Am I doing the right thing?

A creative paradox for the ages

You’ll find it, I promise. One day you’ll just stumble upon it like crumbs of sea glass cradled in the sand. Trust me, it’s just a matter of time. There’ll be job after job after job. You won’t like many of them, but that’s okay, they’re not for you. Something else will come. You’ll see. The thing you’re really passionate about. Your thing. The job title, the skill, the profession whose name will live after your name forevermore. The thing that you’ll spend a lifetime melting into a succinct elevator pitch, just in case someone should ask for it. You’ll just know when you find it. You’ll know. You will feel that it is right. Honestly, nothing else will work out, until you find your thing.

There are seasons when I know it, just as I know the beauty spot that’s embedded onto my left wrist. When I’m completely, utterly sure that I know what I’m doing. That it feels right. I may not identify myself with roles and titles, I may live in spiralic non-attachment to what exists beyond me, but my brain knows some things. My brain knows that I write, I speak, I facilitate workshops, I consult, I sometimes offer one-to-one sessions. My brain knows that I’m good, no, I’m great at it. I trust that.

I trust that I have wisdom to share, compassionate ears that will listen to people as if I’m taking in never-heard-before words in new tongues, a softness that invites people to rest for a breath on my metaphorical chest. I have had what society perceives to be the kind of success that one spends precious daydream time hoping for, waiting for, plastering up on mood boards, never truly believing will happen. My brain knows it, sits with legs swinging in rhythms of gratitude for it.

Yet, the things my brain knows about this, never seem to make the journey down the vagus nerves to reach my heart. My heart doesn’t know. Not really. I convince myself that because my work has always felt so deliciously nourishing and joyful, that I must know that this is what I’m here to do. My heart like a tres leches cake soaking in the milky sweet words of people who tell me about the impact my work has on them. I do believe it. My heart remembers every therapy session, reading, random psychics stopping me in the street, coaches, the people who’ve read my book, hugged me after talks, even my birth chart (hello, north node in Aquarius) that says this is what I’m here to do.

But, my heart doesn’t know what the magical thing is. It still doesn’t know if I’m doing the right thing. My heart is an island surrounded by waters of capitalism, the pressure to be successful, comparison, creativity being devalued, and highlight reels of careers on the Internet and “How I made it” podcasts. The waters that drift onto my shores and bathe me in uncertainty. The waters that drown me in the question that so many creatives fall asleep to at night, “If I’m not where I want to be, is this my sign that I should move on because this might not be my thing, or is this my sign to keep going and persevere?”

The “where I want to be” is different for all of us, it might be a certain amount of clients, your art exhibited, writing a book, it might just be being able to survive and pay your bills, perhaps a sense of freedom, more yeses to the emails you send, supporting your family, or even a feeling that will bring ease to your muscles. The metric doesn’t matter. What matters is the sense that some part of it isn’t working. Doesn’t feel right.

The last couple of years haven’t felt right. You’re just ahead of your time, they say to me. Oh, that’s a bit risky. I don’t think people are really there yet. That’s a bit controversial. If you make it a bit more mainstream, then maybe. We don’t have budget for that. You know what the UK is like, why don’t you move to the States. There’s not many women who look like you doing this work. How many followers do you have? People just want to buy more stuff, not more ideas. Yeah, I just think everyone’s a bit too tired for a revolution. Give it some time. Aren’t you a bit tired trying to convince people that this stuff is valuable? Being a bit counterculture is lonely, babe.

I remember Chris Corsini saying, “stop trying to change who you are and change where you are”. I think about a therapist saying to me, “sometimes our journeys are longer and harder than others because we’re meant for something much bigger”. A coach telling me, “you have not been in the right rooms for you, your room is waiting.” I believe it, know it, pep myself up to it in the morning, I wrote about all of this stuff in my book, guide others on it, I know, I know and know…

The tiredness still sweeps over me. Not from the doing of what I do but from the bureaucracy, marketing, selling, and getting into rooms to do what I do. My heart doesn’t know if this is the right thing, anymore. Is making nearly 80% less income than the year before a sign to call it quits or a sign to continue, because the work matters? My heart wants to stop beating for this thing that people keep telling me is my purpose.

My feet want to run to a little place by the sea, where I can breathe on the rocks, and cook for the people I love. My hands want to spend their time doing embroidery, and whipping up pillows of buttercream. My arms want to flail around dancing under the ombre orange of the setting sun. Crouching down to whisper sweet memos to birds and weep at raindrops kissing fallen leaves. It’s what I do. It’s what I love. It’s what I see. It’s what my heart knows. It is who I am.

Last year, I wrote these words in another letter called, “No, I don’t have a plan” and they’ve been comforting me again in this moment:

I know what I want from life. I know how I want the texture, substance and taste of my life to feel. All curved edges, soft skin and drippy candle wax, a life layered in scented oils, petals and cardamom, spiced things, soothing things, songs with strings, silks that my fingers can glide down, hips circling to it all. I know how I want life to romance and seduce me. I know the life I came here to live, the kind of people I want nestled in it, the places I want to linger in, the creativity I want to leak out of me for the world to soak up. I don’t know anything beyond that. I don’t know the exact shapes of it.

That’s what I’m stuck in right now, I want to live, my life right now is overflowing beyond any cup with the juicy, lick your sweet fingers, drips of life. I know what I want from life, I know how I want it to feel. I feel it all the time. My heart doesn’t know what to do for “work” to sustain it or to create the (physical) life I desire. The whole insides matching your outsides thing. It doesn’t know the how of it anymore. Which route to travel down. There’s too many trains at the station I could get on.

My heart knows that reimagining is my one-word mission statement. It knows that through my work but also so deeply in my soul, that I am here to explore how we can challenge the way we think, experience, and interact with ourselves, each other, this planet, and everything that exists here.

It knows that. It knows.

My brain also knows the two projects that I’m working on, and about to launch that fit into this mission. My heart also needs a break right now, and maybe yours does too. A break from existential thinking, the fears, dread, uncertainty, questions. It needs a break. It needs a break from everything needing to be right. Needing perfection or clarity to leap.

My heart knows that these projects and offerings are in some ways bigger than other things I’ve done, and my nervous system might just be freaking out and trying to take me out of the game. I don’t know. I’m giving my heart a break. I have stepped out of the macro and into the micro. The micro that knows what steps I’m taking to complete these projects, finishing a web page here, a pitch deck there, strategy on one side, calls on the other. Surrounding myself with joy, love, the life I adore, the hobbies that centre me, which aren’t even hobbies but just expressions of a full life. My wholeness.

I give space at least once a day to the thoughts that perhaps I’m supposed to open a bakery, or an art gallery, maybe retrain as an ecologist, what about an actress, I’m really good at impressions and accents. Maybe, that’s what is waiting for me, maybe things don’t feel right, because one of those things are waiting for me to find it. To scoop it up in my arms and then my shoulders will soften and I’ll just know.

Who knows. Do we ever?

I don’t know if anything ever feels right, I think there’s a beauty to that. We just beat on. Never waiting. Just living. From storms to sunny skies, and back again.