How do you look at what you used to think, who you used to be, with kindness and curiosity rather than disdain and embarrassment?
Truth can change
Reflecting
Do I trust everyone and hang all hope on just remembering when we get to July and rip into planning? Is “just remembering” a sound business strategy, ever?
“This is precisely the time when artists go to work.”
I wasn’t going to get up today, haven’t felt like writing all week. Where there used to be space to reflect, there seems now to be space only for reaction. For news and anxiety and the barely held capacity to adjust to the new normal, each day.
Get up and out, or let it out: solutions to the creative dilemma
Honestly, sometimes writing is like thrashing in a rip. No idea is a good one. I can’t concentrate. Then I get frustrated with myself, which makes it even harder to write... I have found that if I’m struggling to get anything coherent out, usually one of two things has happened, so therefore one of two things needs to happen.
Comfort in, dump out
I couldn’t see why he didn’t have empathy for my situation until I told Toni what was happening. Being my counsellor at the time, she smiled knowingly and asked, “Jemma, have you ever heard about The Ring Theory?”
Love Letters: Tim Minchin
Tim Minchin allowed me to sit outside what I believed for many years, try on a new way of thinking and have a laugh. What a gift that is.
Comparison
I didn’t know either of these people, but reflecting on my thought process now, I had assumed two things very quickly: that I wasn’t as good as them, and their mythical lifestyle was worth expending emotional energy being jealous of.
The approach when it’s not a Rubik’s cube
With our personal lives, we usually know what to do to solve our problems. But the ones we’re paid to be solving are nuanced, fraught with risk and unlikely to have a solution that pleases everyone; as Seth Godin rightly says, all the easy problems are taken.
