Self-permission

The first time I heard the expression to give yourself permission that I recall was in a conversation with artist Victoria Gray upon finding we both experienced similar degrees of sensory overload. It was May 2017 in Vane and she was then embarking on her assessment for neurodivergence, which she explores on her website and in her performance work. This was an early planting of a slow-growing seed for me to look into my own brain wiring, but I had substantial healing to do first and I'm only reaching the point of readiness now. That now is coinciding with year three of this pandemic, and anything to do with our mental well-being or neurological status is far from a priority for an under-funded, overstretched and exhausted National Health Service, and so any progress towards certainty is slow.

I  can't recall specifics from that quiet conversation with Victoria as my brain was in the early stages of recovery from a catastrophic (no hyperbole) burnout. I only know that her talking about this concept of giving yourself permission that she was working on in herself nudged me half a compass degree to five years later find myself staring across a void at the equivalent spot I'd have travelled to on my prior trajectory. I haven't seen Victoria since that day, but I hope this shows she made a life-long friend.

Writing this in April 2022 in a wholly different mindset that I'm continuing to develop, self-permission is something I facilitate more so I can reap the benefits of increased and more effective productivity and less fear. I embrace new opportunities that come my way after being more discerning about which are suited to me and I want to undertake. Although it's not easy, I don't dwell so much on what doesn't work out. I'm trying more to see these, not as failures, but as decluttering the pathway to clarity about what to try next. Part of that journey to clarity, and enabling the trial-and-error process, is allowing myself to rest more and to take pleasure in things, so as not to be mired in guilt any longer.

All those years as a postgraduate and early career researcher, enhanced by Methodist nobility in toil, instilled in me the toxic culture of overwork. I managed with that just about fine for a while, until I found myself in a workplace in which you had to be seen to be working. Rather than cultivating meaningful productivity, this is an environment that engenders empty performative busyness. I saw recently on LinkedIn articles with this being referred to as 'busy work'. It's when people bluster around and create things to do, making loads of noise and movement to demonstrate how  terribly busy they are and how hard they're working, when in fact they're hardly working at all. My immediate colleagues were excellent at this and completed their whole work day every day in such a manner. For me it was a hellscape in which I was kept hostage and not permitted to work from home, or even the university's library. Most of my work takes place in my brain, for which I need peace and quiet. I'm a nine-tenths-under worker, and it has taken me until the age of 37 to embrace and permit something I knew intuitively about myself twenty years ago. It also took a drastic change in circumstances and a lot of time. I've done my service in long-houred minimum-wage jobs out of necessity, and may well have to again, but for now, I have the luxury of having a go at an approach conducive to both my health and best working practice. This also means there is no excuse and nothing to hide behind.

And so I jot these notes in a notebook with a blue Bic ballpoint pen to type up later because it's a sunny afternoon and I need the vitamin D and the warmth on my skin. It is the second week of the spring break, and although as a freelancer I am not off work, I am allowing myself time in the sunshine of an afternoon wherever possible. Apart from my allergies going bonkers (a sign of a strong immune system, I tell myself between sneezing fits), the air, the birdsong, the blossoms, the growing leaves, and everything bursting with life does wonders. The air is still cool but there is finally heat from the sun after the long Northern winter. Even my mind is coming back to life after hibernating in fog and I want to work, I want to write. Everything's easier. I have more energy. Words flow through me. I am motivated to read more - and I allow myself to do it. 

No more fretting over deadlines I'm not getting paid to meet. Yes to embracing boundaries in my work and personal life, which I know is ironic for someone keen to disrupt hard borders and fixed categories. Very much yes to reading and writing in the sunshine and the burst of evening and early morning productivity that results from it. Down with mithering, that is, negative procrastination, and up with patience and trusting yourself to get there in your best way. And yes to fleeting friendships whose impact lasts a lifetime.

Me at Giant's Causeway, July 2017

  

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