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Being content and tolerating uncertainty

It's been well over a year since my last blog post. I've been writing still just not in a consistent space. I've got a few pieces over at On the Beat Mag and on the Pressing Matters Journal. It's funny how I'm starting off by trying to show how I have been keeping busy, as a way of defining my offline presence on this space. This is something I have always been very good at maintaining, an image of being busy and content in what I am doing. I think with this keeping busy, comes a sense of running from oneself in order to keep my head above the water. In recent weeks I have been writing a lot more than I have been making art. I have had projects on the go, but not pushing myself fully into them which I find frustrating because I'm not being fully present in the moment of what I am doing. In this I perhaps lose the essence of why I am doing it.

When you are in a state of transition there are a few ways you can process? deal? tackle? it. I am someone who has always been a do-er but with than comes avoiding things too. I am an all or nothing soul and at times this leaves me feeling a bit like a walking contradiction because there are times where I want to do everything under the sun, but other days like today where I'm too anxious to even leave the house because my mental energy is all over the place. I think in this change of leaving university and moving back home I have been trying to regain a sense of 'control' by applying for jobs, seeing friends and sitting and embracing this change. I have a mind that buzzes around at a million miles and hour and I find it difficult to keep up with myself, so I guess it drains me.

I struggle a lot at this time of year because I get sucked into the pressure of what I SHOULD be doing and how I SHOULD be having fun. When you put yourself under so much pressure on a daily basis to get by anyway, any kind of external or new pressure just seems too much. I think I go into overdrive and then overcompensate by trying to do too much. I am learning the art of balance and this is something I am going to continue to hone into 2019. I am learning to tolerate uncertainty and not be so in my head with things, but also confronting feelings is something I am learning to challenge. I am an avoider with that sort of thing. In a way I usually channel it into my art of writing but when thats hard I do feel a bit lost.

I recently started a Youtube series called Uni Blues that you can watch here, where I am talking and facing how I feel since graduating and dealing with change and new situations. My last two videos are about where I have been applying for jobs in the arts and different ways I have been applying myself to gaining and maintaining some kind of balance.

When you sit in your headspace for too long and don't exert this into something, whether that be talking with a friend, making art, writing or something to take you out of yourself like going for a walk, things can spiral into a direction that it might be hard to regain control of. I think for now, writing and trying to get outside will be that for me.

This blog post was something I needed to get off my chest but also inspired by one Ana wrote about success and happiness, which you can read here.



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