Positively Ill

The dreaded lurgy has struck you down. You can hardly move your body, you’re exhausted and you can’t stop coughing.

Ughhh.

As your body shuts down and you’re forced to take to your bed, blanket-wrapped with tissues close by there is one problem:

Your brain didn’t get the memo to shut down and recuperate.

No your brain is like, “yeah lets think about stuff and things”. All you want to do is sleep but your brain continues to brain.

Now in the stillness all these ideas are popping up, random thoughts, crazy ideas and the desire to paint or draw or write an article that you have kept telling yourself you’re too busy to do.

As you lay there sweating out this bug, secret desires come to the fore. What you would love to be doing if you weren’t caught in the web of having to work. That business idea that’s a little off kilter to what anyone would expect but would be #SoMuchFun.

Laying in your bed of pain you are also in a white space.

That place where ideas run free because the day-to-day drudgery has been forced to pause. You can’t escape your mind—even when you sleep you dream.

The result of being bed ridden can be a myriad of ideas and opportunities, if you pay attention.

Imagine if you decided to create that white space when you were well?

The culture of business, be it your own or someone else’s, is one of work, work, work. We spend 8-12 hrs a day (and sometimes more) in front of our computers forcing ideas and results out of our head. The spreadsheet has to reflect dollars, time spent, or what ever KPIs drive the business.

So much pressure.

We lose our ability to think creatively when we force results.

All those ideas that floated into your head when you were sick? Create the space so they can come to you when you are well.

After three weeks of experiencing levels of illness (one of those weeks I could hardly get out of bed) I finally own the concept of white space. It’s something that I have been working on the last six months after having a melt down in my business and almost hitting the self-destruct button.

Spending 12 hours attempting to force inspiration got me nowhere. (It actually got me less than nowhere, I went backwards.) Burn out is an ugly thing to live, and for your nearest and dearest to witness.

I had no white space in my life to honour my creative side. With out that I couldn’t grow my business or my relationships.

Over the last six months I started turning off my computer by 8pm.

I started looking at my physical health and started nourishing my body with better food.

I removed hostility from personal relationships.

I started painting again.

It wasn’t until I was sick that I really understood the final part of white space.

I listened to the voice buried deep inside me. The voice of my inspiration, the voice of who I really am. We are still rebuilding our connection and I’m getting better at listening.

I’m going back to my roots, before I was told “who” I should be. Back to when I was able to dream about “who” I could be.

In my white space I will be connecting with my great work.

How are you stepping into #The8Percent?