Simply does it

As a beginning blogger (though I’ve been writing for over a year & stashing it on my computer), I’m visiting other blogs that speak to me. The theme that seems to link them all is simplicity. If there is anything I truly need with my complicating head, it is simplicity. I need simple ideas and I love those put forward by Joshua Becker at Becoming Minimalist for starters.

If only I could do fewer projects, refrain from leaving things out, (creating  clutter), banish stuffed files from the filing cabinet – it would ease the pressure. My natural default is complication. Yet when working with others, whether it’s as a mediator of conflict: ‘what’s the one thing that you would like from your aggravating colleague?’ or in teaching public speaking ‘keep your key message as one clear idea’, I know about simplicity. When however, it comes to managing myself, I get a bit A.D.D. as Alanis Morrisette says in her song. 

© Maggie Sawkins 2014 All Rights Reserved
My work on Etsy

So on this one day, I started off to write a bit, got waylaid by ‘I'll just check interesting Facebook posts’, looked at email, set an alarm to buy some newly released theatre tickets then took a couple of calls. One was from a client so I needed to focus on that & building the relationship. Then off I diverted into looking for paid opportunities and applying for possible outlets for both my art work or some employed work in the Arts… which involved uploading photos etc…so in the end the blogging focus goes and it's couple of hours later. You know the score… Bless me, my butterfly brain skips about. Yet what it truly needs at every moment are fewer distractions. 

Today after a similarly scattered hour at the beginning of my work day, I’ve started putting pen to paper (so to speak) and writing this post. Meanwhile, I'm happily looking out the window at the spring sun on a half-term Friday - observing the people with their kids enjoying the swings and skatepark. It's lovely.

At home, I’m following the energy I now have to chuck stuff out. Do less, be more. I love hearing from The Minimalists (they're coming to London in October) and Be More With Less. I read other posts that remind me to stop and connect. 

I aim to do stuff for 30mins at a time, intervening with a twinkling timer on my phone. I now register that I do achieve (there is great evidence to this end) and I do things more than well-enough. I'm less frustrated on a regular basis by the belief that the multiplicity of activities is scattered and confused. But variety is great for me. Paradoxically I have the erroneous belief, ‘whatever I do, it’s never enough’ The mating call of the active and perfectionist workaholic… 

Ah well. Do less, be more, relax and enjoy life. Do more of what makes your heart sing. Keep on keeping it simple. Today I will dash off the work requirements and take the afternoon off. More time with trees or the movies beckon. Maybe everything is alright. x

Have Faith

As I walked along with the birds tweeting away in the trees this morning, I realised that my faith is building. 

Believe it or not, I've lived a life without it. I didn’t know about hope -  or trust - that things could work out. Though they often have, I have always felt a sense of negativity. That my destiny is 'failure'. It’s been sometimes a background quiet knowing, at others a full blown ‘there’s no point to my life’ depression. 

© Maggie Sawkins All rights reserved
My art work on Etsy

I'm counselled, workshopped and therap-ed enough to know that my existence (life) has been based on and driven by shame. I won't go into the why's and wherefore's here, but it's helpful enough to know this.  Shame was picked up as a frightened child and then compounded throughout college choices, work and grew into the shame of the invisible person who doesn't know who she is. 

Driven to spend all my time trying to be someone or do the things (the only things) I thought I should do. Living to some internalised expectations. Should Have Already Mastered Everything. 

Along this process of recovery (coming back to myself or discovering afresh,) I've been finding out who I am. Along the way I’ve had a couple of years of living hand-to-mouth and finding that in fact, it did all work out if I only focussed on the day I’m in. What else can we do? I found that my 'poverty' (by western standards - luxurious living by many others) did not define me. 

I've became less attached to things and to needing new stuff. 
I have gradually felt the shame lifting. Paradoxically it seemed, as I wasn't doing a lot of things that money can bring. I found free things to do and focussed on people and things I enjoy. I've not gone into hibernation by a long stretch. As I mended my jeans once again last night, I felt abundantly creative & it was so satisfying. I felt the love of life as it is. They are a great make and I don’t want to throw them. 

This burden of ‘nothing I do will ever make any difference’ is lifting off me. I can sense that things are gradually more in line with who I am and the ways I wish to spend my time. After all, it's all we have.

So now I have this simpler life and no longer feel I must be on the racetrack in order to qualify. Thank you God-of-no-particular-denomination. Thank you Bill W. and fellows. Thank you Joshua Becker and all the minimalism bloggers out there. Thank you Clissold Park for all your simple beauty. 

The days have become more mine and the fear is gradually lifting. I'm sure it will pop back for a visit at some time soon but just for today, I trust.

When things crash and burn and we take it personally, it is so hard to come back. I think I have had a series of crashes and getting back on my feet. And I'm writing these words. No longer telling people 'I want to write about my art work' but not doing so. And here I am showing my work to you. The way to do a life that suits us is in our gift. HAVE FAITH x

To thine own self be true

Being economical with the truth is a necessary part of life. 

“How are you?” you will ask. Do you mean you want to know exactly how I am? Warts and all? Sleeplessness, physical symptoms, family matters, missing out on some work, feeling over-responsible for others, anxious about money... otherwise fine…! Thanks for asking. Do you really want to know? Therefore on occasion, ‘I’ve got plans that day’ is economical - you don’t need to know about my hospital appointment or the support group I might be going to.

© Maggie Sawkins 2013 All rights reserved
My art work on Etsy

I find huge relief in Mark Twain’s reminder: “If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything”. It serves me well. And it’s a blessed relief to tell the truth. Thank God for the people with whom I can be utterly honest. Completely myself, totally candid and fantastically free. I do need to work within boundaries that I learn more about all the time. Someone on the foundation therapy training I undertook, I think described me as, ‘somewhat emotionally incontinent’. Bless me. Spilling it all out all over the place to whoever would listen, often without checking their credentials in any shape or form. Leaving myself vulnerable to the comments of heavy footed and insensitive others. I'm learning to be more discerning as I grow up. 

With honesty, I find there is so much less to fear. I've seen eyes glazing over and slowly register that they are being less than open. That's what sets off the worries about what is not being said. The sinking recognition that honesty is not in fact their best policy. I've found that meeting a man who declared himself 'honest' meant in fact 'I won't be'. Watching the 'Real Housewives'(I have eclectic taste in TV), I see how much they like to declare how authentic they are… how ‘genuine’ equates to ‘not at all’. They protest too much!

I’ve spend a lot of my life not being truly honest.  It’s a strange thing to say but it's a fact. I didn’t know enough about what makes me tick. I was honest in that I shared my true feelings (as far as I knew what they were) in therapy rooms, in workshops or recovery meetings. I would pour out my heart on the phone and with friends who had similar understanding and awareness. If I can't be honest with myself, how can I be truly truthful with you-?

Being with work colleagues in situations where we may be judged, I find much more testing places to be honest and open. What a pity that is. How much better would workplaces be if you felt you could say what your true thoughts were. I recently noticed I was irritated by a committee meeting (from the church next door) happening alongside me in the cafe where I write. It was their lack of personal expression that struck me - nobody said what they were feeling or thinking. Their communication was often about others who weren't present. Not any of my business of course. Yet I want to live amongst people who are open, frank, compassionate and alive and I didn’t hear that in them. I heard them judging others. And here I am doing the same! God love me. 

What is honesty? Being the most natural and open? Telling it like it is? Being open and clear. Declaring how one feels rather than saying what we think is expected. And perhaps even more importantly, telling the truth to oneself. Self-deception has a lot to answer for. And in starting this blog, I aim to share honestly for my own ends. I’ve run out of doing the right thing when it doesn’t also please me. I need to stay honest. To mine own self be true. I think the truth does in fact, alway set us free.