I’m feeling a vibe shift right now.
On a bigger macro-level it’s undoubtedly the change in seasons, the shedding of leaves from tress, darker mornings and a background awareness of just how many days of the year we have left (90.) (Why should that matter? I don’t know, but it does.)
On a more micro/self level, there’s unsteady ground beneath my feet because of some pretty big ~personal growth~. Growth means new roots fighting their way through the mud of dirty ground. It isn’t easy work. It is not neat, or especially tidy.
I’ve been taking care of my body, continuing to lose significant weight, deciding to come back to the internet after five years away, launching this newsletter, buying a house, exploring my sexuality, changing the direction of my career (more to come on that…) - basically entering my “shine a light” era, like I’ve mentioned, instead of hiding my light under a bushel à la Laura of 2019-now. And it’s kind of terrifying as much as it is exciting.
I think that’s why they invented the word exhilarating? To incorporate both feelings?
Does Glennon Doyle cal it sc-ited?
If I was to go full “The Colour Monster” I’d say all my colours are hella mixed up, but in a good way. Like how the caterpillar has to turn to mush before it emerges as a butterfly, or you need a crappy first draft to get it all out before you polish your words into a workable novel.
I’m in the emotionally messy part of rewriting my story, where I’m all about what my pal Lucy calls the essentials, A.N.E.
And.
Nothing.
Else.
Sleep. Healthy foods. Working out. Solo dates. Snuggles on the couch with my kid. I don’t have the bandwidth for anything else. Like I say, maybe that’s autumn. But I also feel like it’s…not.
Last week I found myself sat in my car, on my drive, idly scrolling Pinterest, which aside from the app we use to share our workouts at the gym is the only social media I still use. My Pinterest is the truest reflection of me: exclusively English Country homespo, street style, and motivational quotes. So sue me! I am, how do you say, le basic bitch:
I’m normally an equal-opportunist pinterest-er but last week, sat in the car very much not going into my house, it was the inspirational quotes, pinned to a board I call, quite simply, helpful, that I lingered on.
I know it’s lame, to be all “Insta-rational” or whatever, but I took genuine comfort from revisiting my little scrapbook of quotes. I’ve been back to that corner of the my Internet several times since, really bedding down into calming my nervous system with these little tidbits of encouragement, wisdom, and motivation. And today I thought, oh! These might help somebody else! I’ll share them!
To quote Meghan Markle’s wallet: take what you need. And if you’re in a vibe shift of your own right now, I’m right there alongside you. Change isn’t straightforward. If it was, everyone would be doing it.
All stress is caused by wanting this moment to be something it’s not. I inhale what is. I accept this time for whatever it has to show me.
I know several people currently in what Dr Seuss calls The Waiting Place. I first came across The Waiting Place when reading Oh! The Places You’ll Go! to my kid, but think every adult should have a copy to keep their spirits up. I love that book so much, it became a running motif in my teen novel Taylor Blake is a Legend, after Taylor is introduced to it by the guy who will become her crush. Ahhhh, Duncan! He’s arguably the most emotionally intelligent Adam-Brody-coded love interest I’ve ever written - and he’s 14.
Anyway. The bit I always think of goes:
The Waiting Place.
Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come,
or a plane to go or the mail to come,
or the rain to go or the phone to ring,
or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday nightor waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.Everyone is just waiting.
In this specific moment of time for me, as I wait on work news, re-reading this quote helps me to understand that whether I lie awake staring at the ceiling at 3am or not, what is going to happen is going to happen. I try to encourage myself to inhale, and recognise that the stress I feel is simply a wish that things were different - i.e. that I was not in The Waiting Place.
This works for a lot of different frustrations - for example, when my kid won’t brush his teeth (I wish we were in a moment where he would, so I didn’t have to waste my breath asking again), or when the to-do list feels too long (I wish life admin would take care of itself; it won’t, so maybe I should do fifteen minutes a day instead of two full days a month??)
I’d even go as far to say as stress isn’t just wanting a moment to be something it is not, but a situation, too: work, family, our finances, our health. The question then becomes: do I accept things as they are because they cannot change, or do I pursue change because change is less painful than the stress?
You often feel tired, not because you’ve done too much, but because you’ve done too little of what sparks a light in you.
I think of this is as a sister quote to the one above.
Improving my health has meant I am much better able to tell the difference between physical and mental tiredness now. I used to need a nap most days! I don’t any more! It’s amazing what happens when you stop eating shit and throw around a hundred kilos a few times a week! What I can see now my lifestyle has improved is that 99% of the time any fatigue comes back to what’s happening in my head, and thinking too much.
I used to very much be team eat-the-frog-and-then-relax but then I never relaxed, because there was always another frog to eat. So now, like I’ve mentioned before r.e. the “one thing for me a day/a week/a month” goal I got from my manifestation journal, I’m trying to make relaxing part of the journey, not the reward at the end.
If the dishes aren’t done, I still get to go out for coffee.
If I have five outstanding emails in my inbox at 6pm, I can still close the laptop and reply to them tomorrow.
I can go to the gym before I take that call.
I go on and on about scheduling in my “fun” and “downtime” because yes I’m almost 40 but beyond that I deserve it.
I deserve fun!
My definition of fun has evolved lately, but I think it does for anyone with young children. Now my fun is less “hop on a plane and figure the rest out later” and more “do something restorative”. That’s joy to me.
May we all do something that sparks our joy today. And every day.
If you’re 37. Instead of regretting that you can’t wake up age 18 again, pretend to yourself that you’re 90 and you’ve woken up age 37 again, and that you get to magically, wonderfully, have the next 50 years again.
This hits me hard.
I’m largely over imagining all the other different paths I might have taken in my life, which is a win I do not take lightly. I tortured myself for years over the different things I could have done, or didn’t do and should have done: studying at a better university, living long-term in the States, having a proper long-term relationship, giving up on yoga teacher training, building my own business and getting on the Forbes 30-under-30 list.
But, in terms of thinking the next 50 years are somehow all downhill because I’m no longer in my twenties? Oh my GOD. No!
This quote positively galvanises me into seizing the day and focussing on all the ways the future is going to be amazing. Better than my twenties! Recently I read Jonathan Fields talk about turning 60 soon, and using the next two years to implement the things that will make the next twenty sensational. THAT is what I’m here for: knowing that yesterday is already gone, but if we play our cards right, our tomorrows can bear the sweetest fruit yet.
Offline is the new luxury.
This one is short and simple for me: whenever I feel the pull to get online so I can “stay relevant” (whatever that even means), I have to remind myself: I am happier away from my phone than I am on it.
I don’t punish myself for leaving texts unanswered, news un-scrolled, apps unchecked… I will not die if I do not get celebrity gossip or a hot take tomorrow morning instead of right now. Once upon a time I really thought I would!
Parenthood has been the big prompt for me with this. I don’t want my son to see me on my phone all the time, and I want him to know my time with him is the most important thing. You know when somebody at dinner has their phone on the table? I fucking hate that. Focus on me! Hi! I swear: I will no longer be that person, not for you, not for my son, not for myself. I’m calmer when I’m not. And look, it’s not as if I am a transplant doctor and somebody will actually die if I’m not reachable. And even if I was, I’ve seen Grey’s Anatomy: an intern will come to the rescue anyway. It’s called a plot twist, baby. Look it up.
The peace I feel without your presence in my life is worth being the villain in your story.
Being disliked takes courage. I really do believe that.
(I also believe that people pleasers are culture-sanctioned manipulators, but that’s another post.)
When I’m feeling wobbly I start to re-live my worst moments, searching for evidence that I’m a piece of shit who doesn’t deserve good things.
Often that means thinking about times I’ve let somebody down or shut down a budding friendship - something that I’ve done a couple of times. I forgive myself the clumsy way I might have gone about that (see: being in my twenties), but the shame can sometimes ask for attention when I’m emotionally drained.
For example, this week I have found myself reliving a years-old situation I had. There was a sticky minute with a fellow school mum when our kids weren’t getting along, and I didn’t appreciate how she handled my concern about it. We’re cordial now, but I do often think that in her version, I’m the bad guy. I could let that consume me! But this quote reminds me to take a breath and brings me back to: I did what I knew was best for my son. I can’t regret it. If that makes me the villain in that family’s story, I have to learn to be good with it.
(And let’s be honest, we can worry about being the villain in somebody else’s story but they probably don’t even think of us. Meanwhile, somebody we never considered has us as their villain. HOW ABOUT THAT! People are wild!)
Embarrassment is the cost of entry. If you aren’t willing to look like a beginner, you’ll never become a graceful master
I think about this a lot. I mean, God. If you told me you’d recently read my first book, Becoming, I’d squirm in my seat. I’m sure Zadie Smith said it’s the definition of hell for an author - to confront their earliest work - but I can’t find a source for that so maybe it’s just me who said it. I stand by it, even if Zadie won’t.
I haven’t revisited Becoming since I recorded the audiobook for it in 2017, and that’s because I know there are a thousand million hundred stylistic choices I would do-over if I were to tell the same story now. It would be a whole different book.
But. That book found the readers it was supposed to, and ultimately led me to being invited to write Ice Cream for Breakfast and The Life Diet, which in turn gave me the confidence to know it was time to turn my hand to fiction - which has always been the plan, I’d always wanted to make-up stories, it just took me a beat to find the confidence to prove I could.
And look at me now!
Twelve published books, two more out next year, and a big secret project I hope will take me in a whole new direction. (God, I’m getting annoying by keeping mentioning that, aren’t I?)
Elizabeth Gilbert once said, of Eat Pray Love, that likely her biggest success was behind her - how could she top what that book did? Over 12 million copies sold worldwide, 57 weeks at the TOP (!!) of the New York Times bestseller list, a film with Julia Roberts AND the shorthand for women everywhere when they talk about changing their lives.
I’ve weathered the embarrassment of being a beginner to get to a place where there is still so much to play for. I could compare myself to Elizabeth Gilbert and say, but why don't I have that? In fact, I browse industry press and do exactly that. I see these buzzy debuts with squillion quid advances and multi-squillion sales all around the world and adaptations to movies and TV and part of me is sad that I won’t ever be a debut like that. I have a history of mediocre success to my name. I will never come to this profession without a history. I’ve learned about the craft of writing publicly instead of appearing out of nowhere and knocking it out of the park.
Imagine the stress of that though - of realising you will probably never have a book as big as your first one. Of knowing what Elizabeth Gilbert does: that your biggest success is likely behind you.
Most of us get the privilege of knowing our biggest success is still up ahead. There’s a hopefulness to that, and if I know anything it is that hope is one hell of a drug. Hope is what gets me out of bed in a morning. In fact, I might still be a foolish beginner in the grand scheme of my career. But if I am, I can’t wait to see what becoming a master brings.
The peace I feel without your presence in my life is worth being the villain in your story - knowing this changed my life!
I really enjoyed reading this piece and all of these quotes too. I especially love the one about waking up at 37...