investing in January
9:00 am. I sat down with coffee that hasn’t gone cold yet. The house is quiet and still. It feels like a long while since I last did this. Inside me, there are hopefulness and gentle excitement for coming days.
January was, well… I wanted to say “well rested” until it all went up side down. Maybe because of that, it was a good decision to take a break from the studio and social media in a way. The decision wasn’t easy one to make to be honest. Because you know, the scarcity of not working was real. It has always been, especially since becoming self employed. I have always worked since I was 15 and still never felt enough or successful in term of earning. I was never good at it. Money stuff was a triggering matter to me so I avoided to acknowledge it, but took some trolls the more I faced it.
January was an action took from learning about investment.
The word ‘investment’ is something I never come familiar with my life. I took it deeply last year though, after many years of doing ‘a bit’ here and there. On my business. On my healing. On my personal journey. I invested one trusted group learning throughout 2021 with a somatic trauma-informed coach. (Thank you Tamu) 2021 was a year of grief for me, only to realise afterward. I’m glad I took the investment, not just money but more so on commitment for time and space. It wasn’t a straight forward progress for sure, but gradually I came out of my old mould, where I felt ‘comfortable’ with my old story. Well, it is my lived experience, not just a story, but it was playing like a broken record to keep me in the same place. As if the story ‘protects’ me from the unknown. I was learning ever so slowly. Really uncomfortable and awkward. Moving through the messy bit.
There isn’t a significant sharp point that I can articulate what my achievement was from the year. If I am to explain though, one of the things I have learned about myself was I am a slow learner. I take time to understand and am not good at multi tasking. I always thought they were my inability, somehow, negative trait. But now that is my super power. My slowness goes emotionally deep and with care to seek the truth within. Rather than trying being someone who I am not, or what others or society expect me to be, when I accept the reality of my slowness and clumsiness, be focused on one task even I appear to be behind everyone. It was the only way I could keep up without feeling overwhelmed, when my brain and eyes scatter everything else. In fact there shouldn’t be something that I had to ‘keep up with’. It was my old self telling me so. I was learning to accept it. The result was much better and hopeful, so that I can move on to another task.
In my head this wasn’t ideal, because let’s face it, there are too many tasks in our life. But inside me was yelling at the thought of going back to the studio in January. Whilst focusing on my monetary tasks for the last five years, I have neglected the house where I felt so down every time I returned from the cold studio. My bitterness accumulated over years and that was already showing in my mental health and also in my work. So I decided to use my limited energy into the house instead of the work for a whole month. Make the home more feel like a place I want to return. Again, this was a big investment. Time, space, energy and consequently money. Because when my mental health wasn’t in the good state, it didn’t help my work. Dreaded January was repeated last five winters. I couldn’t face that again. Opposite was also true. When my mental health was in a grounded state, or rather as I was able to grounded myself, I could work better. Grounding comes with commitment on how I use my energy.
*The studio is basically a shed we put when we needed to replace the attached garage roof. It was just a temporary hobby space back in those days. The purpose has changed since then, but I did not want to feel ungrateful so kept it as it was. Eventually working in that condition with breakdown in 2018 gradually dragged me into unbearable. So I dare said I need a studio that is working condition in winter months. The purpose of revamping the studio space was also to create an environment that I can accommodate the workshop and open studio. The plan fell last year sadly but now we are in the position of going ahead. So we are finally hoping this year will be the one. *
Anyway, I am waffling through, in order to talk about January.
Apart from family time and studying online course, I spent quite good hours in Januray for decluttering so many parts of the house, including our bedroom, kitchen and redecorating our daughter’s room. All the big adjustment like putting up shelves in her room are done prior to my husband going to his knee surgery. All were doing fine I thought, then everything went out to the window. His recovery on post surgery was expectedly lots of pain and of course very limited mobility, which obviously slowed us down. Then my daughter caught Covid, which lead to self isolation and back to home learning, followed by husband catching it next. All happened when the boiler wasn’t working and now the plumber could not come in for the obvious reason. The word of surrender and acceptance flashed in my head. We hang on to just stabilise us.
Today, my daughter went back to school. Her bedroom looks fabulous as ever and she loves it, although still to complete, so is our bedroom that was practically a storage room for countless years. It amazes me how much clutter and disorganisation of home have been making me literally ill and how much me feeling calm at home, a centre of us, grounds me, which consequently helps me feel hopeful for my new working year.
I am glad that I made a decision of focusing my energy for a better use with commitment of time. I couldn’t have done all the things I did and did not handle with the chaos of post surgery / covid without leaving the studio. My husband always reminds me that the advantage of self employment is being flexible with your need. My earning is irregular anyway, comes with seasons. But more often than not, I forget and have forced myself into the ‘back to work’ regardless my need. Now I clearly see it and am also thankful for his support that enable me to take this change. I have also noticed that I didn’t take much photos in January, which tells me that I was there in present. I guess I didn’t need to think of what to post on instagram. Crazy thought, but true. I was there, spending every moment, focusing on each moment, be it decluttering or family time. I was there without needing to show anyone. That left me think about how I want to use social media, but that’s another story for another time I guess.
10:00 am. I’ve finished my coffee whilst waffling my thoughts in writing. Time to reset. Plan for this year starts now with a clear head at clean(er) home.
