A moment to reflect

I just wanted to share some pics from my little qld retreat. It's taken me a full week to relax and even after every single muscle in my body finally released, I was silly enough to have a production meeting via skype and everything just tensed up again...sheesh! It is amazing though, being in the country makes me realise how many 'shoulds' there are swirling around in the city with all the noise and pollution. You 'should' do this, you 'should' go see this, you really 'should' call that person if you want it to happen, you 'should' work a bit harder now so you can rest later...should Should SHOULD! argh, enough!

So this week has been all about peeling away the 'shoulds', and just getting back in touch with what my mind and body actually want or can do. I think it's hard in the creative sector, when for so long you don't work for any money, only the passion. You have to have so much drive to get projects off the ground, and then work yourself into the ground getting it finished. You spend two thirds of the year working your guts out, without sleep, without good food and so often without seeing sunlight, then the other third you spend burnt-out trying to claw yourself back to some kind of normalcy. Simply put this is not a

sustainable way to work or build what I hope will be

a life long career.

Having said that I would not be happy in my life if I wasn't working creatively. So what is to be done?

This is how I am working it out: Define; what makes me anxious, what makes me angry, what stresses me out, what do I just hate doing, what do I think I 'should' be doing and why, what makes me feel unhealthy, what do I lose sleep over? The answer to these questions are the Markers that I'm going in the wrong direction, strip all the things from my life that bring on these emotions or negative physical feelings.

Then define; what makes me happy, what makes me feel relaxed and calm, where does my sense of peace come from, what am I inspired by, who are the people that I look up to, what do/who do I love, what are my big dreams, what have I always wanted to do? Focus on these things and make them the driving force behind all decisions.

On the fridge in the kitchen my mum has this little piece of paper with two columns, one side is a list of food that leads to inflammation and damages the immune system, dietary system etc. And the other in anti-inflammatory, foods that are good for the body. So I've made a little list of my own with two columns, one for unhappiness/stress and one for happiness/peace, and I'm going to use this every time I feel stressed or am going into making a decision.