Self-care after a super tough year
Are you running on empty? There's a reason why there is dust in your freelance petrol tank.
I’m reaching around my brain trying to catch that tail end of some watertight sentence that will sum up this year. Or to encapsulate the arid ache within my brain. To somehow illustrate the way my brain feels like it has run a marathon.
But nothing comes. The fragments wisp out of my mind’s eye and cheekily dash off to hide behind a bunch of things I am trying to ignore. Last-minute client requests. Weakened boundaries that wobble under fatigue. The sense of melancholy for what they could not achieve in yet another year. But mainly, that crumbling, dusty feeling of riding on the fumes of my emotional and creative tanks.
I am not alone, and yet the pervasive nature of these feelings tells me I am. People applaud me at the end of the Deadline Party and I am surprised. Inside my head, it feels muddled and chaotic. I love the chaos; I embrace it to keep my flow. But lately, it has felt like a whirlwind of abstract ideas tossing and flailing in the hot winds of summer.
And yet, I know where this sensation comes from. I am aware.
Pandemic years
Bushfires
Floods
Life
Grief
Discontent
Malcontent
Shame, shame, shame.
And none of it closed down, reshuffled or packed neatly away in boxes.
Image: a double page from my journal where I wrote lines “you’re allowed to have boundaries” and “it’s OK to work on my creativity over and over to game my brain. Overlayed with search box asking the question “what is real self-care?”
The three circles of emotional regulation
Within all of us dwell three little hamster wheels. They spin, they bounce, and they are the cogs in the engine of life.
Our drive system – works to fuel ambition and that desire to complete goals. It gives us tasty sensations like accomplishment and completion as our reward. It is something we freelancers relish for the go, go, go pep. However, we rarely stop to pick the fruits of that drive. To stop, revive, and survive until the next time.
Our soothing system – reminds us to slow down, smell that rose, look at the beautiful lake instead of hurtling by, writing mental TO DO lists. It is soothing the ruffled feathers. It reminds us to rest and digest physically, emotionally, and intellectually. We kind of skip this step unless wine and a streaming show are involved.
Our threat system – here, we’re managing all those perceived threats to our survival. That late paying yet over-demanding client has pulled up a stool and is living rent-free. That competitor who stole your idea, that low cash-flow that haunts you, the feast and the famine, the bald patches in motivation and the sense that time is ending, they all make up the horrors found here.
Psychologists posit that a whole busload of us packs a lunch for the drive system and live with the threat system on our back. But we don’t really take the time to cool down. We don’t sit with the soothing system. Or we dabble in the shallows, failing to commit.
When I read Judith Lucy’s recent article on her decision to quit comedy and her habit of sitting there with mindless TV and wine, trying to forget she was in comedy, it spoke to me. It spoke to me in the same way those moments where I want to do something but am reluctant turns into wasting three hours on social media instead of finding the first five minutes of courage to do what is good for me. What I want to do. Or how accumulated low-level trauma is informing my life as I dare not unpack too many of the boxes marked “bushfires”, “Covid” and “grief”.
It doesn’t matter if this summer holidays for you is only the public holidays or the entire school holidays. We all need to spend some time hanging and chilling in the soothing system.
Here are a few suggestions
· Take the accelerator off the ‘go, go, go’ button. Don’t plan to revolutionise your business over the festive season. Don’t goad yourself to make up for every family celebration missed because of natural disaster and/or Covid in one big hit. Channel your inner sloth and enjoy the difference.
· Practise everyday mindfulness. Don’t worry if you suck at meditating. Enjoy that piece of chocolate lick by lick. Or listen to music with the headphones on in a chair outdoors. Read some non-business related books. Take a break from multi-focus activities and sit with one thing only.
· Be curious instead of busy. Set time aside to learn something, anything, without the payoff in mind. Do something or go somewhere just for the hell of it. Don’t lean into filling your days with schedules and activities. Instead, do what you can to invite curiosity.
· Clean up the untidy bits. Do the filing. Tackle that hard drive that annoyed you because you could find nothing when you needed it. Merge the folders and documents. Check to see if you do need all those software, subscriptions and website plugins.
· Sit with your feelings. Choose a stillness and allow the thoughts and feelings to come. Don’t blot them out with alcohol, internet or distraction. Look behind that moment and the feelings. Look for ways to face it and resolve it. Is it trying to tell you something?
· Reflect on your year. Jess and I are making this easy for you to reflect on 2022 and make 2023 tidier with the Patreon-sponsored end-of-year planner. Ask yourself about your highs, lows and meh moments. Reflect on what you did and how it made you feel. Reflect on the clients, networks and connections you have accrued and what they mean.
· Lower your obligations. Don’t swap the clients and projects in your life for other things. Practice your boundaries. It’s Ok to pushback on stinky and intrusive family, moments that will rob you of your cool down, or simply too many activities.
· Engage in habit swapping. Look at the habits you have in your arsenal and keep the good ones and review the negative. Consider what you can swap out for something that makes you feel far more functional in the future. Take a walk instead of a wine, that sort of thing.
And remember to look for ways to close the circle on your stress and trauma by spending time with your soothing system.
Ideas I am loving from 2022
It wouldn’t be the end of the year without sharing some love for amazing people.
Plumbing the depths
You can watch the bravery of the last Deadline Party unfold. Send the message you support the LGBTQIA+ community by wearing your Pride on your shoes with free beads. Speaking of the LGBTQIA+ community, celebrate Sydney World Pride with your Rainbow teen and help allay their climate fears in the process by offering a two-day Fire and Resilience program on the Northern Beaches. Navigate the light and shade of mental illness with Anna Spargo-Ryan in A Kind of Magic. Krystyna Kidson is combining art and mental health messages to help guide you. Give yourself permission to be different and enjoy a little self-love while looking sassy with Sarah Billington. Check out accountant Holly Shoebridge in her new career in counselling and meditation in 21 days to Vitality online.
Start the aged care conversation with Mum or Dad over the holidays, even if the family dynamic is thorny. Explore what it means to have a good death, setup an advance care or aged care plan for your family and die at home with the right supports with Dr Annetta Mallon’s Mallon Model.
Entertainment
If you’re looking for a replacement for Casefile over the summer, try on Gretchen Miller’s The Lawyer, The Sniper and NSW Police on for size. If you want to keep the Christmas feels burning long after the event, check out these cute AF Santa cookie candles from Vyvyan Hammond. Explore living in Ushuaia, Argentina with Fiona Harper. Head to Myanmar with Jessica Mudditt. If you’re in Newcastle, Creative Village allows you to shop til you drop with Leah Fawthrop. Learn to love the Illawarra as much as I do through the eyes of Kate O’Mealley’s Coal Coast Magazine.
If you might miss me during the holidays
Look at this recent article I wrote for Mental Health First Aid Australia on why self-care is important when helping others. I give the inside scoop on freelance life in Carmen Allan-Petale’s The Committed Creative’s podcast. Listen to me talk to Emma Lovell on her Live and Love your Brand podcast on building a brand while supporting others. Check out the work Jess Harkins and I did for death literacy. And follow me on Instagram (where I will totally be posting).
A final word
Thank you so much for reading this newsletter and commenting, liking, supporting the Patreon, contributing to the Freelance Jungle group and being there. It makes all the difference. If you would like to make that difference continue, please consider joining the Freelance Jungle Patreon and/or hiring me for coaching in 2023.
Love and other things that keep us going,
Rebekah