The Day I Remembered My Mojo

4 years have passed since I had the inclination, motivation or inspiration to participate in life. Let me assure you, I have a sturdy track record for being as passionate about a bag of peanuts as I am selling holidays to travel agents. I've always been passionate, but somewhere, my interests in self development and creativity faded with my hopes and dreams for a future. 

That zing I refer to as passion was no longer present. I found myself failing to commit my time to my holistic healing course. I found myself disinterested in getting up in the morning let alone being present and in the moment each day. My life was full of distractions, my cellphone permanently fixed to my hand. I found that I couldn't keep still, I forgot how to just enjoy life let alone know what to be passionate about. 


I call it spiritual amnesia. I had many conversations with my mother about where my lust for life could have gone, searching for it like the missing sock that relocates from the moment you put it in the washing machine. 

We searched for it through conversation, she prompted my heart and sifted through my mind with me - which often lead to tears of frustration, genuine sorrow and a series of days whereby I beat myself up for not being "more". 
I couldn't remember what it felt like to be genuinely inspired and piece by piece I tried to put together a solution to the mystery of the missing mojo. I just didn't feel anything for anything at all. In these moments, the void is real. 

Life gets you down, routine gets you down, work gets you down and suddenly you're a miserable human being with a history of incomplete tasks gnawing at your confidence. The more you're down, the less you want to be up again. 


4 years is a long time


"I feel dead inside", I explained in another hour long conversation with my mother on the phone. "I feel nothing, about anything!", my voice strained as I held back tears. 

Sometimes, it is not so easy to find a solution when we have no idea what this condition we face is called or in my case, what caused it. 
For the most part it feels like, 

1. You have no motivation at all, apathy in general about everything.
2. You won't be rushed, who cares if there's a second pile of washing, it's the washing's fault it's there not mine!
3. Things that used to inspire you don't, well not as they used to. 
4. You'd rather be asleep. 
5. You blame yourself for being lazy, people may even tell you that you're undisciplined. 
6. You don't see the point, of anything really, so dust gathers on your favourite book collection and the dog hasn't had a wash in about 3 months. 
7. As much as you tell yourself you're on a 'break', you can't help but feel like a failure, there's a burning inside yourself to do more, but what is the 'more' you seek and when will it grace us with it's presence. 
8. People just label it as depression. 
9. You've labelled it as depression. 
10. It could be depression, but it's not, because depression has a level of emotion attached to it, and this is just - nothing. It's apathy really. 

So there I was on this hamster wheel called life. Feed the kids, feed the cat, eat, sleep, rinse, repeat. Is this what I signed up for? Is this how people become bitter and jaded? Yes! I was bitter, jaded and everyone could see I was miserable. 

Your drought is over, you've just got to learn to sing in the rain

It's literally raining buckets outside my window, there's something cathartic about water. I've often wondered if the weather affects my mood, and on many occasions joked that the weather was affected by me! 

The truth is that inspiration, like happiness, is a choice. Now, hear me out before you apathetically throw an unread book at me. Inspiration as per my online Thesaurus search is an emotion, which is a noun, wait for it, for a mental state. Boom!

As the rain pours, I can feel the drought subsiding. Not because I'm suddenly inspired, but because I realise that the source of my drought and the duration of the same, has been a 4 year period of growth and adjustment. Where have you been for the last few days/months/years of your drought and when did it start? I guarantee you, you can pinpoint it to the day. 

In the last 4 years, I've endured a 5 year break up, 3 house moves, a new relationship with children involved (that I know nothing about), an emotional breakdown caused by burnout in 2015 and somewhere along the line the absence of my sanity. Yet, lil Miss GottaHaveMySh*tTogether wants to still be climbing a corporate ladder, writing a biography or winning at life in between everything - and this just isn't possible. Inspiration comes to us when we stop, create the peace we so crave and allow the creative juices to flow again. The drought is there because you closed the flood gates by doing what you were either expected to or forced to do. You closed the flood gates when you stopped looking after your own well being. 

This may take some time before you feel the cold trickle on those hot sluice gates, but the best place to start is knowing what you're working toward. Perhaps you don't know what the next step is, perhaps you have no idea how your life is going to turn out. Here's what you do know: 

1. You're powerful, you create your own reality and you have more potential than you realise. Don't tell me you didn't know that, because feeling stuck like this happens to those who know they want and deserve better. 
2. You already know what you don't want. 
3. You already know what makes you happy. Be it people, animals, vintage cars or writing movie reviews. You know you, and if you don't - make a date with yourself!
4. Break down your goals into small steps. Today you decide not to complain about anything petty (this is a personal goal) perhaps tomorrow you decide you need help in a certain area so you sign up for a workshop, short course or a lecture. Next week you decide to care for yourself more, so you put on your favourite dress or buy yourself those daisy covered gumboots to play in the rain with. 
5. You know you're worth more, so you know that everything is already all okay. 
6. Buy yourself a journal, even if you don't feel like it, start writing down and journalling where your thoughts go. Where your thoughts go, your energy flows and that attracts more of the same!
7. Remember the times you got life right, perhaps find old emails or letters from clients and/or friends that appreciated your unique talents and gifts. Those moments count!

Be consistent

Tonight I tidy out my spare room. Tonight I light candles and enjoy a bubble bath. Tonight I get out of my own way. Tonight I stop making excuses for why I can't be more and I vow to take action, one day at a time until the inspiration returns. Remember, the Universe supports action - make a decision and the answers come to you!

Just opened my email to this: 

"During the times we think we’re being “unproductive,” the seeds of new worlds are germinating within us, and they need peace to grow." - Martha Beck


It's time to go within and get real, but first, that bubble bath!

Don't Find Your Passion

Yesterday I was driving out my complex driveway at 06h15. Yet another weekend that I've managed to let slip through my fingers due to work committments. While I love my job and respect that working weekends comes with the territory, moaning about it is necessary - because its reminds me that I need to find what I really want to miss my weekends for.

I realised en route to the office that a box and a label for my personality would be hard to find, I am after all as unique as everyone else is. As I chat with a friend (who shares the same self discovery mission I'm on) we talk about finding ourselves and changing our lives, careers and current positions, but where to start?

Listing The Obvious

I'm sure I've blogged about this before, about the life coach I stopped going to because one single sentence she had mentioned changed my perception of my quest. "What makes you happy?" A question I haven't been able to answer, but its getting easier.

For some its easy to list ones joys. Chocolate, wine, writing, socialising with friends, animals - but we all like those things right? And then I realised I was listing the obvious, the quest to find ones passion doesn't necessarily mean listing what makes you happy, its about finding what makes you, you!

Lose The Labels

At this stage you're either with me or you're completely lost. If you're with me it probably cause you're searching too. Here's the thing, don't find your passion, find your (insert your name and add "ness" to it). Its the raw version of yourself that you've been all this time, there is no need to reinvent yourself, just see yourself from the worlds perspective looking in. 

The friend I had mentioned earlier has been trying to find a label and a pigeon hole to put herself in and she feels like she's failing miserably in her quest. I have been where she is now, grasping at labels and careers to put myself in line with and follow - until now. I laugh in the face of moulds, I am one of a kind and I broke the mould when I was made!

While some people find it easy to wake up at the end of Grade 9 and say "Yes I wanna be a doctor", there are more and more people who are just not able to make one solid decision because there are so many options out there these days. Finding your (insert your name and add "ness" to it) means finding what you have innately known your whole life without even recognising it. Perhaps you're the prototype for a label of its own?

As Unique As Everyone Else

So you're reading this saying "Ok, Tan. You say I need to be myself, but how do I know what that is?". The answer involves some research and discovery. Interview people about your childhood, collate a list of those things people always say about you and you will see the pattern. My mom recently told me that I was always asking questions. A family friend confirmed that I was always busy with something, discovering new things with a manic sense of urgency. Wow, how nothings changed.

Oddly enough I only realised yesterday that I'm considered quite humourous by my friends and colleagues. I say oddly because apparently its quite obvious to everyone else and yet I scratched my head hearing this information as if someone had told me I had been adopted. 

It was a shock to hear it, yes I've always known I was a clown but to be described by my peers as witty, quirky and sharp with my humour was news to me, apparently that's part of my Tanithness! Of course it is, its the one thing that people say "Oh my that's just so you". In identifying your unique attributes you'll find your passions and you'll find there aren't just a couple. 

Lose Your Watch, Not Your Compass

Forget the pressures of conformity (and by this I dont mean become complacent or lazy in your quest for self improvement) and just keep exploring what you love and who you are until something fits. 

Take that cooking/DIY/abseiling/scuba-diving/pottery/teaching/photography/saxaphone/animal whispering course and keep going until something makes sense enough for you to stay. 

I'm realising that most of the people that feel lost or unfulfilled in their lives are those who are Highly Sensitive People with a deep love for animals, are successful at managing many smaller projects rather than one mundane role and have an obvious purpose to serve mankind. 

If anything comes from this exercise, it will be a test of your ability to try something new without the fear of failure. Resilience and exploration are necessary in surviving in this crazy world. 

"I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then."
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland