128. The discomfort will soon be over.
Winter is uncomfortable but it's almost over. It's felt like sitting down in jeans. Change your words and change your thoughts.
I’m wearing jeans while writing this, sitting at the wooden kitchen table with the top button undone. I feel uncomfortable because I always wear loose comfortable trousers when indoors. Today I decided to wear jeans in the hopes of feeling more in the zone, more inspired and more inclined to writing a decent essay, which hasn’t been an easy task this week.
I have two finished drafts, written and edited, but I don’t feel like they’re it. I read a quote the other day that said “write when you’re emotional and edit when you’re not” which is usually my modus operandi but I’ve been emotional while editing too so I’m not finding any balance in my tone.
I’m not finding balance in my inner world much this week either, I feel like I’m constantly wearing jeans around the house even though I’m in sweatpants. I wrote a whole piece on the love-hate relationship I have with my freckles and the shape of my face. I also wrote a piece on how I’d felt very uncomfortable in my body and wrote myself a nasty note while trying to vent in the heat of the moment (I can see a theme here). I guess we could say that this week I’ve felt very uncomfortable in my body, which isn’t something that really tends to happen and that’s why I didn’t want to publish the two essays I’d written. They are very emotional and belong to this week’s discomfort but most probably not next week’s.
I have been feeling a constant battle between the yin and yang. Night and day. Discomfort and comfort. Beauty and ugliness. Happiness and sadness. Sun and clouds. Tiredness and insomnia. Hard and easy. But I’ve been struggling to find a middle ground which is causing me to feel unlike myself.
Seeing as I’ve been feeling blocked this week creatively, I decided to lower the bar and remind myself that I don’t always have to create carefully thought out essays. Expressing my feelings is the reason this newsletter was born so I decided to start from that premise and maybe by doing so, the final piece will resonate with someone and everything will have been worth it.
Spring is around the corner, in two days time we will have crossed the bridge and will have wintered yet another year. I like to think that this discomfort is just my winter body waking up and recalibrating for start of the new season that’s on its way. The tulips in the garden are big, pink and wide open. The birds are singing all day after a long period of silence. The sun has peeked out and I’ve even been able to sit in the garden until sunset once this week. We no longer have the wood burner going all day to keep the house warm because we’ve reached 18 degrees indoors which feels like walking into a sauna after this cold winter. The garden looks green instead of grey and the rain is slowly coming to an end.
As the outside wakes up, I am too. I believe that our bodies follow nature’s cues but we’re out of sync from living in cities and leading busy lives. Now, I live in the countryside surrounded only by fields and I’ve learned that nature’s cyclical energy is stronger than I’ll ever be so the best I can do is surrender to it.
I’ve recently been toying with the great impact that subtle word choices can make on our thought processes. If I change the word discomfort for adjustment then I’m able to release all of the negative connotations around how I’m feeling. I can ease into a new state, allowing my body to rest and understand that I need to handle myself with care without much second guessing.
The way I’ve been looking at it until now is that I feel uncomfortable and wrong in a way and that’s led me to feeling frustration, anger, irritability and it’s made me go against myself and my days with brute force. Whereas if I understand that my body is adjusting, my mind automatically understands that this is a process that takes time and might even need guidance. It’s incredible how words can change our perception, thoughts, feelings and as a result, our actions.
Winter last year was extremely intense for me because I was forced to look at my darkest feelings and it changed me. This winter was no different, it was less intense, but it was still a teacher. I knew this year around that I could either fight it or embrace it, and last year I learned that there’s no danger in facing your “inner demons”. This year it was easier and it came more naturally, but it has still been hard at times. I can say with total certainty that I’m extremely happy that spring is welcoming us.
I need the sunlight, the warmth, the birds, the colours in the garden, the short sleeve t-shirts, one duvet while sleeping instead of two, no more firewood, open doors and open windows, warm gusts of air.
Nothing lasts forever, not even my discomfort wearing jeans indoors, but the words we choose really do create our reality and that’s my lesson for this week.
Recalibration and adjustments > Discomfort.
But then again, if you aren’t able to embody the discomfort you won’t be able to welcome in the adjustments.
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