What are you making this mean?// A playlist to ease lockdown with//Do we ever have to decide anything?
Hello Carouseller,
On my podcasting course on Monday our facilitator wished us a 'happy 12th'.
12th?
12th April! Everything has opened up!
Oh yeah...!
Anyone else in the UK not really engaged in the big re-opening yet? I definitely feel tentative about rushing back in. I'm trusting the pace I need to go at for now and hoping you are too...
My big news since the last Carousel newsletter is that I've launched my personal website!
Creating a website as a Carouseller can feel like a big deal, as you try to bring together all of the facets of your life in one place. I love that Amanda showed my personality through the brand colours and vibe, and also included every aspect of my work somewhere in the site without it feeling confusing. Aaaaand... I have an actual rotating Carousel on the homepage of all my current projects! This was a big dream for my website and I think it looks awesome.
Interestingly since working with me she's had another request from a portfolio career type. And I do think this will be more and more common for these sorts of websites to be needed. Has anyone else here got a website that reflects their seemingly-unrelated-activities portfolio career? I'd love to see how others have done it!
Read on below for blogs, playlists and other news & ideas.
Big hug,
Sarah
Ps. For those of you who are new here, Carousel is a model that supports you to work intuitively with your many projects and interests, and this newsletter consists of musings to support you to live in this way. You can read up more here.
📖Blog: What are you making this mean?
Hermeneutics is the study of how we give meaning to things. In this blog I explore some shifts I've experienced in attributing unsupportive meaning to events in my life, such as receiving unsolicited advice for my business or not earning as much money as I wanted one month.
Read blog
🎧Lockdown is Easing
I made a playlist to help you groove into this new phase of the pandemic. Featuring mucho disco.
🤔Decide not to decide
I recently had a coaching client who was in the grips of indecision about a work situation, and crucially, felt she needed to decide that day. She was already burned out, and was so desperate to give her brain a break by choosing one way or the other.
The problem is, when we are in burnout, we're not always going to have the perspective to be able to make that decision well.
I offered her the option of making the decision not to decide right now. That way, a decision had been made; her brain was appeased, but she could give some space for the answer to emerge naturally.
I invited her to put a date in the diary for when she would come back to the decision - a date that felt far enough away to give herself some breathing space, but not so far that it would cause anxiety. She got a date written in and immediately felt a huge weight off her shoulders. Later in the week she shared that a lot of positive shifts had happened at work and that she felt like a different person.
What if you don't have to actually decide anything? What if you wait until the decision becomes clear and emerges? How would life feel different if you just waited until it was clear, rather than forcing something? Ultimately it comes down to whether we can sit with the discomfort of not knowing for a while...
📖Book Recommendations
You're The Business - Anna Codrea Rado
Anna is a journalist, author and podcaster and writer of 'LANCE' - the newsletter for freelancers, where she shares raw and honest realities of working for yourself. It's definitely been a balm for me to read her blogs over the years, and I really recommend this book to anyone who is considering going out alone. I'm excited that one of my coaching frameworks The Quitting Quadrant® was featured in the chapter about being in freelancing for the long haul.
Midnight Library - Matt Haig
One of the most powerful books I've ever read, which speaks to the very Carousel-like desire to want to make the most of your life and do it all, without regrets. Just read it.
📢Community offerings
Anyone want to go and hang out in a Mill in France? When lockdown eases, get yourself over to Natalie's idyllic retreat centre. Here's her latest blog all about it.
I've been working with Gwen Hustwit. Theta energy healer, who works with colour to help release unconscious blocks. Her sessions are fascinating and powerful. She runs group sessions and 1:1.
Thea is offering three sessions about speaking up for something bigger than yourself. You will learn the 4 languages of speaking up for change, as well as settle into your speaking-flow-state and how you come most alive as a communicator. I hired Thea to help me before my TEDx and honestly think it was a different talk as a result! Find out more here - thea@workingwithvoice.com
🎠What's on my Carousel?
Starting work with Circl as an Associate Facilitator - Training with Big Bloom to be a coach on their Hackathons - I've just finished a podcasting course and I'm editing Series 1 of Knowing When to Quit - Speaking to companies and festivals about IN PERSON ukulele and singing workshops this summer (será possible?!) - Attending a 'Play like Brené' improv + coaching course with Katy Schutte. Ooooh it's so good! I spent the whole of winter practising Winter by Vivaldi and did a performance to my housemates on the first day of Spring. I'm now going for something a bit less virtuoso and trying folky reels with my friends from A-level music who live nearby :)