Emotionally depleted

I’m trying something incredibly counterintuitive right now.

I am suffering in a lot of areas in my life, I am hugely stressed and growing in apathy for almost everything and I am finding it hard to get the get up and go.

I am losing my fight.

So, usually, when under so much tension and uncertainty and sickness, people tell me to rest, take it easy, don’t overthink things, don’t do this and don’t do that and most certainly don’t start anything new – you need to calm down and rest up.

It would be natural to think I am crazy because I am going to do the opposite.

It’s based on an idea by Mel Robbins called “Bluewater”.

She took a glass of water and filled it to the brim and put dirt in the cup, lots of dirt and she mixed it up to show how a person looks when they’re feeling overloaded and stressed out.

She then explained how people then try to deal with each individual problem they have at a time, to try and lessen the load, she did this by demonstrating how people try to spoon out the dirt little by little and over a time, their cup gets emptier and emptier and this emptiness is representing the persons emotional health. 

Over a time, as you’re spooning out the dirt, you are becoming more and more emotionally depleted and burned out and the idea of doing anything becomes so exhausting you just can’t bear to do anything anymore and you lose yourself and you feel that you might never be happy again.

A dangerous situation for anyone!

She said the simplest thing to do at a time like this is to make yourself do something for yourself, something that you think you’d enjoy or if your apathy is so bad, go back to something you once enjoyed – force yourself to have some time in the week to yourself to do it and gradually ease more and more things that you like into your life – make the time to do some self-care and find yourself again!

So she showed what happens when you start adding more water into the dirty cup, it eventually cleans up, not entirely, there will always be a little bit of dirt, but as you add more and more back into your life that you enjoy, that makes you feel like you have some kind of purpose or soul again, your cup is going to get cleaner and cleaner and you will stop feeling so depleted in yourself and you will be stronger and healthier in the long run for it.

I’m trying to force myself right now into going into autopilot and doing some of the things I used to enjoy from the past, whether I am tired or not, whether I feel like it or not, whether I am currently enjoying it or not and no matter how bad the physical pains are in my body – I must do them. 

Because, maybe that’s what I am missing right now?

I’ve been encouraged to take it easy, stop and relax so much over the years that I have come to a virtual stop and any notion of doing anything makes me have this kind of feeling of MEH!

I’ve allowed peoples advice to make me lazy and I don’t like it!

I actually started about a couple of weeks ago.

I started to force myself to read 30 pages of a book again per day, like I used to a year back. 

I am forcing myself to write anything, no matter what it is, whether it intends to be published or not.

I am forcing myself to do some kind of exercise again.

I am practising art at least once every couple of days. 

I am forcing myself to take an interest in thinking about my future again and start planning things and maybe even start thinking about chasing dreams again, because around four years ago I gave them up.

So I am thinking about creating an inspiration or dream board again, I used to be a big fan of those but got out of the habit of it because Paul started pinning his things onto MY board!  He wouldn’t get his own.

I completely forsook any dream because I was convinced I was about to die at any moment!

Along with this I have been trying to remember to do the “High five habit” Mel Robbins also spoke about, but I need more practise with that and I am also trying to remember to count down from five when I am about to go back into a negative habit.

My memory has issues because I have been on survival mode and doing practically nothing with my life for the last eight years, because I have been recovering from bed bound sickness.

I have also had a scare recently.

I know as I am getting older, certain health problems, particularly mental health problems are getting much worse.

I came across a video online purely by accident, I wasn’t looking for anything in particular when I came across a video titled “loneliness is dangerous for your physical health”.

I knew it was dangerous for mental health, but not physical health.

It turns out people who have been isolated or lonely most of their lives have a hugely high risk of developing auto-immunity issues as well as memory loss.  Now that woke me up, because my memory is unreliable and scary at times and I have four different types of auto-immune disease.

Much of the abuse and neglect I had as a child was due to isolation, my mum refusing for me to socialise outside of tight family and friendship circles, even home educating me most of the time!

So I never really had a healthy social life that lasted, it always came in dribs and drabs.

Knowing this and knowing that people who have lived in isolation a lot are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s or dementia before they are 60yrs old, worried me a lot!

They did say though that reversing this can be very quickly done actually and socialising for at least 30 minutes week outside of your home regularly or more can put you back on the right track in not getting that type of dementia, as it’s a specific type apparently.

So there is a lot going on in my life and according to the Bluewater technique there really should be a lot more going on too.

But right now, I am trying to concentrate on solving a mystery in my life and getting my passion for writing back.  Because I haven’t felt passionate about anything for a long time!

Tell a white lie, I have, but then I quickly felt, what’s the point someone will ruin it…

So, yeah, that’s what’s up lately!

Thanks for reading!

If I were a fairy

If I were a fairy, my season would be autumn, my flower would be sunflowers, I would magic in the harvest and paint the leaves of everything in the autumnal colours and I would play tricks on mortals around Halloween by tickling their ears with my breath!

I would smell like spices and apples and have autumn leaves hairclips in my hair and spiders looping their webs into my earring holes and dangling there as fashion models.

I would help the stork deliver babies in big pumpkin carry cots and corn husks as blankets.

Because, why not?

My familiar would be a fox or raccoon and I’d throw peach pits at people who disrespected nature and magically create an instant tree where it lands to serve them right if they walked right into it!

I love faeries; I could get really into writing a book all about fairy culture etc.  it would be smashing if I could do the art I see in my head as well.

But never mind.

I am overloaded with other projects right now that one can wait.

Thanks for reading!

How to kill an artist

There is a broken bridge in the creative heavens

Where creators steal other worlds

Make them their own and change things

Make them straight when they ought to be curled

It’s a tragedy to see it

When a creator can’t create

For they need to take another’s work

To put food on their plates

How proud do they feel when they do it?

Does it feed their soul?

I live in doubt of the truth of that

If I may be so bold?

How hungry is the creator who takes another’s art?

How starved and deranged are they? 

If they could eat another’s heart!

For I have seen it happen

The scope of vicious duels

Of two creators in battle

For one who won’t use their tools

And I have seen the tragedies it causes in their lives

As depression rips them soundly, as though they’re stabbed with knives

They can’t live with what they do and they know it’s wrong and bad

But they can’t help it really and that’s what makes it sad

To kill another artist for the want of fame and gold

It pounds reality into me

And makes my blood run cold

Triggers of grief

Grief comes in waves

A trigger of a memory

A word or two heard in passing

Thoughts of them come to you

Trespassing your mind

You can’t help it, you find

You love those memories, but they make you sad

Bittersweet, you feel bad

Guilty that you don’t want the memories, guilty you think of them

Moving on is difficult because it hurts again and again

Any little trigger will make you think of those

Who are in the heavens, those whose death caused you woes

But you know that you love them and happy memories you did share

But why does it have to hurt so much? 

When they are no longer there?

A soulless tragedy

In my heart and mind I am many things

Which I’m not you see

Because I only act a little part of me

For people don’t like others who are bright and bold and brave

Who think they are better people

So they seek to berate and scathe

Yet look inside my heart and soul and you will surely see

All the people locked inside, the people who are truly me!

I am an empress and I rule with an iron might

My tongue commands great armies and send enemies into flight

But I am also a bird that flies up high and it is truly free

To sing any song she wishes, who dares to silence me?

I am the wind which blows at you, air both hot and cold

And sweeps you off your feet sometimes and lose my self-control

And like an angel I am mild and meek, I will care with tender love

And often I will mediate for peace just like the blessed dove

I am a monster and I am fierce, you don’t want to bother me

And I shall tickle you with bites, just like a little flea

I am flash and I am loud, yet I am dull and quiet too

I am many people you know and don’t, you really have no clue

For I am hidden within myself, I am ashamed you see

To show you who I really am

And what I could be

Though mostly I am a creator

I make worlds with words and paint

I create people and creatures too and I do so without restraint

I create vast worlds for your mind to explore

And all I wish for you is for you to adore

And live within these worlds of mine within your very mind

And love it with all your heart and inspiration find

So you too can create like me, your own little universe

And write good poems, songs and stories and a little verse

So you can feel important too and like you have a place

And ignore all the haters who try to stop you with disgrace

Because one thing that is true and clear

The arts are important my dear

For without it we inhuman be

And soulless we will live in tragedy

And never more shall we love each little gem we find

For our hearts will be black and cold

Because we’ve lost our mind

First brain hurricane season of 2023

I think its “Brain Hurricane” season again, this week there has been lots of new fresh ideas for things and I have started some new stuff, whilst working on my current projects too!

This hurricane season started around the 13^th May 2023, I never know how long it’s going to last or what will survive the storm, but I hope I get as many of these ideas finished as quickly as possible nonetheless!

So far the storm has given me a dark cabaret play, a children’s series with art ideas for making a new toy brand and some better ideas for old projects such as one of my ghost stories.  It has also reignited my interest in a project I abandoned eighteen years ago about a boy addicted to video games.

But mostly this storm has given me a lot of ideas for art projects to make my art brand more recognisable with its own characters.  One such character is a type of rag doll, based on an old story I gave up years ago – talking of which, this doll’s story is also in revival.

Now I was beginning to panic about how this will affect my current main work, Project AD but it turned out to be assisting me with that, which is highly irregular for brain hurricanes! 

This storm is actually helping me think of art pieces for the characters of that project too and they look more original in my mind – the thing is though, I am not a particularly good artist, so there are a lot of art practises that needs to be done!  But I believe I have found a style I want to work with and that excites me a lot!

So that’s the general work update right now.

Thanks for reading!

Moon’s light

The moon is like a pill in the sky

Though the world is often too jaded to see it

A luminescent tablet healing the world as it sleeps

Making waves and a balance it keeps

Shining a torch down on all the lands

Making silver of the sands

Glowing brightly up high

Our brightest light in the night sky

Though sometimes it is dimmed and gone

It always will return

Each time it does it is a wonder

Yet mankind always seeks to plunder

And someday they will steal its light

And build great cities with all their might

And when that day is doomed to come

The moon will become grey and glum

And nevermore shall we look to see

The beauty that shines upon the sea

And never more shall there be silver light

Because the moon won’t shine as bright

A dark cabaret play

Insomnia is something I’ve lived with for a long time; I have always been a night owl.

But recently my brain had decided the best hours to concentrate on anything is between 3am and 6am every morning, which to say the least is unsociable and inconvenient – had I lived in Alaska and working on the British time zone, it would be more bearable but I don’t.

My brain seems to think it lives somewhere in the West of Canada or America for some reason and has since I was a teenager!

I’ve never been there, so I don’t know why it’s clocked for it.

Anyway, last night was the worst because my brain kept me up until 8:45am – why?  Because around 6am it decided now is the perfect time to a turn a poem I’ve been working on into a play and I wrote nearly six hundred words to it before I decided I was starting to hallucinate!

So, yet again, my brain has decided only to have let me sleep for ten hours in the past two days all told, five hours is all I am getting lately in a night on average.

I think I am surviving because as I daydream I zone out and sort of go into a meditative state of stasis throughout the day, if it hadn’t of been for that habit I think I would have cracked by now!

The play is a dark cabaret, mild horror in my opinion, poetic and I am not going to share the plot here – but there are only five characters in the whole thing.  I know the beginning, middle and end and there are songs in my head I will eventually write for it and being as I know nothing about choreography I may have to collaborate with someone for that if anyone is interested in helping it go to stage someday?

It needs to be written first though.

But yes, this is not my first foray into writing a play, I’ve done it a lot in the past but most plays ended up being destroyed as I lost confidence with it.  Though some others did survive but goodness knows where they are now, finding anything in this house is like a quest for The Holy Grail!

I didn’t plan for this to happen, my brain just did it.

I could have done without the extra work, but there you go.

I am going to write it as it calls me, like I do all my things and I am living in the hope that it will be complete within the month, but like always, I won’t hold my breath!

I wasn’t even supposed to be writing anything other than poetry for the blog this morning, so it was a total surprise for me.

Funny old brain of mine!

Thanks for reading!

Happy Birthday Henry!

It was a beautiful day when you were born

For me a wish came true

I held you in my arms so warm

And never wanted to let go of you

You are loved and you are wanted and you are cherished by me

In each and every way, I just wish that you would see…

My love for you grows stronger

Each and every day!

Because I love you truly, in each and every way!

Currently reading May 2023

I am currently reading quite a few book according to my Goodreads.com list, but I would say I am only really active in four of them for the past week now, despite there actually being 22 books on the list, a handful have been slowly slogged through for the past year!

But never mind – it’s just the result of an ever increasing chaotic and information starved mind!

The four I am currently reading are from the library so I have to whip myself to read them before the 21 days is up!

They are;

The High Five Habit by Mel Robbins

Grow your own poem by Kate Clanchy

A nature poem for every day of the year Edited by Jane McMorland Hunter

Eating to extinction by Dan Saladino

“The high five habit” by Mel Robbins is being read the fastest because I am trying to get my act together basically!  I finished a free Mel Robbins course a couple of weeks back and I wanted to learn more about this “high five habit” I’ve heard about and although I have been doing it for a few days now I have forgot on two days, so it’s not ingrained to do that yet for me. 

But I have noticed a difference with me approaching mirrors nonetheless, I have a faint smile these days, which is something – because I was a pretty miserable person whenever I look in mirrors before this thing.

I’m really trying to motivate myself to fight for a life and I tell you it is hard, it is a battle and I have virtually no support in doing this – I am on my own!

So I have to haul my own ass to change, as Mel Robbins says time and time again “nobody is going to save you, only you can save you”.

So that’s what I am trying to do.  Save myself.

“Grow your own poem” by Kate Clanchy has been borrowed and reordered to borrow from the library with small breaks in between since November!  Why?  Because there are a lot of small tasks in them and I would like to do them spread out, so I could learn better that way – it will stick better.  If I read the whole book then go back to do the essay one after the other I am more likely to forget what I am learning.

So I am doing it my way and it works!

I have noticed an improvement in the quality of my work and so has Paul and I thank this book for it!

“Eating to extinction” by Dan Saladino, is a gripping read about how humanities social progress and diet is actually going to eventually starve out humanity because it is unsustainable and not very diverse; monocultures and picky farmers are literally making extinct thousands of alternate food sources around the world yearly, in order to condense our diets down to a few of our favourites.

Which by and large is not healthy for us and not a wise thing to do in the long run because of climate change, but also our microbiota is starving which is causing all kinds of auto-immunity problems and other health risks.

And if you know me, from reading things about me in the dim and distant past, not only am I a huge advocate for sustainability and paleo thinking, but I am also incredibly geeky about microbiomes!

“A nature poem for every day of the year” by Jane McMorland Hunter – again I am reading this to kind of study poetry but also because of Ray Bradbury’s idea of reading a poem, an essay and a short story every day. 

I read a lot of non-fiction daily anyway, it’s a habit I’ve always had, I don’t read much fiction to be honest but when I do I tend to like picking up short story anthologies and I virtually never read poetry until recently, so I felt like a kindred spirit of Ray Bradbury when I read this quote the other week!

I used to read fiction a lot when I was younger but I got out of the habit of it because I started to panic that my ideas were like this and that and this too!  So it made me worry constantly about plagiarism.

Again, if you know me, you’d know by now I am an incessant worry wart!

So to ensure I don’t give up my current words in progress (WIP) I got out of the habit of reading too much fiction.

Which is kind of stupid, but there you go.

Thanks for reading!