney marshes feeling misunderstood, write things, watch things, lie in my attic, pine. I didn’t have the internal resources to do anything with my time. I was also waiting for good news of my book deal that never came. But it’s amazing how paralysing it was to be waiting. Waiting for a man, waiting for success.

Getting pregnant with Tom accelerated our relationship. We’d only been together for three months when I got those blue lines. It forced us to decide to have two feet in. Losing the baby three months later put us to the ultimate test. I took medication to induce the miscarriage as it didn’t happen on its own (it’s called a missed miscarriage). Anyway, it means your body goes through a labour of sorts. It was a night in June and when the process started I had this music I love playing, part of the Max Richter Dreamscape. I was knelt on the floor with my head on the bed and moving my hips in circles. Tom made a video of me. And I thought: this man KNOWS me. Even though this is arguably the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, he knows I’d want him to record what’s beautiful about it. Anyway it’s not like I’ve watched the video back, and the night got a lot less photographable, but that plus my grief was a lot for six months of knowing someone.

So yeah right we’re back in August two years ago again and I felt trusting enough of this relationship to pour my energy into building something. In part it was the feeling that if we want to have kids we really need to get our houses in order, and in part it was knowing that I really hadn’t been living in alignment. I’m sorry to use the phrase living in alignment. But doing something you kind of feel nothing about, well it doesn’t feel that nice, to feel nothing.

The other part was the ability to take myself seriously. I’m not blaming everything from before on unavailable men, but I will say there is a hidden toll of trying to get someone to love you who doesn’t on your ability to put yourself out there. I was riddled with the need to seem like a cool chill girl. And building the kind of business that I have built has been about being open, vulnerable, consistent and mostly, OUT THERE. I was always imagining the eyes of some random boys on everything I put online. And honeys those random boys it turns out aren’t the target audience of write for your life. Even though I think it could do them wonders. So basically I was censoring myself, being small, being pretty and sexy at all costs and very very willing to undermine myself whenever necessary.

I CANT TELL YOU HOW LIBERATING AND NECESSARY IT IS TO STOP BEING EMBARRASSED OF YOURSELF AND WHAT YOU’RE DOING.

When I decided I wasn’t embarrassed, everything changed. And it happened in stages, but it happened. By the end of that year a dramatic fall out with the studio where I taught my one remaining class was another sign to stop. I hung onto an online class I built that three or four people might come to for January of the next year. In February an article I wrote came out in the Guardian. It was *fairly damming* of the yoga industry and it blew up in the yoga industry. I guess divine timing is a thing and I couldn’t help but slam the door on my way out.

In retrospect I’ve had a series of diversions in my life that you could see as going the long way round. The next part was a bit like this. Something shiny comes in and it takes me off course, but I find a way to fit it into a narrative about what’s meant to be. A literary agent approached me following my viral article. She sent me the DM I'd dreamt of for years. I see real book potential in this Annie. We had a meeting whilst I was on holiday with Tom’s family in the Lake District. She signed with me on the spot. I felt like how I imagine people feel when they get engaged. For weeks I felt that way. I remember running round Hackney Downs a week later and whispering to the universe (to God?) my thanks. Anyway it was a real trip! And it went nowhere!

I spent two months devoted to the book proposal. Worked on it like it was my full time job and imagined I wouldn’t need to worry about my business now I was about to become a celebrity author. I wish I was joking. It was exhilarating and also good for my brain, a test of skills I hadn’t exercised for sometime. Emily (the agent) was fantastic: sharp, honest, smart and warm. I am proud of the proposal I wrote and it wasn’t very me. It was a kind of contained me, a thinking me, a me without my essence. I was pretty hyped about the next stage. Emily had said phrases like ‘bidding war’ and ‘sizable advance’ and I had utter confidence that this was finally my time. When I’d heard nothing a week after submission I started to waver. A well-timed trip to LA was the perfect distraction, but did nothing to dim my fantasy that I was coming for Hollywood. When I still hadn’t heard after two weeks being famous in America the doubts crept in. I finally heard sometime in June that no one had offered: the dream was over.

Anyway, I felt really gutted about that and I also felt very very; WHY DO BAD THINGS ALWAYS HAPPEN TO ME and also very AM I DESTINED TO NEVER EVER GET WHAT I WANT and also a bit MY LIFE IS A COSMIC JOKE.

I had to pick up my bootstraps a bit after that, slap myself round the face and realise once again: i’ll do it myself. This was only one year ago. I threw myself into my business. I purchased a wall calendar, I came up with new ideas, I had photoshoots with Tom on concepts for the new ideas, I showed up online consistently, I put myself out there again and again and honey, it paid off. Things started to change: my days got busier, I had things to do, I could visualise the growth and people booked my courses. I decided only one year ago, I’m going to take this seriously then and everything moved.

Stagnant periods can feel so endless. Not getting what you want can feel so unfair. I reckon with it still. For the last year I haven’t doubted what I am doing for a second. I’ve had stressful moments and hustle and will I pull this off, and I’ve had the most rewarding time in my career ever. It is growing, it feels more solid and so do I. Things take time, but also you can do a lot by opening one small door and just seeing.