It’s not brain surgery

A response to the Thought Vectors and Nuggets Activity
created by Mary Dancey (@Mary Dancey)

Number of views: 197

Patchbook 38 – Tom Evans

“All the while slipping down a rabbit hole where questioning my relevance ignites a trepidation that consumes my motivation…and I find myself stuck in a holding pattern, where I’m discrediting my ups, magnifying my downs. Wrapping myself in a tattered quilt of doubt made up of patches whose very purpose is to distort my notions of belongingness, worth, identity.”

In the spring of 2015, I saw a FB post from a friend who was dying. Her and her wonderful husband were at a friend’s place in the woods enjoying a quiet couple of days away. She said ‘don’t wait, enjoy what you love today.’  I was feeling pretty much like the passage above from Patchwork 38. But why?  I have a successful career, am sought after for my skills and have received several awards for my work over the years.  I was working too many long hours and when I wasn’t working, I was either sleeping or spending time with my husband.  Very important, of course, but where was the ‘me time’, the time I needed to reset?

With my friend’s image of the trees around her cabin in the woods on my mind I decided to head deep into the forest.  Within a short 20-minute drive from home is The Bruce Trail.  How is it that I lived so close to this wonderful respite from the world and had never been there? What started as stealing an afternoon or morning here and there turned into 4-5 days a week and a decision to turn work down. Work less, hug trees more and as a result, love me, love my work.

Fast forward to this past year where teaching students remotely took a toll on us all but mostly the students, I think. Some were frantically reaching out to me in the middle of the night because they had been wrapping themselves up ‘in a tattered quilt of doubt’ so I was often recommending to them that they take a step back, telling them that they are not surgeons in the middle of brain surgery. Go for a walk, hug a tree, practice some yoga, go for a run, find the reset that works for you and come back to your work with a fresh mind.  If an assignment is late, it’s late.  Like I said, it’s not brain surgery.