I hate schedules. Schedules and routines have always lead to me feeling trapped and rigid so, over the years, after many failed attempts of various routines and schedules, I came to the conclusion that they clearly do not work for me and happily ignored the fact that not having them was not working for me either.
However, during my time away from all things self-exploratory, I had been lamenting how I have no time for creativity. For me, creativity comes within space. I feel that I need full days to evoke creativity: time to stare into space; time to wake up and gradually unfurl; time to wander around and be distracted. For the longest time I believed that I needed to just flow so that creative inspiration would have a natural rhythm and any block or resistance to that flow would shut down all my creative energy.
I’m sure you see the flaw in this thinking- life doesn’t often give you full days to wander and make space for creativity to happen in it’s own space. This meant I never felt like I had time and therefore I rarely created. I was aware that I needed to find a way to downsize the amount of time I required but had no idea how this would even be possible. Then, as often happens for me, the answer came while I was on my long, meandering drive to Adelaide (ironic that I needed to be floating about in order to get the answer on to how not to float about).
During this drive I managed to tune into some of the Bhakti Rose Women’s Summit and as part of it there was a speaker, Henrike Schreer (here is her Instagram) who talked about balancing the masculine and feminine. While I am really (really) paraphrasing, what she said sparked something in me- the feminine, creative energy is fluid while the masculine is solid and tangible. Fluid needs a container so it doesn’t pour and spill all over the place. The masculine energy of structure and stability provides this container and space for the feminine to flourish.
I thought I had spent years resisting my femininity. On deeper reflection after this talk, I considered that I had actually been chasing my femininity while rejecting my masculinity. As a result my creativity was a giant puddle on the floor that I had no idea how to salvage, while at the same time I was refusing to use the cup on the table to scoop it up because it ‘messed with my flow’.
Great, an idea had been sparked, but what to do with that? Luckily, the flow continued in the form of the summit and long drive. The following day I tuned in to the talk on ‘Living by Design’ with Elena Brower (link to her Instagram) where, to my surprise and utter dismay, she started talking about scheduling. Naturally, I thought to just drop out because I had ‘tried that and it’s not for me’, but I stayed with it and am glad I did.
She spoke about how every Sunday she sits and plans her week in a paper diary (similar to bullet journaling) and the very first thing she schedules is her exercise times. To be more broad, she scheduled in her self care, and then worked life’s other demands around that. This was the next spark for me- a schedule was not about planning all the things I had to do, it was about creating space to ensure I was tending to my energy and time with self care and self compassion. After years of avoidance, I began to think that perhaps a schedule was the container I needed to hold my creativity within.
With a chance to reset ahead of me during my stay in Adelaide, away from the normality of regular life, I went about planning my self care. I pulled out the note book I brought with me and booked in my yoga classes, walks and asana practice for the week ahead. I blocked a whole day as a ‘day off’ with no tasks, just rest and recovery to spend however I felt. I then looked at my work schedule and blocked in the non-negotiable shifts. Next, I considered my tasks and allocated the amount of time I would give to each of them- not set times, just ‘2 hours on design’ or ‘1 hour on blog’ and also noted my to-do items. When I looked at what was happening on paper, I saw that there were some days where I needed to remove expectations to allow for more space and flexibility. I also saw days where I could perhaps accomplish more. I wrote a note saying ‘be flexible!’ to acknowledge that these plans may change, but told myself that my planned self care was non-negotiable- it was happening regardless of what happened or what others wanted of me.
3 weeks in, and it is working well. There have been days where keeping to it felt hard and I wanted to give up. On these occasions I would remind myself that I have planned ample time for rest and self-care, and I would have that regardless of what else I accomplished. I still have several weeks in Adelaide remaining and the real test will be when I return to my regular life but, for now, I can honestly say that my cup is full.