This week’s story so far:  from a place of overwhelm, confusion and desperation, I just gave up trying to do the “right/logical/most productive/best/most likely to lead to clients/most likely to lead to sales/what I should do/what I had to do/creating art/working on the website” thing and just gave up.

I let go of having any idea of what I ought to be doing and allowed myself to just do what I felt like even if it was watching tele, reading a book or going to be beach.

From that space I remembered that Flora Bowley was running an online boot camp during September so I went to check it out. Yesterday’s post – Look What I Did – tells the story of what happened next.

In a nutshell things flowed splendidly and I had a wonderful day.

But . . . this is where it gets tricky.

My normal pattern is:

desperation -> let go -> things flow nicely -> relief -> more energy ->make a plan -> start trying -> fall down the rabbit hole of control -> overwhelm/confusion -> despondency -> desperation

Being mindful of that pattern my intention is to remain in the “let go” phase and avoid the danger zone of trying to tightly control things. A great way to do that is to play (which just so happens to be Day 7 of Flora’s Boot Camp).

I have found play to be THE most important place for me to create from. Not just art but the whole of my life. Things just flow when I’m being playful and if they don’t, well I’m having fun anyway so it doesn’t matter. Yet so much of the time I forget this and operate from a place of “shoulds” or other people’s ideas about what works and doesn’t work.

Taking things seriously seems to be my default and I often don’t notice that I’ve gone there again. So, this prompt was a great reminder. So much so that I went off and finished another piece of art, that had been lying around for months, just to remind myself. (See above)

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So, what about you? Do you have a cycle of desperation or something similar? What takes you back there and how can you get out of it?

Let us know in the comments . . .