Tables and Chairs: Creative Downloading and the Anxious Brain

You may not know that I catered for my own wedding.
I also led the ceremony.
And wrote it.
And made the wedding invites... with my dear hubby.
And designed my own dress.
People say their weddings are the best day of their lives.
Mine was truly the scariest.

For months before hand, including 6 days of a 10 day silent meditation retreat my mantra was "tables and chairs... tables and chairs..." Where to source them, how to fit them into the room, who should be sitting next to who... That and menu planning - how to make a feast for almost 100 on a tight budget.

Because you see we paid for the wedding too!

Tables and chairs is my brain's way of dealing with the larger panic of "holy fuck I'm getting married and is this a good idea and what if it's not and what if we get divorced...." and all of that lightweight stuff.

So I am starting to see a little pattern emerging. Event planning. Shoestring budget. Control freak nature. Wanting to make everyone happy. Wanting to do it uniquely. Anxious highly sensitive tendencies. High stakes... My brain is currently in tables and chairs mode.

If I focus on the logistics of the tables and chairs. If I make enough lists, I can control my feeling of being totally out of control. Of facing the unknowable. That's what I tell myself. I'm not sure how true it is... but it certainly makes use of some of my adrenaline and acts as a distraction from the anxiety.

It also makes me pretty distracted company.

And I tend to TOTALLY lose sight of 1) why I am doing the thing in the first place... and 2) that I'm any good at it, and everyone actually likes me...in the process.

So I'm here. Trying to remind myself of the whys. Whilst my brain screams HOW? and my little girl self curls up in a corner in the foetal position, refusing to come out cos she's SO scared.

So how did I get here?

First I was excited. Super, mega excited.

The blueprint for the next year downloaded into my head a couple of weeks back before breakfast. I scribbled down the details as fast as I could. Said yes and thank you for the information. Told Mr DA who also said yes.

And now here we are.

My stomach feels sick with anxiety. I am researching like there's no tomorrow - all the techie things I'll need, all the new learning, the things that need to be done to make it happen. Techie stuff is NEVER my strong point... it always brings out the jitters. As does spending money. Oh, and getting help.

Hello fears. Looks like we're all hanging out together once more...

This is when I ask myself why I don't, why I can't just settle for a job in TESCO to support the family. Why the need to challenge myself at this level.

But lists of information and planning downloading as I drive... or walk on the beach... or try to sleep. I wake at 4.30 every morning and keep downloading whilst the house sleeps. 6 hours is never enough sleep for me, but my body just won't do any more.

It is not hypomanic... everything else is calm. This is creative download. This is how it happens for me.

I spend months working away uninspired at stuff, then suddenly, like buses it all comes along fully formed. Only thing is, then it's up to me to make it happen.

And it's usually something I find scary. Bigger than anything I've done before. And the agreement seems to be you get the info, you get the income at the end, and the glory... but you gotta to the hard work. You've got to push yourself to the far reaches of your comfort zone. There are no guarantees. But this is what is needed and how it is to be done.

And I'm like - really, me? But I'm scared, and I'm tired and I'm sick, and I have QUITE enough work to be getting on with.

And then I'm like - why the obsession with "helping" people - they'll get on just grand without me.

But I know... and the Uploaders know that once the idea's planted, it'll be done. That's how it works.

I've just got to figure out how. Find a way. Stop whining and get on with it.

Which is where we are now.

Deeply, deeply uncomfortable. Researching like mad. Energetically calling it all in. And my inbox is proof to that - two unbidden emails within an hour telling me I was on exactly the right track.

Deep breaths.