Photo by Acedibwai on Unsplash
There's a pile of it, you see. Laundry, that is.
I've put off doing the massive load (well.. two if I'm to be honest and I always aim to be honest) for a week now. I got stuck into checking out PeakD and was too curious (and inspired) to sweat the small stuff much.
*spoiler alert: It's all the small stuff really. Mostly...
But today is cleaning day. In every which way.
I love cleaning, by the way.
Is that weird?
*spoiler alert: I don't care anymore. I'm officially old enough not to - if it's the small stuff.
Over the years, I've learned the judgement of others is the small stuff as well. I've found that the judgement of others usually comes from a place of fear and judgement of self, in fact, and has very little to do with me at all.
These days I feel more compassion, for those stuck in the throes of judgement, than I feel hurt by it. It's a not so nice place to be and I hope they find peace quickly ❤️
I've been walking this particular practice for some years now and I'm still trying to get it right, to be clear. It's pretty interesting to become more self aware and watch how easily we judge others. Or ourselves.
Or everything!
Letting go of judgement is one the most liberating things I've learned to practice...
I just adore his voice and way of expressing himself... Alan Watts. But I've been known to fall in love with a voice without even seeing the person .
I'm more of an auditory soul than a visual one, as it turns out. Despite me doing four years of hard time at University to get a B.A. Fine Art Degree.
Who knew?
But I was busy airing my dirty laundry...
I make a day of it when I clean because I find it meditative, peaceful and really satisfying. I put on music. Of course. And I dance in between the different areas of the place I'm renting for now.
I love to dance and sometimes it just can't be avoided.
A few weeks ago, I decided to make a video while I was doing this. It was a spontaneous decision aimed at a passion project I've been working on for some years.
I've used dance to process tough feelings and find a sense of balance and joy in the chaos life has thrown my way at times. It's an incredible practice to allow oneself to feel those less sparkly feelings safely, and so move through them and allow them to pass. It's simpler and quicker than talking them out.
And it works faster. For me.
I want to possibly start some free online conscious dance sessions for younger humans to drop into when they're feeling a bit low. For social interaction. For movement and health. For a way to use music to manipulate mood, which it does very effectively.
For a way to stay grounded in a world that feels pretty unstable right now.
This video began as a rough start to figuring out how I might use what dodgy tech I have available right now to pull this off.
But it ended up being a bit of activism and a gift for a stranger on Fakebook, who shared how she'd been bullied at a social event because she was a single mom, working three or more jobs to survive and was still struggling financially.
Her post was full of hurt and anguish at the way a group of married women had surrounded her and given her advice on how to fix her life. And passed judgement on her position and abilities.
More... she'd been watched with some suspicion by these far wealthier, and obviously more protected, women as she had tried to be social.
Specifically if when she'd spoken to any of the guys. *rolling eye emoji
I've been there.
It sucks.
It sucks having other people's fears, suspicions and insecurities foisted on to you to carry. I even tried to carry that shit for some people for many years. I took it all on, hoping I could make other people feel a bit more happy or peaceful.
Until it made me fucking sick.
Then I learned to tell people who were doing that kind of thing to get lost. I learned I wasn't responsible for other people's stuff. I learned it didn't even matter what I said or did. People believe what they're able to believe at any given moment. What they want to believe at any given moment. Whatever it makes them feel safer to believe at any given moment.
And too often (if not all of the time)... this is just a projection of their own experience and has little to do with any kind of actual "truth".
This is why this practice of non-judgement is such an incredible way to walk in the world.
It frees a person from seeing the world with only one perspective and it offers the opportunity to be curious, detached and present in a way that is incredibly liberating.
Do you think that's air you're breathing? - Morpheus
I've recently found some shit hot tracks and made a playlist for cleaning and cooking time.
I dance daily if possible any which way the wind blows.
I"m not trained and I don't really care how I look anymore. I adore the way it feels. And music keeps my soul alive.
I move as I feel like it.
This is more about letting go than an art form or performance. The practice of conscious dance isn't about how you look, you see. It's even better than that!!
I'm into freedom... can you tell yet?
This video uses one of my favourite tracks on the list. It makes me smile every time I hear it.
Although right now I would agree with it being a good time to invest in Crypto from the very little I know about financial stuff.
That day, this was the very track I used for the test video.
After reading that poor woman's post, I quickly edited the random video to send out to say hey... it isn't you. You're amazing. You're courageous. You're doing it!
I guess it was because I've walked a mile in her shoes and have come out the other side with more peace and freedom than I ever thought was possible.
But I also remember how painful it was to be so harshly judged by people who had little to no understanding of what it was like to be in the situation I was in.
Some of you awesome humans on here may have connected some dots by now...
I hope you have! 😉 (Sssssshhh... don't tell, please)
I did that on purpose because I plan to stick around and (in the words of a fellow traveler I've met on here who I immediately took a shine to), "I'm just me."
Also... hello!
I bet you're multi-faceted as well. It's kinda hard not to be. Especially by the time you hit 51 years of age.
I think it may be simpler to just be me and share who I am as I go along as honestly has I can. I've preferred to maintain more privacy on this profile, because some of my art can be gritty and too brutally honest, you see.
An artist really has to dig deep and share the darkness as much as the light in my opinion. Or whatever is created will not likely touch a soul at all. We are the "seers" of the world in many ways. We always have been.
And we need to feel free to use our voices in full to do our work authentically.
My profession doesn't live well with my artist soul.
Not these days.
Maybe over time (and this is my intention), things will shift to a more traditional and holistic way of helping people be who THEY truly are. But, although the pendulum is swinging, we are not quite there yet....
I guess this is the intro James suggested after all then...
So to really break the ice, here's the video of me cleaning and dancing in my pajamas that happened accidentally. Yeah - I'm real 😊
If you've been offloaded on and are feeling a bit down... I hope you get up and dance it out right now. Because if you're not hurting yourself or anyone else... fuck what people think, quite frankly.
Never stop the dance ❤️
I'm sorry I'm sharing some older content, by the way.
I've been looking after a whole smaller human and solo parenting, doing homeschool, working professionally, learning this platform, doing all my own home admin (and cleaning, of course), I'm miles away from the shops with no car so everything takes forever... all on four hours of electricity a day because of load shedding in my area for three weeks until this Friday past.
It's been wild, I tell ya!
There's a window to generate some new stuff over the next couple of weeks.
My goal is to move to PeakD in full as my first port of call for new content moving forward. And 3Speak for video.
But I'll be moving some content currently out there to here first as well... so that things make more coherent sense for those that find me here from the get go.
Thanks for all of your enthusiasm, support and attention this last week. You have my full attention, enthusiasm and support in return. Because that's how I roll.
And I am real.
See?
Thanks to INGO for the awesome track! Well done. VERY well done, guys. Love your work!
You can find them on Spotify right here