I kid you not!
I have discovered that when I'm good my nails are good, when I'm bad my nails are bad. And it's true, after this colour was on I got back to creating a project that has had to be left on hold the past couple of weeks, which I'm neeeeearly ready to let loose and am so excited about!! Squeak **while bouncing**!!
Since I am not yet ready to reveal the project itself I'm being called to tell you a story about it, as it taught me a very crucial lesson, and today some seagulls brought home the teachings even more. Yeah, seagulls.
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| ....no not these kind, the real kind |
So start of this month I was planning on having this project wrapped up and posted in no time. Actually I wanted it done yesterday, as it had had so much work already (and I had loved every moment) but I kept getting distracted my shiny new projects, like the 7 Day Art Journaling Challenge for example. Now I know shiny object syndrome is made out to be a bad thing, and in many cases it can be, but listening my gut on any creative project (I think) is never among them. Not for me anyway. I firmly believe in following your own 'creative instinct' as I often refer to it, as it leads to the best places.
It allows you to create with ease
in a total state of flow and exhilaration
...and what is the point of creating if not to do it when feeling this drive, this eagerness, this fun?
So yes I often drop projects in favour of other projects that are calling me, but obviously in doing so it puts my other project/s behind, so I became de.ter.min.ed! It should have been beyond finished probably earlier in the year but certainly by November, with all the time that had been dedicated to it. So I set myself a deadline and was super focused on achieving it while I was feeling the creative instinct, the flow, to get it done and move onto other things. The time was right, nothing would stand in my way...and then...
and then...
everything stood in my way!
This circumstance happened, then that circumstance , and all the time I'm pushing against saying 'no I will get this done', next circumstance 'no I will, I will, I will', and then the next...you see the pattern.
I was feeling disheartened,
I was feeling out of control,
and then, I got sick.
And then...I gave it all up.
I let go.
Or I was forced to.
It was not going to happen if I accepted it or not.
I had no choice but to let it go.
And it was the most freeing thing ever.
Eventually I reset my deadline, taking into account things like recovery time, and shopping time, and family time etc etc and without worry about it changing, without the need to feel I had to push it into place. This was the lesson I learnt;
That, no matter what, we cannot control.
We can plan, yes. We can expect, yes. We can try, yes. We can move the earth to try to make something happen, yes.
But we cannot control.
Perhaps it's a lesson many learn before the age of 30, but we are all on our different paths and we learnt different things from those paths at different points in our lives. My path showed me this right now. Previously I've had the mindset that if you just work hard enough, if you just push yourself that little bit more, if you just...if you just... But it showed me that really, you can't even control yourself - for example my body getting sick and doing things I didn't want it to. The only thing you can ever really control is your reactions, how you cope with things, and even then at the core of the entire human race we are emotional beings [enter crimes of passion over other crime stats here], and so cannot even have control there in certain situations.
We certainly do not have control over any external circumstances, at all. And really why do we ever think it is our business to? All we can really do is accept what is, and ingratiate it into any planning, but with understanding that the playing field may change on you again. I've often heard it said that near enough all we worry about, all of us as a collective, are things that actually never happen. We worry about things that never come to be. Well now I understand that a whole lot better. I think we probably worry like this because we can feel that, at the root of it, we don't have control. But after this month's experience I find that so freeing. Isn't it nice to know that it isn't in our control? That it isn't our job to control that event, or that person, or that timeline?
As I've said above we have enough of a battle if we just try and control ourselves, our bodies will let us down on that point - it has it's own stuff to deal with and do. Our brains often let us down, not being able to remember that famous persons name on the telly 'ooooh what have they been in? what have they been in? I know the face....I just can't place it...', or coming up with a great point an hour after an argument has ended, when you can't implement it. Our emotions often let us down, how many apologies have each of us made in our lifetimes for saying something we didn't mean in the heat of the moment or 'god damnit why am I crying right now? That's the last thing I want to do. Grrrr'. And of course by 'let down' I don't mean that it's a let down at all, I just mean that I've learned disappointment can only follow if you choose to control anything rather than just ALLOW!
That's the point of this whole post I suppose, to ALLOW,
and then go from there.
You wondering about the seagulls yet?
Well as I've only just got back to working on my project, or doing any creative work, I decided to open the outdoor studio tonight.
I got in there just before it turned dark.
And all the sky was grey. Gloomy, but in it's own way beautiful.
The sun was low as it was beginning to set, giving the place that 'winter sunlight' that reflects so brightly off of the snow (when it's around)
And then suddenly there was a hundred seagulls
At least
Bouncing around like floating lightbulbs
Their white bellies being lit up by the low sun, against the cloudy grey backdrop
Making them look like fairy lights in the dark.
And every one,
Every single one
Was just riding the wind
Bobbing
Flowing
Drifting
Twisting and turning at the current's will.
They were all allowing.
Every one
Every single one
Riding the wind
Not flapping, not flying, not caring if they were separated from the flock, not controling.
The sky was FULL of seagulls. In every direction.
Little bright lights filling the sky through their roaming
I wish I had caught it on camera
But I was too busy watching and understanding what it was meaning to me:
It meant a sharp contrast between animal, and human, behaviour. It meant a lesson in remembering to live from instinct and intuition, rather than restriction and control.
It meant I forevermore have a visual in my mind to remind me just to let go
(you can't control it anyway),
and allow.