Day 2. Sweathead (Aussie) Summer Camp 2021/2022

It’s Christmas eve in Romania. I baked an obscene amount of ‘cozonac’ last night and went to bed at midnight. I’m working today and diving into day 2 of the strategy summer camp.

….

It’s Friday, January 7, 2022, and brain fog is real… not succeeding to get my ducks in a row and work is flooding from everywhere… and the class is about running… how ominous… how do you play in swampy 80-page pdf files that go on forever…

“Words are there to play with”, we’re in the business of “short sharp manicured words carefully placed” so that they play on the page. Running is indeed so much easier!

Examples of running:

• I have to be part of ALL meetings, so I know EVERYTHING
• If I’m not in front of the computer I’m not working
• Reading EVERYTHING to make the work PERFECT
• Overfilling every day with things to do just so I confirm my own bias that I can never get anything done
• Hoarding research instead of actually taking the time to process it though my brain before I have to apply it to a project
• Overthinking how I SHOULD do something instead of just doing it my own way + learning & improving that
• People pleasing
• Meeting instead of taking the time to structure an email

What’s your game? At work, now, it’s to get my thinking on paper without delusions of appropriateness highjacking the process. Foggy dark anxiety-ridden game.

Rules:

• done is better than perfect.
• show work often, before finished
• draw a map to the thinking on paper

Opponent:

• FEAR of not being good enough and the consequences of that

Place: my brain & gut

Tools: a cosy home office, internet, light, water, food, awareness, attention, grit, dedication, courage, words, my voice, the great work of others before me.

Where did play go? The brain can’t tell the difference between reality and imagination. That’s why visualisation meditations work so well.

Capture myopathy — what an animal experiences when, exhausted and stressed, they collapse in front of a predator.

A love letter to words:

Just like notes on a sheet of music form harmonies when played together, so words enable the music of meaning in our minds and, maybe, souls.

acasă, my childhood word for home, so open and inviting, so spacious.

dor, that longing for something out of reach but still within hope.

safe, like a warm summer day on the beach. Not too hot, not too cold, in the shade of a tree with the breeze on my skin.

courage, the same in French, Romanian and English, the alchemist of fear to curiosity, the catalyst of focus for getting things to done and offering them for perfect. For they are gifts of heart and mind, always. No other way is possible. Not here.