The Hidden Dangers of Doing What You Love

Photographs by Jason Smalley

Most people dream of making a living from doing what they love but it’s a dangerous business.

When I was 17 I went off to university to study English literature because I loved books and dreamt of working in publishing. After 4 years of literature I’d had my fill of analysing every single word and picking through the bones of hundreds of texts searching for themes. When I finished my degree I vowed I’d never read another work of fiction again.

Somewhere somehow books had stopped being joyful, they’d become work. Hard work. Studied. Analysed. Pulled apart. Deconstructed. Reconstructed. Squeezed until there was no joy left in them anymore.

My other great love from childhood had been art and I was always drawing and making things. Knitting, sewing, crafting, painting – hands and mind united joyfully in some creative pursuit. When I started making art again in my mid 20s I discovered that people liked the things I made. My sister started selling cards and pictures I’d painted on silk and people wanted to buy more. I began to dream of making my living from my creativity.

So I started selling to craft shops and art galleries. My handmade cards and personalised wedding stationery became the main part of my business for years. When my son was a baby I could make cards and pictures in the evenings while he slept and I’d still have time with him during the day.

But the same thing happened that had happened with books. It happened so slowly and quietly and gradually that I didn’t even notice until one day I realised that all the joy had been squeezed out of my artwork too.

The designs that were commercially popular were not the designs I loved to do. I spent so much time creating for work that I stopped creating just for me. Every time I picked up my paintbrush I was thinking of my business and not thinking of nurturing myself. By making my living from doing what I loved I’d managed to crush the pleasure out of it again.

That’s the trouble with doing what you love as a career. You love it so much that you want to spend every moment doing it because you’re passionate about embodying it and sharing it with the world.

You’re trying to earn a living from what you love most so what used to simply feed your soul now needs to feed your belly and pay the bills too.

You don’t think you need to take time out to do things for fun because you’re spending every day doing what you love already.

The edges between work and play become so blurred that you forget that you need to play at all.

That’s the danger.

If you earn your living from doing what you love, it is absolutely essential to find other things you love to do that are just for you. Just for fun. Find new things to bring you pure joy and nurture yourself.

This past year has been the most creative of my working life and I’ve helped to birth two wonderful dreams: The Bach Flower Remedy Garden and Barefoot Breathing. They were big and beautiful and all-consuming and I’ve worked flat out since January.

I went into collapse about a month ago.  I was exhausted and in pain and aching all over and needed to sleep and sleep and sleep some more.  I couldn’t come up with much enthusiasm for anything and I was all out of creative ideas. I began to imagine that I had a finite supply of good ideas and I’d used mine all up. I felt flat and heavy and empty.

So I asked myself what I needed to give myself. What would be fun? What would be joyful? What could I do just for me? I started to play with the idea of giving myself little moments of joy and kindness every single day.

I found myself facing a very big question that I don’t often make time to ask myself. What do YOU really want to do?

When I put aside what my son wants me to do and turn away from what my business inspires me to do, what do I want to do JUST FOR ME?

Not what I should do or what I could do but what I joyfully and whole-heartedly want to do purely to nurture myself.

When you walk away from what everyone else wants you to do and take a step back from what you expect of yourself, ask yourself this:

What do I REALLY want to do, just for fun?

I’m finding it easier to answer that question. Nurturing myself is becoming a delicious habit. I’ll share some of the things I’ve been doing in case they inspire you too.

I’m doing selective yoga at home in the evenings – selective because I only do my favourite postures. No striving for balance or working through the chakras, just my favourite stretches and balances. This is a practice of joy and kindness with a soundtrack of gentle yoga music and the scent of Nag Champa drifting through the room. It’s blissful. It’s kind. It’s nurturing.

My friend offered to give me a massage and instead of saying I was too busy I said yes please and it was wonderful. I received her kindness, her massage and her company. I soaked it all up and it felt so so good. I’ll bet you have a friend who’s trained in bodywork too.  Make time for that.

When my son went to his friends house to play I would normally have rushed back to the computer making the most of bonus work time. Instead I went to the park and made a nature mandala with hawthorn berries and conkers and acorn shells and beautiful red leaves  in concentric circles of beauty. I didn’t need to photograph the mandala to inspire somebody else and I didn’t need to encourage my son to get involved to tempt him away from his screen. I did it just for me and it felt utterly deliciously wonderful.

I could have gone home after that – having allowed myself an hour of me time while my son was elsewhere. But then I wondered if I could allow myself to play a little longer. Could I keep giving myself more kindness, more nurturing, more joy? It felt unfamiliar and part of me was keen to get back to the computer but I dared myself to keep on playing, to keep on having fun.

So I walked to the library and curled up on the sofa with a beautifully written memoir about grief. I eased into the sheer delight of good writing without analysing it or looking for themes or subtexts. Pure joy. Pure pleasure. Pure nurturing.

I’m reclaiming my creativity. I pulled out my drawing pad and doodled and drew for hours at the table by the window. I felt like a teenager again. Then I did the Free Your Inner Child e-course and started doing more and more creative play. I played with soft smudgy chalk pastels and ripped up pieces of handmade paper to make colourful collages. It was joyous. It was just for me.

I listened to joyful and inspiring sessions that called to my heart at the World’s Biggest Summit. Not the sessions about sacred business because I wanted to escape from the world of sacred business and nurture my creativity instead. All the sessions are available on the website for free indefinitely so go find some that call to your heart.

I’m writing morning pages again. Just for me. Because it feels good. And kind. And joyful.  I bought Spin Your Story: 200 Emotionally Charged Writing Prompts – not to inspire blog posts but just for me. It feels delicious and nurturing and creative and joyful.

I’m listening to my body, asking it what food it needs. I’ve been craving leafy greens like parsley, kale and cavolo nero cabbage and adding them to smoothies. My body loves it when I start the day with a fresh fruit and leafy green smoothie. It is much kinder to my body than starting the day with coffee.

I helped to weave a willow raised bed in the late autumn sunshine with neighbours from our local Transition Town. I’ve created new flower borders in my garden and filled them with my favourite plants. I’m switching the computer off earlier at night and all day on Sundays.

Every day I’m choosing simple acts of kindness and joy for myself. And from this simple practice of self-nurturing I’ve found myself again. I’ve found my wild creativity again. It turns out that I hadn’t used up a lifetime of creative ideas this year after all!

My commitment to myself is not to let myself get so flat and empty before I top myself up again. My commitment to myself is to choose simple acts of joy and kindness and nurturing every single day.

I’m honouring that commitment by taking flower and crystals essences specifically chosen for self-nurturing so I can release my inner blocks.

Self-nurturing is purely for the self and whatever you choose to do to nurture yourself has to be purely decadently deliciously just for you.

If you do something joyful but there’s a hint of duty in there or if it’s useful for your business or if you’re doing it partly because someone else wants you to then it doesn’t count. Like the social networking buttons on my website – I had giddy amounts of joy creating them but it’s work-related joy so that doesn’t count as self-nurturing.

Self-nurturing has to be totally and completely

JUST

FOR

YOU

Will you join me in choosing to give yourself simple acts of joy and kindness and nurturing every single day?

I’ve created a new blend of flower and crystal essences called Self-Nurture. It’s one of the Soul Blends that help you to reconnect with your true beauty, follow your Soul’s purpose and shine your light in the world. Click here to read more.