I have taken a small (and completely unintentional) hiatus from blogging. I only noticed this morning that I wrote just one post last week and that this is the first time I’ve actually sat down to write another one since. This is not because I’ve been too busy or uninspired… it’s simply because I’m on a new journey and it’s all a result of the ten Kahuna sessions I recently completed with Colleen at Midlands House of Healing.
Rewind to three months ago. I was still working full time at a job I enjoyed, but which I knew wasn’t my forever career or indeed leading me towards my forever career. I knew in my heart that I needed to resign, but I was afraid. Afraid to hurt feelings, afraid to be independent and, most of all, afraid to be reliant on my own skills and talents for survival. I was writing new posts for this blog every single day, craving high readership statistics, as well as comments and approval. I was busy 24/7. I spent hard-earned money on redesigning this site and installing Google Analytics. If I wasn’t at work, I was sitting at my desk, writing, writing, writing. I was lucky if I could fit in a workout or a quick dinner with my man. And all the time I was racked with guilt for not spending time with my family and friends, as well as time with my actual, real, not-working, not-writing self. For some reason I had put all this pressure – SO much pressure – on myself… and I still don’t know why.
Five sessions into my kahuna journey and I had left my job and was just starting out as a freelance copywriter and social media consultant. I relished being in charge of my own time and the feeling that I was really, really working for my money. I had meetings set up with potential clients (some of which are now existing clients, some of which are not) and I was ready to go! I had desktop calendars, weekly planners, diaries and pens all at the ready. And then… my body made me stop. And the sneaky thing is that it made me stop right where it knew I would hurt the most – in the trapezius muscle which affects your typing and driving ability. What did I need to do most as a freelancer? Drive to meetings and type on my laptop. Ha! Universe/god/angels you sure are a funny lot, aren’t you? (Read this post, which ventures deeper into my experience of pain and what it has meant to me.)
Five weeks of intense physiotherapy and three more kahuna sessions later, and I can safely say that the pain is now manageable. I now view the pain as something necessary – something that had to happen – rather than a burden. I needed that pain to slow myself down after a year of working two jobs, late nights and the accompanying stress (both personal and work-related) which I had placed on myself. I needed that pain to force me to sit down and take the break I needed between ending a job and beginning a career. And you know what? The world didn’t end because I couldn’t blog or write. The world didn’t end because I wasn’t putting myself out there and securing clients. The world didn’t end because I had to ask my husband for money to put fuel into my car. I was fine. And the world was fine.
And so I read. And I went for long walks. And I watched old movies. And I went for coffee-and-cake dates with friends. And I made my man dinner and set the table. And I drank good red wine and fell asleep on the couch. And I skyped my best friend in Italy and she made everything make sense again. And I stopped worrying that I wasn’t writing and I stopped questioning myself as a kind and loving human purely because of the fact that some people upset themselves over things I wrote.
After my last bittersweet (sob) session of kahuna last week, Colleen and I sat down together to make a list and acknowledge the ways in which I’ve felt kahuna has helped me grow over the last few months.
- I feel wiser and more aware of myself as a human being on this earth. I know, and accept, that I have so much more to learn, but that as I do, I will share what I’ve learnt through my writing and that I will teach and make people think – because this is what I love to do.
- I feel stronger, and more assertive. I am not carrying people’s emotions and problems anymore- which means that while I will hear people out and empathise with them, and maybe been give them some advice if they want, I’m not letting anyone into my bed. Ermmm… not that I was before, but you know what I mean! Working for myself has also made me stand up for what I believe I should earn and what I think I’m worth and I will no longer be etching my name onto the front doormat for everyone to wipe their feet on. If someone is not willing to pay me what I think I’m worth (and believe me, I’m a newbie, situated in the Midlands, and I totally get that I can’t charge some of the peeps here anywhere near what they’d be charged in Cape Town or Joburg… but I also realise that I can’t be working for free), I’m not going to be losing too much sleep over it. Everyone has choices to make, just as I do.
- I’m my own rule maker with my own clear boundaries of “no”. I have come to recognise that my time here is short and at the end of the day, I’ll only have myself (and hopefully my Andrew) to sit with on the porch in the twilight of my life. So… selfish as it may sound, my needs come first. If I need to sleep in, I will. If I need to get up at 4am and do all the yoga poses in the world, I will. If I need to postpone a meeting or if I have a funny feeling in my gut about a client and decide not to work with them, I will (and won’t). There are no longer strict rules and regulations to my time here – life is meant to pliable. We are meant to play with it and to mould it into the best thing we possibly can. Believe me, I’m going to take my life for a walk, do bollamakisies with it down soft green hills, feed it chocolate cake and stroke it until it is the best life possible!
- And lastly, I have finally decided on how to go forward with this blog. AT LAST. For about eighteen months now, I have been grappling with the direction of Midlands Musings in terms of sponsorship and advertising and possibly making money from it. Despite encouragement from others and emails from various individuals and companies, for some reason this whole idea of advertising (on any platform) has never sat easy with me, enticing as it may be. Perhaps I did listen at university and perhaps all those humanities lecturers at university did eventually get under my skin, because I still carry both the awareness and the guilt of how clever people sell things to slightly less clever people by convincing them that they’ll be a better person for possessing said things. I have come to realise that I can’t be moulded into something I’m trying to sell. I’m just not a hustler. Never have been. If I really love something, I will (probably) let you know about it – whether it be a product, blog, book, film, restaurant or place to stay. My sidebar will be filled with the logos of things I dig – free of charge to the kiff people and lekker companies I choose to put up there. I have also come to terms with the fact that I’m an opinionated blogger and that sometimes I may totally lose my shit on this little space of mine and that this scares a lot of advertisers away… but it is still MY space. I don’t want to censor my thoughts and ideas here – I don’t want to censor myself as a human being and I certainly don’t want to deny myself (or my readers) the real, honest and sometimes crazy inner workings of my brain purely because of the people and companies who may sponsor me. So… this new freedom will also probably mean less blog posts. Some weeks I might write five posts, some weeks none, but I’m not bothered anymore about readership stats or being sent free stuff or being invited to fancy events. I’m a writer. It’s taken me a long time to acknowledge this and embrace it entirely, but that’s who I am. I will continue to blog, but I will also write. In notebooks, in journals and even on that elusive vintage typewriter if I ever find it; with pens and pencils and with my wonderful wonky arm… I will write.
This isn’t good-bye, it’s hello. Hello from a writer who happens to have a blog. Hello from a writer who will feature thoughts from the scary dark depths of her soul. Hello from a writer who may sometimes offend, but will always be speaking her truth. Hello from a writer who has found her space and is about to fill up every corner of it and get bean-bag comfortable in it. Hello from a writer who still has so much to learn and whom changes her mind every day as she does so. Hello from a writer who would rather like to change the world, word by word. Hello from a writer with a giddy heart and a skip in her step. Hello from a writer who hopes you’ll keep on reading, but who will keep on writing even if you don’t.
To my earth angel, Colleen: thank you for seeing the light in me, even when I could only see darkness. Thank you for encouraging me to be fill my own void. Thank you for holding me and nurturing me and making me strong. Thank you for inspiring me. Thank you for being honest and for pulling me up on my weaknesses and for enhancing my strengths. This journey has been incredible in so many ways and I thank you so very much.
If you’d like to experience your own healing journey with Colleen, email her at midlandshouseofhealing@gmail.com or text her on 084 603 0604.
Image text written by Brenè Brown.