So, how did I do?

Well, not as badly as it may seem to readers of this blog. Although I only wrote 5 posts here I’ve been setting up my new blog Gillian Pearce Painting and Stuff and wrote 6 posts there plus a couple of other bits on clients’ blogs. So, including this one I managed 13 “writes” and that’s 12 more than the previous month!

But . . . it wasn’t much of an experiment really. Just a confirmation of how these things usually go for me, i.e. I make a grand gesture which seems good at the time and then loose interest. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. Just that I didn’t learn anything new. I could have tried to make myself write more I suppose but I wasn’t really that bothered. But . . . I am curious about the balance between letting things unfold and making things happen, something I’m specifically exploring in relation to my painting. To that end I’m playing with moving in the direction of making some money from “art”.

Please visit the new blog and sign up to receive updates if you’re interested. I suspect I’ll be writing there more frequently than here but we’ll see.

Hmmmmm. Not true really. All I did was take some paintings to a friend who’d offered to photograph them for me. That’s it. That’s all I can truly say about it.

It’s only a big step if I choose to see it that way.

It’s only connected to selling paintings if I choose to see it that way and project into the future. It does seem a logical connection, mind you, since the intention is to get them photographed and then add them to a Print On Demand site. But that may never happen.

Without the stories I make up around this simple action all that remains is a bunch of paintings sitting in an office waiting to be photographed. Even that I don’t know for sure. Maybe they’ve already been photographed. Maybe they’ve been stolen and are no longer in the office. Maybe someone’s spilt coffee over them and they’re now ruined (or improved ha, ha!).

When I stop to notice I am amazed at how many stories we weave around and through our lives. It makes me smile.

On Friday “I took a big step forward”. Just four days later I’m surprised I ever saw it that way.

This is what I was aiming for myself, not having to “give it a thought” but simply letting the writing arise.  However, yesterday I fell off the wagon, so to speak. Suddenly I was thinking and thinking about needing to write something. The whole experiment had become an object in it’s own right, a “thing” to be thought about and controlled. And, not surprisingly I found no inspiration. Maybe I’ll put that on a painting:

“Thinking is an Inspiration Killer!”

I even woke up in the night thinking about what not writing or writing meant and thinking about thinking. First thing I dashed off an email to a friend who has joined in the challenge saying:

“I seem to have turned this ’30 Writes in 30 Days’ into a thing. Kept waking up in the night and thinking about it. It’s not supposed to be like that at all. It’s just supposed to flow!

I seem to be trying too hard to think of something to write. Dog with a bone stuff.

Am going to have a shower and wash my hair. Then breakfast and then maybe a bit of vacuuming and, hopefully, it will lose it’s grip and I’ll feel inspired again. But I guess the trick is being Ok with not feeling inspired . . . except that’s just a load of different thinking. Sigh!

Back to basics . . . I seem to be stuck in my thinking but it’s OK. It will pass.”

 

That last sentence is the key. It’s one of the valuable lessons I have learnt from the Three Principles:

1. once I really get caught up in thinking about a particular problem/situation I won’t find a way out through my thinking and
2.  if I just let it be, the thinking frenzy will pass of it’s own accord and peace and inspiration will return.

This morning I have shown that to myself again. Just the shower was long enough to let my thinking settle. I didn’t need the breakfast or the vacuuming! Inspiration has returned and “write” number 3 has pretty much written itself.

This is what I’m noticing more and more. It really is OK to let things just unfold. Inspiration is always there, waiting to be acted upon. More and more I’m noticing how simple, wonderful and exciting life can be when I pay less attention to the thinking that’s accompanied by stressful feelings and more attention to what I feel inspired to do when my thoughts are calm.

The title “On Doing Things In The Right Order” came to me when I found myself on the First Art America website creating an account and thinking about what to write on my profile page. I was planning on counting the profile as my “write” number 2 but it suddenly struck me that I was creating an account on a site that sells art when I don’t actually have any items ready to sell!

This is where it gets interesting.

If I look at this situation from my conventional thinking then I’d have to draw the conclusion that I was doing things in the wrong order or, at the very least, in an untimely manner. But, if I look at it from a more open-minded perspective then I can decide that opening the account without any paintings ready is perfect timing since it’s led to this blog post and I now have “write” number 2. I choose the latter.

This is a perfect example of how I’m trying to live my life these days, namely:

• just doing the next thing that feels right
• not worrying whether or not that next thing makes sense to me, and
• being open to “next things” that were previously unknown to me or, in the past, not considered significant or important enough for me to do.

I’m noticing that this seems to result in a much more relaxed and interesting life. I find myself organising stuff that, this time last week, I had no idea I would be doing.

Looking back I can see that many of the mental conflicts I’ve experienced have been where I had an idea to do or not do something and rather than just go with that I started analysing it because the idea didn’t make sense. An example, is when I was struggling to decide whether or not to return to Phoenix for the end of the coaching programme. A couple of months before the end I started thinking that I didn’t want to go back but it made no sense to me. So I spent weeks struggling with myself trying to make it make sense and, in the end, I didn’t go anyway.

I would have saved myself a lot of struggle and heartache if I’d just followed my initial thought/feeling and left it at that.

So these days, when I have an idea that doesn’t make sense but feels right I try and insert a full-stop (period for US readers) before my mind gets to “but”. The Result? A lot less wasted energy and more unexpected, delightful outcomes.

There are a couple of things I’ve been thinking about writing recently – more posts on this blog and a long overdue update to my ebook ‘7 Steps To A Depression Free Life‘. Today is the 1st of October and a Monday so it seems an auspicious  time to listen to a disembodied voice and start a writing project. Cue the spooky music.

I like the sound of ’30 “writes” in 30 days’ but then I always like the sound of numbers and a fixed timeline for a project.  However, I don’t think I’ve ever completed one that I set up that way. The idea of a “project” feels too constraining for me these days so this is the beginning of an exploration entitled ’30 “writes” in 30 days’.

I have no preconceived ideas of what the “writes” will be but I will endeavour to report something each day this month.

If you’d like to join me (and I’d LOVE it if you would) please leave a comment. Do that today and it could count as your first “write”. Then comment on my future posts and add what you’ve written that day or post a link if you’ve added your “write” to a website.

I’ve no idea where this is going but it’s always more fun to be sharing the journey . . .

This sparked a discussion on local radio with people phoning in to say who’s life they’d like to buy.

It seemed like a fun question so I considered it myself. My initial choice was dismissed when I realised I wouldn’t want to be so busy and I didn’t like where this person lives.

My second choice would be risky because all I know of her life is what I see on the outside. I have no idea what goes on behind closed doors.

Then it hit me in a forehead smacking moment of clarity, I wouldn’t want to exchange my life for anyone else’s. No ones! And, having spent so much of the past in and out of depression that realisation feels pretty amazing.

Do you agree? Whose life would you buy or is yours the life you’d most like to live?

Feel free to leave a comment.

Tuesday is my official “working” day when I go to the co-working space I love to “work” in. Today I turned on my laptop and, for the first time for more than 15 years, the websites I use to check my business stats are no longer available. Last week I discontinued the web hosting for more than 200 sites and that’s it . . . business over.

This moment has been coming for the best part of a decade. I’ve thought about stopping it numerous times and have also done the opposite. I took on Ed Dale (highly sucessful internet marketer) as a coach and created my internet marketing coaching year website to tell the story. Looking back now I can see that I was trying to get someone to make me do something I didn’t really want to do. However, at the time, I couldn’t hear that I didn’t want to do this anymore.

One thing that kept me going for so long was because I didn’t have anything else I wanted to do and it felt too scary to just let go and see what happened. I was concerned that without any structure at all I would revert to my days of depression.

These days I have given up looking for a “project” or a “job” and more easily enjoy my life as it is. So, apart from when I am thinking otherwise, I don’t need an external label to cling on to. I just enjoy each day and let them unfold.

Funnily enough, since I decided to finally let the web business go, I find myself involved in a couple of projects that didn’t even exist a couple of weeks ago.

I find myself writing again because there are a couple of really interesting things going on that I think are worth sharing. One is my experience of working with The 3 Principles or living from the inside out and the other is my experience of starting to play around with paints, collage and creative stuff generally.

I’m not so good at explaining the former so I’ve put up a Three Principles resources page where you will find links to loads of good stuff and good people who are far more eloquent than I on the subject. At this point, suffice it to say, that The Principles have had a huge impact on my life. Nothing has changed but everything is different and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.

And then there’s the painting etc. I’m finding that the way I “do Art” is turning out to be a brilliant metaphor for the way I’d like to live my life.

And here’s how it all began . . .

A good friend of mine is a professional artist. One day when looking at her art I thought “I fancy having a go at that”. So the next time I visited her I asked if I could give it a try and found myself playing around with all her lovely paints and mediums and beads and stamps and wire and . . . and . . . all sorts of yummy goodies. And I loved it. And that was interesting to me. This seemed to be an experience where it was easy for me to play. No ‘tortured artist suffering for her art’ stereotype for me.

I definitely had an opinion about whether or not I liked what I was producing but I noticed that it seemed to change. One evening I’d think “that looks like something a kindergartener would do” and then in the morning I’d think “I quite like it”.

Art is not something I’ve spent much time thinking about – other than to think I’m no good at it! And, before my visit to my friend’s studio I hadn’t picked up a paintbrush since I was at school. I’d never painted on canvas. Consequently, I don’t have a lot of internal rules or structure around what I should do, or how it works, or what it means, and I’m finding the whole experience incredibly liberating.

And this is how I’m living life more and more. Letting go of preconceived ideas, dropping rules I’ve made up, learning to live with not knowing and being OK with that. Just showing up and watching it unfold.

And this too is incredibly liberating . . .

Use what you have right now. Take the next small step and keep moving forward.

Thanks to Nick Smith for drawing my attention to this inspiring video.

At the beginning of last week I exchanged a few emails with Ed on the mentoring programme and felt confused as a result. Rather than check out what I understood by them I made assumptions that kept me stuck and waiting for Friday when I was anticipating the week’s webinar would clear things up.

I was right about the clarification but not in the way I’d imagined.

One of the key points of the webinar was to fail in the field rather than in your head. To stop trying to work everything out, in other words, and to stop waiting for perfection. But just to get on with it.

I realised then that what Ed had been saying earlier in the week was not, as I’d thought, to do more research but was instead, to just get on and use the research I’d already done. Because I was looking for perfection and trying hard to get it “right” I was failing in my head and not taking action as a result. So, feeling inspired after the webinar, I just got on with it and put up my new internet marketing coaching website, warts and all. And that got me to thinking how often we fail in our head instead of in the field of life.

When we don’t take action and get out there, all we’ve got are the thoughts in our heads and fears in our bodies. We have no idea if what we imagine would happen is true or not. Without testing our assumptions and taking action we are stuck. Waiting. But what are we waiting for – more money, more time, more motivation, more energy, more courage?

Sitting around waiting for those things, or thinking about them, is never going to attract them to us. We have to create them by taking action.

So, today, ask yourself what you are waiting for. Where are you failing  in your head?

Then, make a decision to go for it anyway, despite your fears, despite not knowing how it will turn out and take immediate action towards it.

Please leave a comment and let us know how you get on.