Sit with the shit. Admittedly this isn’t the most eloquent start to a piece of writing but its attention grabbing, I hope. No?
I am currently away on holiday and without fail, on every holiday, I have an off day. A day when I feel off beat. Fed up. Unfulfilled. Ill at ease. I find it particularly frustrating because it’s happening on holiday. Typically, it starts with me getting upset about something…usually incredibly minor…which starts me feeling shit. Then I feel more shit about the fact that I’m on holiday and it’s happening when I should be enjoying myself. Which brings more shit feelings. Then I usually end up doing something equally unhelpful like counting how many days left of holiday I have …. and even if this is a long amount of time, my lack mindset kicks in and I feel more shit about feeling shit.
For a few years now, since I’ve become more self-aware, I’ve begun to notice this repeating pattern and wonder what actually causes it, and I think finally I’ve come up with why. For close to 50 weeks of the year I work fairly non-stop. I have no real boundaries in place so my work bleeds into all aspects of my life, evenings, weekends. I meditate, not quite daily but often and I take breaks but they’re often short ones, so I never stop fully enough to truly unwind. So, when the 2 weeks roll around when I take my longest break, it’s possibly the first time since last year that the mental chatter truly quietens down, and critically this allows for the deeper hidden stuff, the stuff that gets pushed down because stopping to sort it isn’t an option, well it all comes up!
The first few days of holiday my mind is still buzzing, slowly becoming acclimatised to the change of pace. No longer do I wake up to my to do list, most minutes of the day ahead already accounted for, instead there’s a curiosity and a choice. ‘What shall we do today?’ ‘Where shall we go today?’ ‘What do I feel like doing today?’
Usually about day two or three there’ll be a work task I need to complete, a piece of work hungover from the days leading up to the holiday where I invariably reached the conclusion that I really couldn’t squeeze in anymore but that this particular piece also couldn’t wait until I returned so I chose to bring it away with me. At the time of deciding that it feels fairly insignificant, a small task that will make only a minor impact on the immense 14 days that lie ahead, but once away I start to resent it. It builds for a few days, lurking in the background, stopping me from truly switching off, so much so that I have to get it done otherwise I risk ruining the entire holiday. Once done I am well and truly free, and my mind really begins to panic. This is normally the start of the ‘off’ feeling.
This holiday it started with me actually doing what I love, pottering the streets of St Ives nice and early while it’s still quiet, just me and my camera snapping the winding back lanes, the shops getting ready to open. I’m feeling fulfilled, this is what I’ve dreamed about doing for the past 50 weeks. Then it begins. An emptiness. I have absolutely nothing to think about, or perhaps more specifically nothing to worry about, and now I finally realise what happens…the shit starts to come up. It’s like I’ve reached the bliss point…and instead of staying there, enjoying it, I panic.
All the crap I have been burying deep, deep down for the best part of a year realises there is an opportunity to be heard. Maybe it’s a few tears at first with seemingly no good reason. Today it was because I couldn’t get a seat in my most favourite of cafes. I turned away ready to start bawling like a kid told they can’t have an ice-cream. I went and sat on the seafront, still ready to cry, still not really at ease with the fact that something so small could be making me feel so unhappy. Finally, I head back to the apartment, a few cross words are had because whenever I feel like this it gets picked up on, my funky mood goes viral, and then I sit quietly on the veranda staring out at the sea and like storm waves bashing against the sea defences the shit begins to rise up.
Here’s what crosses my mind. What if I’m wasting my life? What if this is as good as it gets? What if everything I want to achieve, the really big dreams, what if they are never realised? What if I’m no good at love or at being loved? What if I never find ways to love myself and hate my body forever? What if I’m destined to only get so far? What if I never earn the money I really want to earn? What if I stay in debt forever? What if I’m never truly happy? What if I’m incapable of being truly happy?
It’s pretty horrid stuff really. But today I did something I never normally do. I sat with it. After ten minutes and a few tears my mind started turning the words into an Instagram post. Then I started wanting to photograph the view to remind myself of the moment. I wanted to start journaling on the thoughts and feelings that came up. I wanted to go make toast. But something stopped me. I knew I had to sit with it. That all the things I was instinctively wanting to turn too were just blockers, ways to stop the feelings before they got worse.
So instead, I said to myself, I will sit here as long as I need. Hours if I need. I will not reach for distractions. I will listen to what needs to come up. So, I did. And it got worse, but then it started to feel better. I started to feel lighter. I couldn’t solve all the problems coming up, but I could sit with them, let them have a voice. I could listen, and that felt like enough.
A few months before this holiday I started the practise of just sitting for ten minutes each morning. No phone. No writing. Just sitting for 10 minutes at the beginning of the day, listening. I got close to a month of doing it every day and then I stopped, not planned or intended, I just let life get in the way again. However, it was that practise that led to just sitting today. Listening. For longer this time, and maybe the change of scene and the break from work meant I could go deeper but in essence it was the same practise.
I’ve promised myself I’ll continue this at home. Going back to my daily 10 minutes and maybe trying for longer at the weekend because the shit isn’t going to go away and my best guess is that if I supress it for another year, it’ll come back a little stronger each time, and ultimately it will stop my progress for the rest of the year. So that’s what I meant by sit with the shit. Not so eloquent but potentially a little bit life changing.
Do you experience something similar on holiday? I’d love to know, if for no other reason it’ll make me feel less of a weirdo.