At some point during the glorious long hot summer of ’25, I realised I was beating myself up for ‘not being very effective’. It was of course mainly garbage.

It’s been an odd year – great leaps forward in many ways but an impossibility of movement in others, not helped by catching two types of pesky Covid in the space of four months. I was tired, weary, feeling like I was on a treadmill. I was not walking my talk which, now I came to face it, had turned nasty, wounding and undermining myself with its whispered venom. I didn’t feel like I was living authentically because I wasn’t doing all the things I usually encourage others to do. What. A. Fraud.

Way to go, kicking a girl when she’s down, Alison. Classy. WTF?!

Finding Peace

After a few days of being even harder on myself, I had a realisation: I was recovering from illness, so how did I think I could be in rhythm? How could I be naturally flexing between the numerous work activities that any soloworking, home based self employed person has? It’s simply not possible. So I relaxed, and queried what was possible, rather than constantly nagging myself about what I wasn’t doing, what I ought to do, and generally ‘shoulding’ all over myself (never a good look).

I found some peace with being out of rhythm, somehow convincing myself that it wouldn’t be this way forever, and it would return.

I had been too fatigued to actually go on holiday, despite knowing that a week camping, walking and catching up with old friends in Cornwall would be just the remedy I needed. But I didn’t have the energy to pack the car, so a staycation was what I had instead. I did manage to get to a weekend teaching and meditation retreat in Wales. There I caught up with a different group of friends. We were learning from a highly respected Tibetan Buddhist, and usually the message from them is ‘don’t take yourself so seriously!’. This teaching in particular majored on the whole ‘life is an illusion, just a mental construct’ aspect. It pointed to more rest and more connection. So that’s what I did.

Finding Rhythm

It took a couple of months, but in the last week of August as I felt the seasons beginning to shift into Autumn, despite the heat, I slipped into my rhythm again. I was inspired to engage in some autumn cleaning. I could feel the pull of the new term, the new school year. For years in my late teens and early twenties, I had packed my life up into boxes every September and moved. It’s not something I’ve done for decades, yet the migrational rhythm remains and it has become the first of the ‘new year’ shifts. There is a seasonal stationery urge too, but I have managed to stay away from splurging on a new felt tip pens, a clean rubber and a geometry set in a tin.

Next, I got round to tackling my task list in Notion. I pruned many ‘great ideas’ (shifted into a ‘someday’ category and hidden from view, because they truly are great ideas and their time may well come) and replaced them with the necessary. I am back into planning my weeks. And it feels good.

What I achieved didn’t ‘just’ happen, it was a process. I was doing it during the “DO to BE” coworking session. There I encourage people to be accurate about how they will be spending each cycle of work session. I was not being very accurate at all, finding that each initial task involved a useful detour via untangling something else! I rediscovered very useful notes and remembered what I will be calling my ‘newsletter’ having realised some time ago that the term ‘newsletter’ sounds so boooooriiiiing it’s never an encouragement to write to the trusty people on my email list. (My subscribers can never complain that I spam them.)

Finding Joy

I rediscovered a pad of weekly planning sheets from the awesome Sara Price, currently on sabbatical from her wonderful ‘Actually’ work. The first line asks what the intention is for the week – the vibe and energy we want to enjoy as we work. I wrote ‘weaving joy into the necessary’. As I wrote it, I remembered that I have been wanting to get to the local Thursday evening Improv classes, and that as I won’t be assisting on the Embodiment Unlimited Coach Certification course this autumn, I can now attend. So I looked it up and booked myself in, using my Profit First pot to do it.

'Profit First', in case you're wondering, is a system where a small percentage of each piece of income is put to one side, before paying any bills. This is money for spending on treats, fun and beauty, playtime and merriment. Next, money is set aside for the tax bill, and then for the operating expenses of the business. Finally you pay yourself. Look it up, it’s a book by Mike Michaelowicz and it has revolutionised my business.

Anyway, the point is that I took action on something I have been promising myself for ages. And it is an embodiment practise. And it fuels the oft neglected air element.

Later in the day, I travelled to a nearby town because I had a problem and couldn’t raise the business I wanted on the phone. I had been trying for a few weeks. Their shop was shut. I went a couple of doors down the street to another business to ask if they knew anything. They did not. But they were selling beautiful things, including an unmarked glass bowl, turquoise with stunning clean lines. French she said. I took note of the stacking up of improbable events and bought it. Later, when examining it lovingly, in amongst the scratches on its base, acquired over the last half century, I found a hand written scratch of a name. A Norwegian glass maker of some repute. Not unmarked then, and not French… a bargain also paid for from my Profit First pot. I still haven’t managed to get hold of that business, but somehow I care rather less about it now…

Finding Meaning

Overall there were several lessons from this episode, which I share for you to pick, mix or leave:

Stale task lists help nobody: worse, they can paralyse. Grabbing it by the short and curlies and interrogating the tasks to make sure their presence really does serve us is so liberating. Almost like we get to be in charge of our own task list… not having the tail wag the dog. This is a super CEO move and will instantly end the tyranny of the task list.

Bullying is a hiding to nothing: guilt and shame have no place, there is always a reason for not being able to function well. It is highly unlikely to be our fault.

‘Letting’ rather than ‘pushing’ was the way out of the stagnancy: I rested, replenished and gradually the natural rhythms emerged. Greeting these old friends has been such a joy.

Money systems liberate: by paying for improv classes from my Profit First pot, that expenditure was not an expense that required justification, it was a joyful and nourishing, positive act.

Cycles and rhythms are a good answer: tapping into lunar, seasonal and energetic cycles, I gained and built a dynamic of the sort that nurtures me and my business. It has reignited my sense of joy and reconnected me to my sense of purpose, helping to build my capacity. I have a sense of vitality again and with that comes a deep sense of fulfilment.

And as you reach the end of my thoughts here, what are yours? How are you? What do you need right now? What’s possible? What is your next act of nourishment?