“There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.”
~ Alain de Botton
It’s a crazy time of year for me. As the end of year/beginning of the new year always is, in my line of work.
I have a retreat coming up in less than two weeks. Followed by workshops in Brisbane, my Christmas Pop-Up Shop, and the launch of my brilliant new secret project.
I have a calendar filled with client appointments for psychic readings.
My inboxes are groaning with messages and requests from people in crisis. I have family members ill, and friends.
I’ve been up in the middle of the night skyping and facebooking with international clients who have been affected by recent world events. Or by big life things. There are a lot of big life things going on just now, haven’t you noticed?
My desk (ahem, kitchen table at farm…) looks like this. (See photo above of crystals and mugs of tea, and oracle cards and magnesium powder and diarised magic into the next year.) That’s the tidiest side. The other is filled with groaning paper and book towers as I research and finish my project.
And Christmas is just around the corner.
Sounds insane, huh?
But I don’t do insane anymore. I do sustainable madness.
Sustainable madness looks like this:
And this:
And this:
And this:
It means that in the middle of the crazy I have acupuncture treatments and farmers markets and nutritious meals and cafe mornings and walks on the beach and stupidly early nights where I am in bed by 7pm.
I burn incense and aromatherapy essential oils. I play mood music. I drink good tea, and have lots of stretch breaks. I eat tasty healthy snacks. I let myself enjoy the buzz of crazy, and this push to get all the things done. It’s exciting. It makes me feel alive.
When you live a life doing what you love, when you’re following your passions, sometimes that means you’ll need to put extra hours in. Or you’ll need to say no to some stuff, momentarily, while you meet a crazy deadline, or chew madly on that impossibly big mouthful of life you bit off.
But that’s okay. If you also leave a little room for the important things that fill you up. The things that stop you burning out. The things that nurture and support you.
I am taking nearly a month off early next year, so there’s that big delicious rest to look forward to as well.
How about you? Are you doing crazy now too? And is your crazy sustainable, and even kind of fun?
I’m really looking forward to sharing my formula for crazy, beautiful, sustainable madness, and helping you to find your own recipe for this inspirational, get-things-done space. Don’t let people tell you that you need work-life balance and for every day to look the same. Sometimes our balance is chunks of happy madness, followed by chunks of rest. That works just fine for me and I bet it will help you too!
Lots of love, Nicole <3 xoxo
