Oh hi, burnout – you can sod off now
There is something very strange about this time of year. So many of the happy-go-lucky, optimistic, sparkly people I know and love in the year are struggling to get through the last few days until the Christmas break – me included.
The last time I felt properly awake, back in September being a steampunk-Alice bridesmaid!
Yep, for the umpteenth year running I am feeling, and so writing about, burn out, in the last month of the year. You’d think I’d have learned by now, wouldn’t you?!
It’s been a weird up and down of a year, and I’ll post a full round up with pictures and links and stuff over the festive period, but I felt the need to waffle into my keyboard today.
It starts in November, when the evenings are drawing in, the leaves fall from the trees (or they do here in England, anyway), there’s a hint of a cold snap in the air, and I find myself perpetually tired. Once the clocks change, it’s like a switch in my body goes to “hibernate” and stays there until the clocks go forward again. I don’t, to the best of my knowledge, have any major deficiencies or illnesses that cause me to feel like this, but apparently I depend more than I realised on sunlight to keep me awake and healthy and happy. (maybe I’m partly plant?!)
November and December have also been really unexpectedly busy months for me – with a return to weekly burlesque classes, co-working sessions with Lizzie, visits from some of my best friends, my first studio shoots for boudoir and bumps, finishing off the renovations, a mini business retreat with Louise Rose, birthdays, Christmas shopping, a new baby and several engagements in my circle of uni friends, a trip to London to see Elizabeth Gilbert and meet up with my fabulous solopreneur friends, four successive sold out Ink Drops boxes (there are still a couple of slots left for January if you’re quick!), a Christmas shoot with local models and photographers, two long-awaited courses, the arrival of my mermaid tail and ice skating and a carousel ride to kickstart Christmas… it’s no wonder I’m exhausted!
Real title: The Morning After The Night Before. Actually, this is how I feel 95% of the time right now)
And so in the couple of weeks before Christmas, I am inevitably tired, tearful, broke and cross, just as my day job is ramping up to push everything through before the January UCAS deadline and the Christmas break. My own businesses go on the back burner, my house descends back into chaos, my kitties sulk because I’m hardly home, and it’s all very far from the idyllic, calm, sparkly months I’d really like to experience through the winter.
Though actually, writing that list has made me realise my temporary bad mood is just that – temporary! Everything at the day job is completely manic and quite stressful, apparently for lots of us, but it really is only a few more days until Christmas. And except for time with my family and my kitties, and a hula hooping workshop between Christmas and New Year, I don’t especially plan to leave my house until January 4th.
So burn out, you can just fuck right off now, thanks. I’m looking forward to immersing myself in my exciting new business plans in photography and the Unicornery, to my annual New Year’s Eve year reflection and planning ritual, and loads of time with my family and kitties. And sleeping in my lovely new bed. Which doesn’t play a symphony of springs whenever you sit or lie on it. Maybe I’m not burned out at all, and just catching up on years of lost sleep?!
So now I feel like I’ve slightly misleadingly titled this post – I am definitely teetering on the edge of burnout, which is an improvement on last year, but I’d really like my take away lesson to be to remember to breathe and say no, next year. In another improvement on last year, I’ve managed to recognise it and take some steps to make sure I don’t succumb in quite as bad a way… and I shall be planning carefully for 2016 so the final months of the year are blissful… or at least not stressful!
With love and unicorns, and narwhals too,
Carla xxx
Big Magic and belonging
Last week I went to see Elizabeth Gilbert talk about her new book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, and met up beforehand with old and new friends from the Free Range Humans movement (i.e. people like me who want to get the hell out of 9-5 work and create a life that works for them).
Unusually for me, although I know I want/need/have to write about it, to get such an incredible experience down on paper and screen before the details escape me, I also don’t know what to write. I don’t know how to encapsulate everything that the evening was to me.
Firstly, I’d forgotten the excitement, constant inspiration and sense of total belonging that I have with these guys. We are the most random group of people ever, from all sorts of backgrounds, all sorts of ages and at all sorts of stages in our journeys. Every single one of them feels like an old and true friend, even though some of them I only met in person for the first time last night (Vaska, Lisa, Issy, Marianne, Jenny, Becs – I’m looking at you!!).
We used to have regularish meetups and then somehow life got in the way and they tailed off – but I am determined to resurrect that regularity, I hadn’t realised how much I missed the boost they give me and the indescribable feeling of my worldview and plans fitting in so perfectly with theirs.
I’m also really hopeful that I’ll click with the Shining Lights girls in the same way, when I eventually get to meet them in person <3
And then after taking over Wagamama’s for a few hours, we wandered up to the Emmanuel Centre and settled to watch and hear Elizabeth Gilbert talk about Big Magic.
The two hours shot past in a blur, I had chills and tears and giggles sometimes all at once. It’s uncanny how much of what she talks about stirs recognition deep within – though she admits there’s no scientific evidence to back it up, every one of us in that room and hundreds of thousands more who have read the book identify on a deep level with what’s in it.
I won’t spoil the book, but I will leave you with my favourite scribbled notes from the four pages I took in my newly-beloved bullet journal:
- Having one foot in the real world, and one with the faeries – this is something you sort of must do, to live a full creative life. (Validation, right there!)
- On criticism: Does the critic have your best interests at heart? Do they know what you were trying to do? Can they offer criticism in a kind way? If not, fuck them – you don’t have to listen.
- “Honesty without kindness is not a virtue.”
- “I am willing to take the risk of being insulted, in order to be heard.” – this one really resonated – I am so lucky to be alive in a time where I’m allowed to say and do what I want, that I need to ditch my fear of criticism.
- It is far, far better to be alone than with someone who’s not supporting or lifting you, or making your life better, easier or happier. If none of that is happening, what is the point? This was so good to hear, it’s my general philosophy on relationships but always good to know I’m not the only one who thinks this way!
- There is a shit sandwich with everything. You have to work out what you love so much, and get so much out of, that you’re willing to eat the shit sandwiches. (I have a love-hate relationship with this analogy, something about it makes me uncomfortable – probably the fact that I don’t want to face the fact that everything I love has a flipside!)
- Being creative is like having a border collie – if you don’t keep it occupied it’ll find something destructive to do.
- You’re not obliged to use your creativity to save mankind, and you shouldn’t feel guilty for doing what lights you up.
- Don’t be an art martyr, and try or feel you have to do everything by yourself.
The quote that stood out the most, for me?
The ultimate act of creativity is to turn your own life into a work of art.
I am printing this to stick on my desk, my wall, by my bed, in my bathroom. That is what I want from this life, whatever form it takes – mermaiding, photographing, writing, dancing, having blue hair and a unicorn horn… all of the things that make me me.
And Elizabeth’s parting thought was this:
What are you willing to give up or say no to, in order to have the life you say you want?
Big Magic indeed.
With love and unicorns,
Carla xxx
PS Have you read Big Magic, or seen Elizabeth Gilbert speak? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
PPS I know the picture isn’t great, but I was too busy listening to take a proper one!
Current obsession: Mermaiding
“Swim in a mermaid tail” is number four on my Daydreams To Do list. Mermaiding is not a new interest of mine – I vividly remember when I first stumbled across a video of Hannah Mermaid, way back in my London cubicle days.
Having dreamed of being a mermaid for as long as I can remember, and just as happy in water as on land, I was instantly fascinated, and more than a little bit jealous that here was someone making a living being an actual, real life mermaid. Half my family is also Cornish, and Cornwall is rife with mermaid legends and stories… surely some of them must be true.
A bit more Googling and I discovered a whole heap of people doing the mermaid thing, some professional, some hobbyists. And so started my fascination with the world of mermaiding – another one of my highly niche interests, apparently!
photo credit: Mermaids at Vancouver International Boat Show via photopin (license)
Back then, I had two major hurdles – firstly that it hadn’t really caught on in the UK yet, and mainly my own lack of confidence and time. I’ve periodically revisited inspiring sites, pinned wishlists and beautiful images to my Mer board on Pinterest, and generally daydreamed a bit. I even joined my local gym for a few months so I could swim more often but found it really frustrating swimming in lanes.
Fastforward to now. I am in the first grip of a new obsession, and for a multipod there is nothing quite like it. A couple of weeks ago I finally stopped lurking and joined the MerNetwork, a forum for merminded people like me. (Yes, my first port of call is always a forum… that’s where you find the best people!!) Through them I found the UK pod on Facebook, and I’ve been starting to get to know people there too.
We’re already talking about a photoshoot next year, now I’ve found my photography confidence again, and I’m now investigating buying my first tail and monofin. I’ve also emailed the Essex School of Diving, who run sessions on a Saturday evening in Colchester, on the advice of other mers, who have had mixed experiences with using their fins and tails in a public pool, but usually a good reception at scuba clubs.
I know myself well enough now to know this won’t be all-consuming for long – but as I’ve swum and had mermaid dreams all my life, it seems reasonable to assume it’ll hang around as one of the long term things I do! (and I already have the hair, right?!)
Squeak!
With love and multipotentialite unicorns,
Carla xxx
#inspirenovember Instagram challenge!
This time of year can be a bit dreary – while I love the gorgeous colours of Autumn, I am much less of a fan of the endless rain, colder days and dark evenings. I’d make a good cactus – love the light, hate the rain!
Anyway, though I have a few client shoots booked in this month, I don’t have much in the way of personal projects going on. While lamenting this to Louise, who has just come back from a Thailand honeymoon and is feeling the cold even more than I am, we cooked up the idea of a month-long Instagram challenge.
And then thought why not open it to everyone?
So here’s all the info – I’m mainly using my photography handle, @carlawatkinsphoto, and Louise is over at @louiserosecouture.
See you over on Instagram!
My curtains are purring…
There is nothing in my living room but a pile of suitcases, one recliner and some garden chairs. I have a glorious kitchen and no carpets, and my new bed is yet to arrive so I have put the old mattress on the floor. My bedroom floor is covered in filing and my makeshift curtains have just started purring…
Such is the joy of moving back into my house. And oh, it is wonderful… Rather odd, not least to have such a small amount of stuff in my home. And it looks so different! But quite inspiring at the same time, and I have great plans.
My carpets arrive in a couple of weeks, I am going to attempt to install sliding doors to make a wardrobe of sorts, and my sofa, bed and mattress and sofa bed for spare room arrive in the middle of November. Ish.
Luna and Clover and I moved home on Friday night, in a remarkably painless process – I think Mum and Dad were sad to say goodbye to the cats, but also relieved to have their house back. The three of us are not the most subtle visitors (especially as the litter tray had to live in my bedroom. I think Mum is probably still airing her study!)
Let them out today and they promptly buggered off over the shed, but came back when they had done exploring. And have been good as gold (worn out?!) this evening. For any cat owners in the same situation, of moving their cats around a lot, I can highly recommend the Pet Remedy diffusers and Zylkene – I was dubious of both but they have helped chill my two out muchly 🙂
So what’s next? I want to re-read the Magic of Tidying Up and implement some of Marie’s advice – this means it may take me six months to get all my stuff back into my living space. But that’s a good thing – I keep a huge amount of things for sentimental reasons and I suspect a decent digital photo of the things would do just as well (plus they’re harder to get weepy over when I’m so inclined).
It’ll be good to get back into a routine – I have missed blogging regularly!
Catching up with the 52 project
For all that this year has been one of the most momentous in my life (I bought a HOUSE, people), and for all that I’ve rarely been without a camera of some sort since January 1, I seem to have let my 52 project slip.
This is not for a lack of taking photos and more for a lack of having actually taken them off my various devices, sorted, edited and uploaded them… oops.
I’ve moved the album over to my duckingfabulous Flickr account and added the rest of this year’s – up to the first week in September.
Choosing one photo for each week is impossible, so here’s the whole album, organised by week…
Created with flickr slideshow.
I'm Carla, a quirky thirtysomething with a penchant for unicorns and glitter. I believe in magic and make-believe, and the gorgeous rebellion of making your life absolutely your own. And I'm a proud multipod!
I am a photographer and catalyst for small business owners, and a real life mermaid. I photograph people as they truly are, help women see and step into their brightest and best selves, add a sprinkling of magic to the mundane, and am a happy ambassador for stationery and slow living.
Proud to be both girly and geeky, when I’m not writing, photographing or daydreaming, you can find me dancing burlesque, riding my bicycle Bluebell, growing herbs and collecting typewriters.