This week, my mind has been mostly on business. It’s been all about re-branding, organizing my contacts, checking things off my “to do” list, business development meetings, planning the next quarter, etc…
I have to say, it’s pretty exciting stuff. It’s definitely a different part of my brain that is in control this week and it is in high gear! I actually got to “zero inbox” twice this week! For me, that is an achievement! I’ve been massively productive and it seems that the more productive I am, the more I want to keep at it.
That’s why sitting down to write right now is pretty challenging. I mean, who wants to read about how productive I am?
Where is the vulnerability or insight in that?
Tuesday was pretty creative, though. I went to my art class in the afternoon where we drew ‘blind” sketches of a nude model.
Art class is always pretty cool.
That evening, I attended the first rehearsal of the Riverdale Player’s production of Mama Mia, and it was AMAZING!! I know I’ll want to write more about that in a future post, but tonight… I’m just not “there”.
What I really want to do tonight is either go to bed or do/talk about work. It’s literally all that’s in my head right now. I don’t know how to transition from CEO mode to “vulnerable writer” mode. It’s too far a leap and I can’t be in two head-spaces at once.
As I mentioned in last week’s post, transitioning from one mind set to another is not easy for me. In fact, when I learned that “multi-tasking” is not actually a real thing – meaning that human beings don’t really have the capacity to multi task, they only learn how to shift from focusing on one thing to another really quickly – it was a revelation! I tend to focus intensely on one thing at a time and anything that interrupts this focus feels very jarring to me. I can either tune things out completely or become quite irritated if I’m asked to shift away from what I’m focusing on too quickly.
So, I’ve been in CEO mode all day and, knowing that tonight is my only chance to write my blog before the deadline, I’ve been hoping that some big insight will come to me, but it hasn’t. Usually, I have time to sit and contemplate my week or meditate on what to write but, today, I did neither.
I’ve got nothing.
NADA
I’m tired and my glasses are hurting my nose. My head aches and I want to take a hot bath. I wish I didn’t have to do this right now.
Ahhhhh…
Now, here comes something…
I’m worried about letting you down.
At first, I committed to writing this blog every week because I wanted to write regularly and I needed to be accountable to something. I needed structure in order to make it happen.
And it worked.
I’ve been writing this blog, every week, for over a year now and that is quite an achievement. I’m very proud of that. I do love writing and I want to write more.
But now, new things are becoming important in my professional life and I’m finding that I don’t always have time to pursue them and keep the same writing schedule that I’ve had for that past year. I still keep my Tuesdays sacred as “creative days” but I’ve noticed that they have been taken over by other things, such as painting class and now the Riverdale Players, which are equally as important to me and my journey as my writing is. The only difference is that my writing has developed a loyal audience for whom I’m extremely grateful and I don’t want to compromise that… or let you down in any way.
What that means is that, I won’t give myself permission to not write anything on a given week and I also don’t just want to write drivel or “filler”. But, the truth is that, I probably should give myself permission to take a break, or at least change things up a bit. I’m afraid that if I do that, though, it will be a slippery slope.
I’ve thought about publishing articles from my blog archive, which wouldn’t be that terrible, or doing another podcast or maybe even a video. The only problem with the latter two are that they would still take some amount of thought and preparation because they’re unfamiliar territory. But if there’s one thing I know about myself, it’s that I need variety, and maybe it’s time for me to explore how I can express myself in different ways.
Well, not “maybe”.
It IS time.
But, as silly as it sounds, I haven’t given myself permission to do it yet because I know there will be a learning curve, which I’ll have to devote more time to, and I’m worried about how you’ll feel if I miss a week of posting.
So, I ask myself now, if you (audience) and I (writer) were a couple and I (Tracy) was our therapist, what would I say to me (writer)?
Simple.
I’d say ”trust them”.
I’d say “you’ve spent over a year, cultivating a relationship with them based on vulnerability and authenticity. You’ve trusted them with your deepest wounds and your most profound insights. You’ve risked sharing things that many would judge you for and they have held that space for you …
If you can’t trust them to give you the space you need now, to evolve in this way, then what have you really learned?”
Boy, that Tracy is so wise, eh?
I don’t know what, if anything, will change after this but I do know that I’m excited about the new professional focus I have these days. Perhaps all I really needed was to ask for the permission to hold that focus for as long as necessary.
Part of me wants to apologize for this lame post.
Part of me says “let yourself off the hook, for god’s sake.”
Most of me says “go to bed”.
After all, as Scarlett O’Hara says…
“Tomorrow, is another day.”
And, I can’t WAIT to show you my new branding!!!!
