Organizing around our needs and desires
Ever feel like you can only take care of yourself once everyone else is okay?
This week, I’m up in Lake Arrowhead and it’s very cold and windy, so I am staying by the fire, pensive and reflecting. I can feel the creative energy returning like when my arm falls asleep and then the blood starts flowing again.
Part of my creative process is clearing my headspace so I can focus. I want to make sure I have shown up for my other commitments so my mind feels free to wander and write. But I have to be careful of not waiting for everyone and everything else to be okay before I turn within.
I took a workshop during the pandemic with Katherine Woodward Thomas, who teaches about love and relationships, but has wisdom that translates to every area of life. One of the key takeaways I pocketed was that when you are in touch with your needs and desires, you can organize around them. Organize around my own needs and desires? Curiosity aroused.
While life was big then, I was still often responding to other people’s needs (or my perception of them) and organizing around those. I would take the space that was leftover. I had to show up for my kids, I had to work, I had to keep the house going. I had chosen those responsibilities and I had a standard for how I wanted to show up. I was working by deduction, and there was only so much left.
Or was there?
When I really contemplated organizing around my own needs and desires, my brain broke a little. I needed to take a different kind of inventory. What if writing and creative collaboration weren’t something I did after I finished taking care of everyone else, but a basic need?
I gave it a shot. I reorganized and my creativity skyrocketed. It was messy at first, but in addition to writing a pile of books and screenplays, today I am working on three TV/film projects. My responsibilities didn’t go away. I still show up for my kids, work, and the business of life. But I have stopped pushing off my desire to create, and I don’t regret it one bit. I adjusted, and so did everyone else.
Finding some semblance of balance requires me to stay really organized. It’s a constant balancing act of self-care, self-expression, staying attentive and showing up. I take personal inventory before I go to sleep, looking at how I did today taking care of myself and others, and making intentions for tomorrow.
I have a very big life, full of responsibility, relationships, goals and aspirations. So do you. May we find a way to do it all, not by deducing what is left over for ourselves after everyone and everything else is okay, but adding ourselves to the equation in the messy middle.
I wish you peace.
