Hello friends! It’s been a while and I’m seriously off my Substack game. The goal I set myself to post something each week has fallen by the wayside of late, and despite being busy with other things, thoughts about what I “should” be doing, and what I “should” be posting continue to flit through my mind. On the odd occasion, I’ve opened the app recently, there appears to be a war going on about how to ‘do Substack best;’ with one side posting about strategy (how they achieved a certain following, or suggestions and tips and hints about optimisation) and another bemoaning those posts, while championing the alternative: to write what you want, when you want, in the format you want.
The recovering perfectionist in me is drawn to the ‘how to’ emails, but these days I’m leaning toward the second camp. Although I’ve worked well with targets in the past, the idea of holding myself to goals isn’t sitting right in my current iteration. The new shape of my life is demanding more grace and compassion in all areas, including when I fall off the metaphorical writing horse (and, especially, if falling off aforementioned horse is due to prioritising other important things).
Which brings me to the subject of this post.
When I started this Substack, I imagined that some of what I’d write about would be the transition to a new way of living, and the practical realities of packing in a 9-5 job and starting a farm. Progress has been slow on the latter, and I’ve been preoccupied with other things that have demanded to be written about. Yet in recent weeks, the fog of anxiety and dislocation has lessened somewhat and the lessons of this move have begun to reveal themselves, all of which have corresponded with both the changing of the seasons and a significant birthday my husband has just celebrated. It’s one of those lessons that I want to focus on today.
Due to said birthday, the past few weeks have been much busier than I’m used to. I should qualify that. They have been much less busy than life used to be - in Detroit, and Brighton - but busier than life in West Wales has been these past 6 months. In January and February in particular, life seemed to slow down to the pace of nature. It was the first time I ever felt like I’d honoured the seasons. I hibernated, going to bed even earlier than usual, and sleeping in way past my normal early bird wake-up time. We didn’t leave the village, spreading our wings only as far as the walks to our local woods. In the last few weeks, just as Spring has started to emerge in our valley, I’ve felt myself wake up too.
As a life-long lover of surprises and presents, I’ve enjoyed planning some nice things for Karl. We took a trip to Amsterdam with some dear friends, and have arranged a couple of local outings too. I also decided to create him a photo book, with contributions and birthday messages from friends and family; a summary of his life to date if you will. Making the book has taken me a long time - many full days off and multiple hours snatched here and there - and for the first time since leaving office work, I felt the burn of sitting at a computer for days on end. Let’s just say I’ve not missed it.
The inception of this project coincided nicely with the start of Spring, yet while the initial days were filled with the same optimism and energy of the season, as time passed I found myself descending into a low-grade, stressed-out state.
For the first time in months, I had the pressure of a deadline. I noticed the scattered nature of my mind, not helped I’m sure by flitting between conversations with 40+ people through multiple messaging platforms. I got weird aches and pains from the unfamiliar sensations of copying and pasting photos and sitting in the same position for hours. I spent ages organising files and text. Of chasing people I’d not heard back from.
Without really being conscious of it, I fell straight back into old patterns. I sat for hours at a time, limbs stiff, not going to the loo or eating; telling myself I’d just do one more page, and then I’d take a break. I became obsessive about layout and font choices, and spent hours going through my hard drive and Facebook, trawling for lost images that I was certain existed somewhere. My laptop is old, and the photo book software was irritating, to say the least. It glitched and froze and moved things randomly with abandon, and I felt the urge to throw my computer through the window multiple times. I felt jacked up, all over the place, struggled to sleep at night, and looked at my phone for updates constantly.
I realise how laughable this sounds (and understand if those of you juggling jobs and parenting and actual life want to punch me in the face). It’s just a photo book, after all. I know I’m lucky that this was my biggest problem for two weeks; that there are so many people out there dealing with actual, real stress, not to mention unimaginable horrors and trauma. I’m sharing it, not for sympathy, but because, as simple as it seems on paper, the experience has been a big one for me and an interesting piece in the jigsaw of our move to Wales.
For starters, it was interesting that I caught myself and noticed what was happening. For the first time in my life (and likely due to the snail’s pace of the weeks before), I saw the immediate impact of this kind of work. It was as though I was watching my nervous system slipping into dysregulation in real-time. It was a slow burn, and, of course, the reason for the stress was nothing compared to the actual stress I’ve experienced in my life. But the body remembers, and I found it fascinating to observe how seamlessly I lapsed back into my familiar ways of operating, and how quickly the old pathways reactivated, as if on demand.
It didn’t seem to matter that I was doing something that was my choice - and for a good reason - my system still reacted in the way it used to when I worked 50 hours a week, or was responsible for a team, or when the doctor told us we couldn’t have a baby unless we did IVF, or when I was finishing my PhD. And because of the stillness and softness and quietness of the preceding months, it did feel like a low-grade shock to the system.
A wise teacher once told me that we may not like the way our nervous systems react to stress, but that it will always make sense in the context of our personal history, upbringing, and formative experiences. Of course, the reaction is often rooted in difficult situations that may require different kinds of therapy, but still, this knowledge was a game changer for me. Up until that point, I didn’t realise that the responses arising in me, apparently out of nowhere, were automatic reactions that had been encoded into my nervous system years before. As the daughter of a skeptical man, I was raised to question everything. To be realistic. To seek out explanations and justifications for why things occur. Yet this way of being has always butted heads with my sensitive side. I’ve often struggled with my emotional reactions; often wondered why I respond in such a seemingly extreme way to things that are a breeze for others.
When I found out that there was a system in my body that was pulling the strings, with a user manual specific to me that had been imprinting from the day of my birth, it revolutionised my outlook, especially my reaction to stress. Just knowing that, in any given moment, my reactions were something automatic, felt huge, and allowed me to see myself in a kinder way, while seeking out tools and strategies to help. I often didn’t like it, but if I took context into account, it made sense.
My anxiety in the car for example, surely stems from the shock of an accident aged 6, on an icy day with my sister and newborn brother in the backseat. I don’t remember much about it, but my body remembers. When I’m in the car now, you’ll often find me pumping my fake break or sucking air through my teeth, imagining all sorts of potential threats (I’m a supremely irritating person to have in the passenger seat). I don’t like it, but it makes sense. Likewise, my people-pleasing and tendency to fawn, became less of a source of shame once I found out I was having a nervous system response. I’ve always wished I was more together, more sure of myself, wiser, cooler, but knowing that my body is reacting automatically helps me to reframe what I previously thought of as inherent character flaws or weaknesses, and poor decision-making.
Back to the photo book.
Seen in this context, I was clearly having a nervous system response to the perceived pressure of the situation. Of the fight/flight/freeze options, I was in the second: activated and anxious, ready to flee if necessary. There is a significant part of my nervous system that has been trained to work very hard, and prioritise work (especially that which has a deadline), over everything else. More so than other examples, this perfectionist, worker-bee part of me is much sneakier. While I’m sure it’s rooted in my childhood, it crystalised during 20 years of office work and it’s always felt normal. And even in the moments where I’ve had some awareness I was having a stress response, it’s much less easy to hold a compassionate line, and pull myself back to regulation when money is being exchanged for time (and, crucially, when so many others - colleagues, friends - are doing the same). It’s more acceptable to override it, to push harder, and to force a result.
But this time - for the first time - I noticed. I didn’t like it, it did make sense, and I could also see it for what it was. Even though there were multiple occasions during the project where I noticed what was happening and powered through anyway, it still felt like a win to be able to separate myself from the stress and see more clearly what was going on.
The other thing that happened that felt significant - completely unexpectedly - was the wave of gratitude I felt wash over me. I’ve written about how closed off I’ve felt over the past year, so it was a wonderful surprise to have it pop up. I felt grateful that I’d noticed what was going on for a start - that all the knowledge and learning I’d done had sunk in (I’d integrated!) I felt so grateful that I made the decision to stop working at a computer all day. Grateful for the circumstances that allowed us to sell our house in the South East and move to Wales. Grateful that I’d found a part-time job 4 minutes walk from my front door. Grateful that I had the time and space around the part-time job to create the book in the first place. Grateful that, after months of being unmoored, I finally felt brighter.
I also felt appreciation for Karl and I for trusting our guts and making the decision to move here. During these past few weeks, I’ve had many variations on the thoughts: “we did do the right thing!” or “this is why we moved here.” We wanted more space and more simplicity. We wanted to move away from jobs where we sat at desks all day. We wanted to start a farm. It wasn’t an easy move but we did it, and now, 8 months in, it’s finally beginning to make sense.
It is such a relief. I’ve been wracked by self-doubt and have experienced some of the most crushing lows of my life since we moved. Yet this experience, coinciding with the changing of the seasons and the optimism of Spring, seems to have conspired in my best interests, and I’m feeling more excited about the future than I have in years.
Last week, we got the seeds out - a collection that we’ve been building for a while. They live in some old plastic mushroom punnets in an ancient Glastonbury tote bag, which Karl affectionately refers to it as “the farm”, in reference to our plot of land up the road, where we hope the seeds will turn into food.
We got the farm out, and we planted some seeds. The weather was beautiful, the air was warm. Our little garden is popping - it’s always so nice to move somewhere new and experience the first spring; to see what might emerge from the previous owners. I got my camera out for the first time since moving to Wales, a beast of a machine that I saved up for 3 years in America and have barely used. I still have no idea how it works, but it felt good to have it in my hands and to focus on the flowers for a while, after weeks of staring at my computer. As I sat in the garden with Karl, I felt my heart lift, and again, felt that wave of appreciation for the life we’re building here.
I know that this experience is personal to me, and not everyone will want the slow, quiet life that I’ve chosen. But to realise that we are living a version of it after so many years of longing is very special. To have the internal validation of my nervous system - to know what it feels like when my body says yes (and no!) - particularly after so many years of doing what I thought others wanted, or things I thought were right (even though on some deeper level I knew they weren’t) feels like a seismic shift.
As the days begin to grow lighter and the sun shines more, I can say with my hand on my heart: I’m glad we moved to Wales. I’m excited to see what this new season brings.
Happy Equinox!
Such a clear and beautiful post Jess. Feeling all the feels reading this. Your clarity feels like a comforting and grounding breath of fresh air. x
Gosh, I do this sort of thing all the time, too -- regarding your example with the photo book. As much as I'm trying to pull back from work (to limit stress and deadline pressures), I find myself creating all sorts of other deadlines...even though now they are totally self-imposed! 🤦🏻♀️
Anyway, the new way of life you have carved out sounds lovely 🙂