Hello Carousellers,
Happy lunar new year - it’s good to write to you again.
If you’re new here - welcome. This is a newsletter where I share honest musings about being a multi-passionate, creative, freelancer.
This morning I set my alarm for just before 7 and was greeted to a gorgeous sunrise as I walked down the road to have pancakes with my sister and niece. Something definitely felt like it lifted with the morning mist. The last few days of the snake have been hardcore, but also maybe necessary. A deep excavation of the final scraps that needed to be felt. I wonder how they’ve been for you?
So, real talk. In the past few months my professional work has been falling away, piece by piece. It’s been really unsettling. And when I’m honest, I know that much of this work is no longer aligned. Clients that I was starting to plateau with. Gigs that didn’t quite make sense. I even had one client before Christmas book me for a workshop and then as I was about to book my flight, do a u-turn and cancel the whole thing less than 24hrs later (and, even though it was a significant amount of money, I found myself breathing a sigh of relief.)
As a 10 years + freelancer I’m used to work coming and going, but the volume of what was falling away was starting to feel significant: A chapter of my work is closing and the next one has not arrived yet. The stuff that doesn’t make sense anymore is just not sticking. For the first time in quite a few years I look at my diary and I see space; lots of space. And this provokes uneasiness. A lack of control. An overwhelm of ideas of how to fill it. Past experience has shown me that undefined space is to be trusted. The summer of 2018 that felt eerily empty until two close friends lost parents and I was able to be around for them. The space of not knowing where I was going to live in 2023 gave birth to a whole new chapter in Brighton. Time and time again things have fallen away and been reborn.
And yet when we’re in that in between in can feel so damn terrifying.
I have been feeling quite terrified.
It feels edgy to talk about this, but I am also always so grateful when other freelancers are honest about this stuff. It’s part of choosing this path - so let’s normalise it, and help each other through it.
On the train back to Brighton today, I tried on a different perspective. It’s a coaching question I often ask my leaders in schools when they find themselves in a situation that feels deeply uncomfortable.
‘If your soul had designed this current experience for you so that you could develop a skill, or learn something what would it be be for?’
And so I asked myself this question.
I asked myself, ‘what if this space was perfectly designed to help me right now? What if rather than fighting it and embracing it, I accepted it?’
How else could I view the space?
And the first words that came to me were: DEEP REST.
Wow.
What if I’m not supposed to be busy right now. What if this is recovery or preparation. Or just wintering. I felt my body relax. I suddenly saw that maybe I was incredibly lucky. That I had this spaciousness right now, without too many demands, and that I didn’t need to fill up those days with stress about the space… Or guilt about the space.
And I continued to write:
what if the the space is…
to slow down and deepen my intuition
to practice a more frugal, resourceful and ultimately communal life
to have days following my bliss and going with the flow, while the next chapter reveals itself
to be off my phone
to cook
to re-write my website with the story of who I am now (it was last made in 2021)
long walks
time by the sea to just BE
time to feel I am worthy outside of money and work (where else can worth come from?)
tidying up lose ends of businesses and hobbies I’ve outgrown - giving them a beautiful ending
building trust in myself to navigate all the seasons - life is not linear
to be better a coach and teacher of this Carousel lifestyle, deeply understanding what it’s like to be in these ebbs and flows, so I can support others too
That last one really stuck with me. And I often forget - that as a coach and teacher I am often going through this stuff first so I can teach it later. I’m an experiential learner and so life is like ‘ummm go have no work for a bit and draw on your creativity and resourcefulness. Go and practise self-trust. Go and learn to be kind to yourself in all seasons.’
So this is a question for you right now, with whatever is going on in your life:
what skills are you developing?
what might you be learning that you can support others with later?
And with that, I’m going to walk down and see the murmuration of starlings on the seafront before their season ends…
Sending a huge Carousel shaped hug,
Until next time,
Sarah
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.