Do No(thing)

Artwork by Tegwyn Fietze

A week or so back found me floating in the pool on a brightly coloured lilo enjoying the tranquillity of the water and reading my book peacefully – not! One afternoon a week or so back found me floating in the pool on a brightly coloured lilo fidgeting while I forced myself to read one chapter of my book and tried to convince myself that ‘this is nice – look see I’m relaxing’ while making deals with myself that once I’d finished that chapter I would rush inside to do something productive.

Going on holiday over December was a traumatic experience for my then-boyfriend as this poor man eyed in dismay the heap of stuff, I was taking with me and tried to imagine how he was going to fit it all on the back of his bakkie. He did, amazingly enough, his one kit bag together with my 4 sealed boxes, numerous bags, kit bags, packets, etc. and no they were not all clothes. In this large luggage was ‘stuff to do’ because God forbid, I go away and find myself without something ‘to do’. I had paints oil, fabric, and acrylic with brushes and canvases and T-shirts. I had drawing pads and paper. I had reading material. I had sewing projects (when I mentioned that perhaps I should also pack my sewing machine he drew the line firmly – absolutely not!) Not forgetting, of course, the massage bed, oils, towels, and various bits and pieces that go with that. ‘You do realise’ he asked carefully ‘that you are actually going on holiday?’ When we arrived at his sister and started to unpack, both her and her husband looked mildly alarmed that I might actually be moving in for good instead of a few weeks.

I wake up in the morning with one thought on my mind ‘what am I going to do today’. I immediately start running through my inevitable list of things that I want to accomplish in the day. I would love to have a duvet day. Everyone should have a duvet day occasionally. I have forgotten how to do this. It was raining gently outside last week sometime, the weather fresh and pleasant, a perfect day to duck under the duvet with something hot and comforting and a good book or movie and just chill. I tried. I was up by 7 am rocketing up and down the passage, sorting out what to do. I could then and can still feel though that my body feels tired and worn out. It’s pleading for a rest, a break, and some time to recoup and regroup; yet, my mind has been relentless in overriding that physical sensation.

I have had to ask myself the question though, what am I actually doing? I am keeping so swamped all the time, why? Why do I feel that I can only relax and kick back and chill when I finally fall into bed at night and read for a while that I then deserve some downtime? Is it because I’m afraid someone will call me lazy? Is it because this sense of constant restlessness is just inherent in my personality? Is it because if I stop ‘doing’ all the time, I may have to allow myself some to think and face my own shadows and questions that are begging for answers? Is it because I’m lonely on some level and all the ‘doing’ stops me from feeling that or perhaps some other emotion? A lot of what keeps me always busy other people would consider being leisure activities. Because of continuously working with these things, I have honed some useful skills. I am persistently learning and teaching myself as I go along, more than that though, I have a list of new things I haven’t tried yet, and want to master.

Yet this continuous seeking and doing keeps opening up what feels like a deep yawning chasm within me, like a dark black hole that seems to suck energy into it, I keep trying to fill it, to feed it, to close it up, but it’s not happening. Is it avoidance I wonder as sometimes it feels to me that if I just keep myself occupied enough I won’t find myself standing at the edge of this chasm, I won’t fear being sucked into it and I won’t fear coming out of it again. The result of all this doing is that I continuously feel pressurised, yet it is the pressure I put on myself not the pressure that comes from an external source.

The answer to these questions came while browsing back through my journal. I always keep a journal near me and at the back of my journal I often write quotes from books that I read or a song lyric that catch my attention etc. I came across this quotation

‘And then I was scared no more. I didn’t care; it was a lovely burst of utter indifference. I don’t care!  Ah, it is such a divine emptiness that follows the desertion of fear, and this was a rather practical point of view it seemed’

Anne Rice – Violin

Rather practical, indeed. I finally realised that all I needed to do was nothing. As I walked through my aunt’s house and my glance took in all the piles of my ‘things to do’ spread all over the place I felt a momentary panic, however, I resisted the temptation to pick anything up and do it. I went and sat outside and stared at the pool, and for the first time in ages allowed the emotions I’d been holding back to flow in. I cried the first real tears I had for a long time and found that I needed to purge and let go of some things that had been sitting in my subconscious, pushed back and held at bay. After the initial wracking sobs that welled up like some deep underwater volcano and broke the surface of my consciousness, I felt a relief and a release that I actually don’t have the words to describe.

I had spent so much energy on trying not to face these things; I’d exhausted myself on every level. Now finally just allowing these emotions and truths to become evident and clear to me – even though they hurt at first, I’d cleared them away. Looking back, it wasn’t that bad. In short maybe an hour to an hour and a half period, I cleared away some things that had been holding me back for years. The sudden clarity and the obvious way forward for my life and a new direction was not ‘hard work’ to get to. As soon as the tears dried, I knew how and in which course to move next. The paralysing fears and unwillingness to change certain things were removed almost instantly.

I found that my fears of somehow ‘losing’ what I’d gained and therefore I had to keep trying harder were invalid and that sometimes to truly claim something you have to let it go. I found that I could now look at all the activities I’m involved in and let a lot of them go dispassionately and objectively as the need to have them was suddenly removed. I found that I could look at the present state of my life and ‘know’ from an intuitive and now more confident perspective what to do to improve certain areas, and not in ways I have ever considered before. I found that the things I’d used to identify myself with and used to describe myself as ‘I am’ are not valid at all and that doing this does not reflect who I am. I realised that what I do with myself 90% of the time actually does not work for me and that I need to do things differently and that was not a bad feeling and recognising that made me feel hopeful and not harmful or that I had somehow failed.

To finally stop doing, to finally stop pushing, to finally just allow myself to be without any distractions is probably one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself. My physical body has reacted to this release by first just giving in to the exhaustion, and I have spent a lot of time sleeping deeply, slowly though I can feel new energy starting to flow back in and I am honouring my physical needs now for rest and regeneration. Sometimes I have discovered over the last few weeks the best thing to do – is nothing.

‘On the keyboard of life always keep one finger on the escape key.’

Dilbert

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