Writing. Caring for myself, with loving kindness directed inwards. Slowing down in the face of overwhelm.
Inspired by Olu, I decided to write & share weeknotes, so here’s the first installment.
This week I focused on my writing and on connecting with other writers. I have a bunch of other stuff on, as well as a lot coming up too. I started feeling overwhelmed. Then, I received this timely wisdom, and got what I needed to Slow. Down.
Hurrying is a disease. Worrying is a disease.
I heard a metaphor on effortless effort, about being in quicksand & how striving to get out just gets us further stuck.
Trees have been helping me slow down. Because when I see them, I want to get to know them better. Which takes time.
Writing
It was the first meeting of The Future is Back, an awesome writing group. I sent some of my writing to the group for feedback. I felt hesitant and tentative, and I did it anyway. Yay me!
I attended Week 1 of an Artist’s Way group and started a closed AW group with a couple of friends too. The latter prompted me to resume actual Morning Pages after ‘just’ journalling for a few months. Not resumed Artist Dates yet, but I did schedule a couple.
I wrote a poem!
Everything else…
Friends conversing: I had some great conversations with friends about creativity, family, writing, work, meditation & such.
One of my friends encouraged me to reward myself for reaching milestones. So, I gave myself a Wild in the City membership, and signed up for a couple of events for people of colour in nature. Thanks friend.
Family hangouts: Quality time with extended family, for my grandad’s 90th birthday.
I didn’t go viral, but something I tweeted received move attention than my tweets usually get. I felt anxious and I checked twitter more often, more than I wanted to be checking it. Similar thing happened on a smaller scale with this tweet too. I know now that I absolutely do not want fame!
Retreat planning: A few friends and I decided to plan a little retreat for ourselves. So, we met on Sunday afternoon to talk about the logistics. Starting meetings with meditation is how I want to do them all in future. And being horizontal for most of the meeting was great for my fatigue and me. Hurrah for sustainable & accessible organising.
Workshop preparing: I did some planning for workshops I’m co-creating for Autumn 2019 & Summer 2020. I booked my accommodation for the Liberating Structures European Learning Gathering in August. I’m glad that I got these bits and pieces of admin done. There’s a whole heap to do; I’ll keep taking bites out of it. Margins announced the workshop I’m leading there on wellbeing & burnout recovery in Nottingham.
Apps, apps, apps: Well, first of all, I installed an app killer, AppBlock, to stop me from using Twitter and Instagram when it would be better for me to be sleeping. Worked great the first night, but the second night it didn’t work at all. Hoping that was a blip and that I’ll be sleeping soundly tonight.
Timebox Timer continues to visualise how much time I have left for whatever duration I set. So useful, and much simpler & easier to use than the default Clock app on my phone.
Oh, and Any.do is helping me focus on my one thing to do each day. It’s designed for lists, but still works great with my work-in-progress limit of 1. Having a widget for it on my home screen helps remind me what my priority is.
And that’s all, folks!