Letting Go to Re-Emerge
Learning Out Loud #10
Hello strangers,
This newsletter has been stuck at the back of my 'Carousel' for the last six months. I've felt sad about this but it has also been a pragmatic response to having less energy to go around.
However, I've been inspired by reading 'A Still Life' by Josie George, seeing Stella resurrect her newsletter into Strong Back Soft Front, and re-realising how much I appreciate some of my favourite newsletters.
I can't promise a regular schedule, but I have been clearing the ground to give this a chance to re-emerge. In particular, taking Fridays off creates some space, especially when accompanied by a blog club.
This time, you’ll find some musings on letting go, my intentions for 2024, my Spotify debut, an opportunity to be be a Transformational Governance sensemaker and some fiction recommendations.
Introspection: Endings and Initiations
2023 was quite an introspective year of learning about myself and my body. It was my first full year of living with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
I've been learning to flow with my body each day and over the seasons. I felt a gradual recovery from early Spring, bringing back movement and exercise into my life. My energy levels peaked around June when I spent a week walking the South West Coast Path from Minehead in Somerset to Westward Ho! in Devon (the only UK place name with an exclamation mark in it). August was tinged with some grief as my hopes that I might have a linear recovery and get back to 'normal' were dashed. Autumn was punctuated with exciting work events with interludes of slow recovery in between. But I did not go to the depths I did in late 2022 and for that I am grateful. I feel some agency in choosing to rest, to go to sources of support and to know that I, while I can't control what is happening to my body, I can influence it.
With less energy to go around, the fact that my life is too weighted towards work has become more stark. So part of my journey has been to let things go.
In June, I co-chaired a board meeting for the last time with RESULTS UK. I had expected to stay on as a trustee for another year but the return of my fatigue in August was a sign to me that it was time to step back entirely, which I did in late September. This brought to an end of six years on the board - an experience that has changed my trajectory and is definitely on the 'to write about' pile.
June also saw the end of my engagement, for now, with Curiosity Society, as some peer learning facilitation with Access: The Foundation for Social Investment came to a close. I started my consultancy journey with Curiosity Society (or the Transformational Index group as it was then known) in early 2017 and learned a huge amount about how to work with clients from my four years on the core team. While my involvement as an associate has tapered down since then, it still felt like a moment to finish up - and a positive signal that I'm firmly in another phase of my work life.
Freelance life comes with plenty of endings, some with more significance than others. I wonder if that makes freelancers more practised than others at wrapping up - I know I'm now better at marking these moments with mini-rituals of journalling, gatherings and conversations. It feels significant to me that the team behind the Decelerator (a support service for civil society organisations to enable better endings) is made up of people who have spent time as freelancers.
That said, there's still a big part of me that prefers starting things to finishing up. I've had to rein this in but still value it. A lot of my initiation energy last year went into the White Men: What's Next? Huddle - crafting the webpage and other recruitment materials in the Spring, finding the courage to share about it and ask others for help, weathering the uncertainty of how many people would sign up and then actually hosting the thing from October onwards. We're now a group of eight and have suddenly found ourselves halfway through. We're feeling our way towards how we share what we're learning with the outside world with honesty, humility and accountability. I should have more to share in a few weeks.
Intentions for 2024
We move out of London to somewhere with more nature, space and community - probably near Bristol, Exeter or Cardiff (with an honourable mention for Frome).
I find a better balance between work and the rest of life - taking Fridays off and seeing friends more. I'd love to do more of the South West Coast Path. I'd also love to find a 1-2 day/week freelance gig from the middle of the year to give me some more stability.
I do what’s within my control to become more resilient - staying healthier for longer, staying within my energy envelope and bouncing back more quickly. But also be okay with sometimes being ill and slowing right down. [I'm not entirely convinced that 'resilient' is the right word here.]
Each of these intentions has a lot more behind them but I'll let them sit for now.
Music Corner
Last July I recorded drums for five songs for my friend Imran Khan and the first one has just been released on Spotify under the alias 'The Anomaly': "Get Me Out of Here". It's punkier than my normal taste but was fun to play. More songs will be released in the coming weeks and months. I find it satisfying that I was paid for this work so can officially count drumming as part of my freelance portfolio!
Confusingly, a song that I've had on repeat is 'Velours' by an artist who goes by 'Anomalie'. A very different style - synthy and oh so funky. I can't resist smiling and doing the little 'woo' out loud.
I'm playing at Sunday Assembly London for the first time since last June this week (i.e. Jan 21st). We'll be at Conway Hall (near Holborn) at 11am as normal and the theme will be "The Power of No - Rejection As Therapy". We've got some banging tunes lined up for a singalong. More details here.
Transformational Governance Sense-maker
We're hiring at the Transformational Governance Collective for a freelance "Sense-maker". The purpose is to "Support the Transformational Governance Collective to understand and evaluate the impact of our activities across our different strands of work and collect, synthesise and present the learnings in a shareable, usable output."
Some details:
Timeline: March-August 2024
Fee: £7000 for approximately 20 days of work
Application deadline: Midday on February 12th.
Find all the details here. I can say it's a wonderful group to work with - I've learned so much from being part of the Stewarding Group and love the combination of nurturing and well-held challenge we have in our meetings.
Books, glorious books!
I'm in a phase of voracious fiction reading - mostly sci-fi and fantasy. Some recent highlights:
Everything by Becky Chambers. In particular, her Monk and Robot series of novellas, which are full of kindness and hope rather than battles and space opera. I also loved ‘To Be Taught if Fortunate’. I'm excited to dive into her Wayfarers series soon.
Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel. A beautiful and very human study of a devastating flu pandemic.
A Still Life by Josie George. Ruminations on a life with chronic illness - on finding joy in the smallest things, discovering agency in writing, and coming to terms with the idea that our health might not follow the expected plotline of ‘recovery’. There is abundant love in all of this.
Last Friday I treated myself to an hour in my local independent book shop and allowed myself to acquire quite a pile of books to savour in the coming months. More recommendations along these lines are welcome!
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Please do say hello if you feel drawn to doing so - there are many people I haven't been able to keep up with as well as I'd like in the last year. You can also let me know if you'd like more or less of anything while this newsletter's format is in some flux.
I'm getting to the edges of what I can justify doing on my Friday off so will stop here. Have a grand weekend!
Beautiful reflection - thanks Jamie! And great stack of books. I'd recommend Foster by Claire Keegan - read over new year and still glowing from it.