I am realising quickly how damaging living my life through my phone is.
Just a few weeks ago, I was driving home from church, Maximus was asleep in the car, it was 7-something o clock.
My car was dark except for my headlights and a text message beeped through.
The darkness of the car shone the light of my phone even more brightly and I was so tempted to pick up my phone and check the message.
I quickly looked down and decided against picking my phone up and when I lifted my head up again, there was a man standing in the middle of the road.
He wasn’t running across the road to escape my car, I mean standing dead centre in front of my car, pointing straight at me, all most beaconing me to run him down.
I screamed, I prayed, I swerved, I stopped.
My car was truly millimetres away from hitting this man front on.
My heart galloped and I prayed that God would restore his soul. It was clear that he was trying to take his own life.
What impacted me mostly though was the what ifs?
What if I had have looked and replied to that text message?
What if I hadn’t stopped my car in time?
What if?
Mobile phones, from the moment they have been invented have been a part of my life. My dad bought one of the very first bricks, we had a satellite phone and I had my own mobile from when I was a teenager till now. It has not been until the last few months that I have realised how addicted to my phone I am.
As a novice mum, there are many moments that I feel increasingly isolated and the only thing that takes me out of the food plastered across the floor, the cartoons that sing in the distance, is the call of instagram and facebook to connect me with a instant reality.
My mum the other day challenged me, I dare you to go phone free for a day a week. I think she has seen my increased use of its pull and although I have explored this concept on here before, its an ongoing issue that I have to contend with.
I am doing productive things on my phone, I am building pictures, I am building community, but can I put it down and intentionally focus on the people that are in my present.
I have come up with a kind of plan.
Whenever I have my husband home on weekends etc, I go phone free.
Whenever I am in a social setting I go phone free.
During the week when I am with Max by myself, I try to limit my time and put the phone in another part of the house for moments at a time.
In the car I connect my phone and play music and also put it on flight mode, so that I can’t use my phone for other purposes.
It is a major temptation and discipline for me to put my smartphone in its right place. I direct its control over my life, it doesn’t dictate to me.
Take time to be phone free, sometime this week, you will quickly see whether you have formed an unhealthy addiction or not.
I wrote also about phubbing here: if you want to read more about this dialogue in my life at the moment.
I sat in the midst of our overgrown lawn today, enjoying the depth of its green chards. Spring is so close to being here and taking a moment to just be, helped me discover a moment of inspiration.
It is easy to produce perfection if you have a big budget and a staff of many.
There is much to be said, for the organic, the momentary, the raw, the urban and all that brews.
I sat reading my frankie magazine and its been a long time since I have bought one. Nappies and all things toddler have been a higher priority on my shopping list.
I decided I needed a little inspiration kick today, after a big month of giving out, I needed to refill again.
A magazine, a coffee and an appointment booked for this afternoon for a massage.
Not a normal day in the life of this novice mum, but one necessary if I am to continue to embrace the chaos of this new season.
I turned up a new playlist on my spotify account and I breathed deep.
What I discovered from Frankie this afternoon though, was that its lost its edge. Yes, it is inspiring…
Yes, it is filled with many things I love and I want…
but I found myself surprised that the first few pages were full of adverts and not ones that were organic, edgy and made me want to go and discover more.
Frankie has sold out.
I was discussing a project with a couple this week in a mentoring forum and I found myself saying ‘Don’t sell out to the corporate opportunities’.
A different way of describing it is ‘Stay wild’.
Creative people, stay wild.
Don’t allow the crowd to domesticate you.
One of my favourite books to read to my little man Maximus, is ‘Where the Wild Things are’.
Imagine if we remained wild in our thinking, our imagination and our pursuits.
Don’t sell out to the crowd, creative ones.
Find your song and sing it.
Refine your song and play it.
Find your place and own it.
Don’t let the big boys tell you how you should ride.
The greatest challenge in my change of season has been getting my head around who my creative posse is.
After working for over a decade with a group of people, who took massive risks together, created large and failed extravagantly, its a massive change in dynamic. I mostly work by myself and the with groups of people that I will be with for a small amount of time inputting creative direction, thoughts or moments, but its not an ongoing opportunity with the same group of people.
Discovering a team of people who I can create large with and trust with the vulnerability of the creative process is a huge journey.
That is what I miss most about being in a part of a team who work towards a common goal. Often its not until you loose something that you realise its value.
I’m naturally a people person and I really enjoy throwing ideas around and living a communal life of creativity.
In the charts of a personality type I land very close to the middle of introvert and extrovert.
(insert here this song; cracks me up! For those who watched X factor last year)
I’m not extreme in the extrovert graph scales, I like time to process and when my house is quiet and I walk the tiles by myself and something peaceful settles on top of me. It’s actually something sacred. The quiet, the space, the moment of reflection arrives.
I can’t stay in that place to long though. The walls start to crowd, the noises start to creak and I want to talk to someone, anyone or anything…
Yesterday I did a creative workshop with a group of radio presenters and one of my discussion points in the workshop was ‘Who is your creative posse?’
A posse, is a group of like minded people who have your back. A group that is travelling in the same direction, yet not the same, just a group that celebrates strengths, forgives weaknesses, doesn’t steal others ideas, takes time to honour each other and listen.
A group that travels the sacred path of creativity safely, knowing that the creative process is a vulnerable one.
People who have your back.
People who you don’t have to tread lightly over massive egos.
People who bring out the best in you, not your worst.
People who are loving and kind.
These kind of friends, or posse don’t come along everyday and often you don’t realise how special the posse is until they have disbanded.
How can you create a posse?
How can you keep a posse together?
How can you create well with other people?
I have found in my experiences, the thing that kills a posse quickest is arrogance and pride.
When people access creativity with humility, acknowledging that WE is more important than ME, something very unique occurs.
Humility doesn’t mean shrinking back though in the presentation of ones ideas, thoughts, or creative endeavours. It just means we hold our ideas lighter and realise that as we sharpen the reflection of the ideas as a team, we can bring something so much more solid, than the one perspective that you bring alone.
Nothing of value in the history of the world has been built by one person. It is always built by a posse of people working together for the greater good.
If you see someone who looks successful, famous or inspirational, there is always someone in the background who has sacrificed for that person to excel.
Always.
A mother.
A father.
A stylist.
A producer.
A teacher.
A husband.
A wife.
A child.
There is always a posse.
It’s just whether we value the input the posse brings or not.
Value and appreciate your posse today and if you don’t have one, humble yourself and begin to build.
I have only met Em from Tea Cups Too three times, maybe four in fact and each time I have encountered her, there is something about her heart and presence that makes me smile.
We have some mutual friends and we live a stone’s throw away from each other, but I stumbled across her blog whilst looking for pictures from an event we both went to on the weekend and I stayed at her place online for a while.
So, today I have put my little man to bed, my big man is scraping the peeling paint off our wooden window sills that have been corroded by the sea air and I wanted to have tea with Em online.
The isolation of motherhood has the capacity to take us to beautiful places and dark ones also. As I read your recent post on motherhood, it reminded me of a quote I have been repeating to myself lately.
‘Embrace the chaos’
For those who don’t know me, I am a stay at home mum with one son Maximus, one husband (who works in Juvi with young offenders and is a body builder, I know not sure what happened there…) and I write often here and also here.
Aside from my writing, I do heaps of other stuff, which you can find more about here. To say life is chaotic is an understatement. Max just turned eighteen months; 6 days ago, and the last year and a half of my life has tippled into toddler oblivion,my priorities and preconceived judgements on mothering have been dramatically turned upside down.
This is the quote recently that made me smile and I have decided to make it my summer mantra.
Chaos (especially in my house and my diary) often makes me feel overwhelmed, but there are moments when I stop my mind from trying to control the moment and I embrace the cry of my heart to live a life that contributes significantly and my little heart secretly starts to roar.
It’s like I have a little dinosaur inside me, that when I think thoughts of beauty and creativity, when I produce moments of inspiration and life, whose eyes grow large and a mighty roar begins to emerge. A roar that no-one can hear but I can feel it rise in my heart.
Finding a sense of purpose and contribution in my days, helps me to embrace the chaos and to allow the dishes to harden, the washing to stiffen, knowing that my time is being given to that which makes an eternal impact.
Your post Em, reminded that the times I spend with my son, screwing the lids on and off, the times that I walk slowly so that he can rip lovely flowers apart, are just as valid and important as the times that I am recording moments for radio, writing books and helping women in far off places.
Embracing the chaos and not trying to contain its place, allows us to live in those moments that full vibrant colour filled memories are made and allows us to build a life of beauty rather than contained order.
Does it mean I think allowing our lives to be messy and out of control everyday is helpful?
No, in fact spring cleaning, keeping my housework at bay and structure allow my creativity to thrive.
However, its just changing the priority scales of its importance and allowing the opinions of others to fade and the ideas that brew late in the evening hour, to become reality.
Embrace the ROAR Em.
Each time I have met you, I have sensed a great potential for beauty, awaken-edness and life.
You are delightful and your life produces beautiful things.
Let’s have a real cuppa soon, or watch the sun on the ocean go down with a glass of wine and forget that toilet training creates a lot of mess, on top of the dust piling on my lovely wooden floors.
Watching my son attempt to play the guitar.
