When was the last time you took time for inspiration?

Photo by Pauline Loroy on Unsplash

In lockdown a lot becomes clear. Not just your foibles and personal areas ripe for growth, not just your pet peeves and your annoyances at those who cannot follow directions even for their own good, but also the things you are grateful for.

These might become apparent in the longing for human connection - you don’t know how good you have it until it is gone - or in the little things you see for the first time because you have slowed down enough to notice.

For me, I am noticing once again my propensity for being busy and in a reactive state. I’ve listened with envy to those who are wondering what to do with all the time and space they have now due to lockdown. Especially my fellow artists, many of whom will be among the last back to work. I, however, have been bombarded by should-dos - all of the amazing webinars and online plays and films and offerings that are calling out to me “if I was really serious about…” and of course I have my job as well, which is ill-defined in this new space and I’m finding that I never know if what I’ve done is enough. So instead of working smarter to make time for the things that I would like to do, I work harder, frantically trying to “do”.

I’ve been unwilling to admit that I could claim that time and space. That I am the one addicted to constantly being in reactive mode, doing because I’ve decided that it has to be done. It doesn’t feel like a decision because it feels like responding to a call of duty. It feels noble. I like putting out fires, solving problems, doing the work, it helps me feel fulfilled, useful and appreciated. It doesn’t, however, help me feel connected or grounded. And most of the time it means my loved ones are neglected for the sake of the doing.

You see, it might sound good, that word. But the truth is that work is most rewarding and effective when you are working from a centred place. When you choose how to spend your time and energy from a place that is grounded, connected and true, then you are truly doing noble work. The nobility isn’t in how much you get done, what you are working on, or how engrossed you are in the work, it is in the grace and the engagement of how you do your work.

In June our theatre company should have been staging a revival of a world premiere we did last summer - due to the circumstances we had to change our course of action. I remember numerous walks with my husband (also Co-Artistic Director of the company) where we asked, what will we do? We wanted to honour the commitments we had with the artists and designers who were involved, but we didn’t want to do something as a knee-jerk reaction. We knew we would no longer be able to have a live performance, and as time passed we continued to talk through possibilities on our daily walks and sought advice from trusted theatre goers. Taking that time and space allowed us to come up with something that engaged all the artists we had commitments to, and enabled us to involve even more artists. It certainly was coming down to the wire for our decision, but what started off as a disappointment turned into an exciting international project. Without giving ourselves the time and space to brainstorm and weed out our ideas, this lovely project wouldn’t have had the room to grow.

Slowing down and creating space for big thinking, or just non-reactive thinking, is not only possible, it is where our best, most grounded work is done. Leaving that opportunity for inspired work to circumstance - “I can’t take time off now, there’s this deadline today, I have to do this and that and this is coming up and if I don’t do that, who will” doesn’t work. It is with time and space that ingenuity has room to blossom. Yes, it is more responsibility to claim that space, to make decisions from a grounded perspective. But everything can still get done, even if I don’t do them at a frantic, desperate, head down, don’t look up pace. 

Though it seems ages ago now, I was so grateful to be able to travel to Japan in February. It was my first time going that far away and to a country that doesn’t have a Latin alphabet. Personally, I was very excited for a number of reasons, a major one being the way that time and space are built into the Japanese landscape. I was looking forward to walks in gardens built for contemplation and the appreciation of beauty, a true chance to get away from it all. And Japan did not disappoint. Even in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Tokyo you can find beautiful gardens full of twisting and turning paths leading to tidbits of history or an unexpected shrine. There was no rush in the gardens.

So, if you can, claim some space and time today. Design it into your life. Get a little distance from the have-tos (they’re going to feel really pressing and you might think to yourself, “well it’s nice and easy for you, but I don’t have that luxury”) and tune in to the want-tos, the wouldn’t this be fun-tos, the true deep down yeses that light your fire. 

You may be surprised by what you discover.