The Courage to Pause

The struggle within me when I'm not 'productive' or 'progressing'.

May 2024

I am sitting in the sun cross-stitching. I don't want to do anything else. My body says no. My mind says ‘What’s the point?’. I am drifting through my days doing bits and pieces that don’t feel too hard - being my son’s taxi service, cooking dinner, a coaching call, a final edit on a Substack post. I am ignoring all the stuff that needs doing but feels too heavy - chasing a hospital appointment for my daughter, liaising with my son’s college tutor, organising a weekend away, tidying the paperwork piles in the hall, booking an engineer for our broken washing machine.

Then there is all the work stuff that isn’t getting done: writing my next article, working on my book, planning a workshop, marketing, tidying my office, finishing my accounts, practicing my EFT training homework. Instead, all I want to do - all I am doing - is listening to fiction audiobooks and very, very slowly cross-stitching Fowey Harbour.

My protective Inner Critic is telling me how lazy, unproductive, ungrateful, selfish and useless I am. She is using any opportunity to tell me that ‘everybody else’ is better able to manage their time and energy than I am. I am avoiding Substack because apparently it is full of better writers, more consistent writers, more interesting, and more popular writers. ‘You should be like them, Thea. Why aren’t you like them?’

As a result I feel a little bit low. In my lovely garden in the sun, gently feeding a needle in and out of the Aida fabric, with an undercurrent of uselessness.

I know that what my Inner Critic is saying, and how it is making me feel isn’t the truth. It’s a version of life, a narrative that I recognise well. I generally don’t believe it these days, but it takes energy to dispel, and it lingers, transmutes into something else. I practice self-compassion and self-acceptance as much as I can, but the flavour of unmet expectations seeps in and I end up feeling listless, rudderless, in a big, wide, un-navigable ocean. Not a rough, stormy ocean - it’s quite calm and serene these days - there is no urgency, no survival instinct kicking in. It’s just me and my inner voices. The cheerleaders as well as the fearmongers. Wondering what I should do. Not feeling like I’m doing the right thing. Trying to find clarity within the confusion.

I know why my mind and body are saying no; I am tired. And finally it feels safe to stop. I need to rest and decompress. More emotionally than physically. It’s been a stressful few years. Just writing that triggers my Inner Critic. She is scoffing: ‘There are so many people having a worse time than you, Thea. Get a grip! Stop with the self-pity already.’

But it’s not self-pity. It’s an acknowledgement of what a toll living with teenagers and young adults with mental health struggles takes on me. It is recognising the toll of living in a toxic world where the people with power and responsibility are consistently failing us and the planet. All this on the back of a global pandemic that started just after my husband had been out of work for 15 months and we nearly lost our house. Not to mention navigating the menopause and then the death of my Dad earlier this year.

Yes, I know. Normal life stuff. I know it’s not worse than anyone else. But also, acknowledging the pressures and stresses of life and how they affect us - all of us slightly differently - is a self-compassionate act. Some would say a radical act.

I can also sense that this urge to stop is stronger because there seems to be pause in the urgency of the demands on me. The children are happier and have not needed my time and energy so much these last few months, we’ve paid off the debts that accumulated when my husband was out of work and learnt to manage our money properly so we are financially secure. As a result it finally feels safe for me to stop, to pause, to decompress and replenish. My nervous system is calming down enough to say no to all the urgent need to be productive, to change things, and let me have time to recover. And it’s allowing me to hear the whispers of a how I really want to live.

It’s an unusual experience for me, crafting, mainly because my subconscious has never deemed it worth my while. I might enjoy it, but it isn’t useful. It wouldn’t get me any nearer to my goals, it wouldn’t solve any problems with work and relationships. There are always many more ‘important’ or urgent things to do.

Intellectually I know that creative pursuits are nourishing and fulfilling but only recently has my body felt that it was safe to ‘waste’ time on embroidery. This too feels like a radical act for me. To sit in the sun while my husband is working a 50 hour week. To listen to my body, to go against my conditioning, to choose differently, despite the discomfort I also feel.

Interestingly, I’ve also noticed that after a few days of resting and nourishing, I find a spurt of energy and Get a load of Stuff Done. One Sunday, I heard my body say it had the right sort of energy to do all the things. So I did all the things, gently and compassionately. And enjoyed myself too - even scrubbing a rodent-infested shed - because I had the right type of ‘doing’ energy. Because I wasn’t pushing myself through the heavy resistant energy. I just stopped for long enough to replenish until I felt like doing the things. Another day, I felt energised but instead of creating a demanding To Do list, I allowed myself to do what I felt like, and spent a whole day on household chores that I had put off and, OK, I’ll admit, it wasn’t exactly a joyful day, but the result very much was.

I’ve realised that I have always listened to my body; I do or don’t do things according to how I feel. Which sounds perfectly fine, until I tell you that until fairly recently any non-doing has been done in either a numbed out, switched off, decompression mode, or a guilt and shame laden, feeling useless mode. Neither is nourishing or replenishing.

What I’m learning to do now is to give myself permission to do the non-productive things, the lazy things, the nourishing things without the guilt. It’s uncomfortable at times, and I can’t always manage it because I get stuck in my head over-analysing or second-guessing myself. But I’m slowly getting comfortable with not focusing on getting stuff done, not having to have any ‘results’ to show for my day, every day. I’m allowing myself to stop and pause and just be.

So, some days I mostly sit and cross-stitch (or watch Bridgerton) because I only have the energy or interest for that. And that’s OK.

Fowey Harbour cross-stitch kit from Emma Louise Stitch Art Design.

Until next time,

love and compassion,

Thea, xxx

p.s. I’d love if you liked this post or left a comment. Thanks.