Jack of all trades ...

Zaha Hadid 

Further to last post's contemplations on Clarity, I have discovered many things.

Post-post I went out in search of wisdom. The desire to have one crystal-clear image of what I was to do and be, was tightening my ribs like a concrete straightjacket.  The internal nego-mantra kept brain-circling in every quiet moment  "If I could just see what it looks like. If I could just get a picture of what it is, then it will all come together." (I have read A LOT of self-help and strategic planning shizz, so apparently envisioning your outcome is critical to success. Everybody says so.)

So I went to a psychic. Of course, I did.
She was brilliant.

Wisdom from the psychic-with-the-spiritual-name in no particular order:

• Bring your energy back in from all the people who are leeching it (I don't think she actually said leeching, but I like the dramatic effect of the word and its parasitical inferences) 
• Be grounded
• Listen to your own wisdom
• She had me imagine I was talking to my dad. 'He' told me to let go of fear and take a risk.
• She also commented that just because I am good at stuff doesn't mean it's my calling 
• And she clearly said to me "Let go of the desire to know what it's all going to be and go with the flow".

I can't say I give a tinkling toss whether she was genuinely psychic or not. I wafted out of there like the mother of a toddler leaving a day spa to have a coffee alone before heading back to motherhood. Like any good psychic or psychologist, she had made me feel better about the existential crisis I was experiencing and had offered the illusion of control.  And she gave me a big hug at the end.

So, there I was feeling a little less desperate and a bit happier to sit with my messy mind. But still, the desire for 'an answer' was limiting my breath. Like some religious revelation, I knew it was going to come at me, the big shazaam. Unfortunately, the universe had gone all tight ass with the revelations, and no vision was forthcoming.

Next, I went to a business coach, also with a spiritual name, who is nothing less than human spun-gold. 

She asked me lots of hard questions. Like "What do you want?" and "How does (insert various scenarios and ideas) make you feel". I squirmed around in my comfortable chair, shifting and itching, from sitting arms crossed and legs outstretched, to head in hands and elbows on knees. All the time doing lots of fast-talking without ever finishing a sentence or entirely forming an idea.  

"It's all so, so ... messy." I gacked out like a hairball from a cat. 

And that beautiful, gilded spirit-woman gently asked me this:

"So look at your mess", gesturing in big circles at the circular mat in an invitation to visualise it,  "How does it make you feel when you resist this mess when you just want to tidy its messiness." 

Then she looked up at me and laughed "Look at your body language."

I was as close to the foetal position as the comfortable chair would allow. 

Resisting the mess, I felt tight, thick on the chest. Short of breath. Panicked.  Like when the kids were small, and the housework got so rank you stopped people from visiting wanting no witness to your weet-bix-encrusted shame. 

"Now take a minute" she guides gently, "And see how you feel when you stop resisting the mess. When you can sit with it and accept it."

I tried it on. Squirmed. Exhaled and Answered:

"I feel ... relieved and excited, like the mess is where the gold is, and how it is full of possibilities."

Checking myself, I saw that my body had moved into power pose, hands together gently in between relaxed knees, shoulders soft, heart open.

My life is a messy scramble, just like the Secret Language of Birthdays predicted ( Th ebook tells me I was born on the 'day of the Scrambler'). In accepting the mess, I could drop the shame, stop fighting it and enjoy it. 

An insightful friend quizzed me late on Saturday night about my Clarity post, her bullshit-o-meter clearly registering high levels in the immediate area - "but wouldn't you just be bored doing the same thing forever?"

Yes, my wise and insightful friend, I bloody well would. 

As much as I fight it, I will always be far more Margaret Olley than Zaha Hadid.

So you see I actually have discovered many things. Like did you know that the full saying goes:

"Jack of all trades, master of none is oftentimes better than master of one".

 

Clarity

My dad knew he wanted to be a doctor from the age of 7. He just knew it. It was his vocation.

From that day in 1937, that little boy in short pants had a clear line of sight to his future. He preset his trajectory and took flight on his unwavering path.  At 70-something, he was recognised for working in General Practice for 40 years and was also known as an excellent general surgeon. He knew what he was, he pursued it, was good at it - he succeeded.


My envy of his clarity is intense.

My luthier is the same.  He is so good at what he does, it makes no sense for him to do anything else.

I currently find myself in an insecure work situaton and I can't decide if its a problem or an opportunity. I am kind of good at lots of things and interested in lots of things.  I just wish I had one thing I clearly excelled at, one clear vision ... instead its one foot in front of the other. And its a question of asking myself "What is the next obvious step?"

Midlife crisis? I wish. Its the same path I have been circling through for 25 years. When I was 21, I presented the same question to my Indian psychiatrist
"But what should I do?"  This was his response, a  metaphor: "Life is like a bazaar. There are lots of pretty things to distract you. But you must make it through to the end".

I am still lost in the bazaar, distracted by every sparkle and colour.

Here's to clarity.

Resolve

Yesterday a friend reminded me of my blog, so I came back to visit. 

This archive of blog posts is like an adventure through the wilds of my psyche, my sometimes anxious and often distorted mind. It is a trip through the seeking and questioning, advising and anxsting, through joy and my endless confusion. 

The blog tells one story of a lot of years riding blind on the rough, dark, circular route of the shame train.  

New Year's Day is a classic date for goal setting and resolutions. 

Yeah  ... nah. This year I just want to roll with life and see where it goes. 

The engine has pulled into the 2017 station and I am disembarking sans baggage. 

The New Year arrives and my web feeds race past with memes and goals and resolutions, screeching and blaring out announcements through the loudspeaker of 'should':

Eat this. Make this. Work this. Plan this. Wear this. Lose this. Say this. 

You gotta do more, you gotta be more you gotta get more, you gotta have more.

And never forget that your fundaments are flawed so fix yourself, fix yourself, fix yourself...

  

Enough ... enough. Fuck it ... enough. 

 

Silence the soul bashing screeches and blares. For me, its time to look in the mirror and say:

"I am ok."

My life is not a fantasy, it is a reality and its ok. Actually, it is grouse. 

I am fat, but I am phat. 

A bit dishevelled, a bit broke and neck deep in the motherload of love-and-family-mess I am, and I would rather be here than anywhere. 

I don't know which train I want to get on next.
But truckloads of opportunities are arriving and departing all the time.  Turns out, they had been queuing up at the self-doubt barrier the whole time, waiting for the wall to come down. 

It is unnecessary to endlessly travel around the same circle of demented track and mourn the tragic loss of hours and tears to anxiety and self-decimation. Plenty of other trips to take. 

2017 is a mystery ticket to life. I am gonna jump on board, relax, look out the window and just see what happens.