Finding the middle ground
The endless dance between stability and freedom
Hey friends,
I hope you're going well on this funny journey we call life. I still feel like I'm on a rollercoaster, or perhaps a bucking bronco - a real one - galloping through the days with nothing more than a flying mane to grip onto, and deadlines piling up around me.
It's been a while since I've felt like this, but it isn't a new feeling. It's one I know well - like when you reach the hardest levels in Tetris and you just can't think and react fast enough and the pieces just start stacking up.
But instead of Tetris, they're deadlines for articles, and you just can't seem to write fast enough to meet them, end up caught in cycles of perfection and procrastination, putting everything else in your life on hold, staying up till silly o'clock, and then feeling grumpy, tired, and resentful. And repeat.
It's why this is so late, too - I just can't seem to make words, word.
It's been a while since I've felt this way, but it's interesting to be back. To realise how much and how little has changed since I was last here.
It's also interesting to realise that this is all a mess of my own making.
I was trying to do myself a favour and tee up some paid work so I could take the pressure off my growing mentoring business and still refill the coffers when I got back from this last trip to see my mum. Instead, I've ended up backed into a corner, with chronic pain flare ups and a desire to be anywhere else than at my desk right now.
30-something years into this life, though, and you'd think I'd have learned. I know I'm someone who needs a lot of freedom. I like space and room for fun and play. I'm not someone who likes feeling burdened all the time - especially off the back of a big trip.
I work best as a solopreneur; in cycles and seasons, with lots of space inbetween.
Still, when the cracks start to show - as they did when my mum got sick and as they still do every time I go back to visit them - I always seem to end up defaulting to my security-loving side.
I've been walking this tightrope-thin line between my wild side and my stability-craving side since childhood. I liken it to Plato's chariot or Martin Shaw's wild twin; one horse is the “good girl”, who wants stability, safety, and belonging. The other is the wild child who thrives in the unknown, craves creativity and freedom, and hates being beholden to anything or told what to do.
That said, it's not just me, but also my parents' opposite personalities playing out within me, too. My mum, before she got Alzheimer’s, of course, was all about the security; the known. My dad - also before her diagnosis - was way more happy-go-lucky.
After years of walking the tightrope between the two, my mum's decline, my family's struggle, and my arrival in Australia, were the thing that finally flipped me off balance.
The more my mum lost her sensible side, the more I leaned on mine.
It's funny looking back at all the ways I used to walk the fine line; my youth was all dyed hair and drunken shenanigans, but still trying to do well at school and please everyone. University was the same.
When I landed a job as a travel agent, I counteracted the rigidity by leaving my own trips up to chance; spending my vacations hitchhiking into Europe, or booking flights but no accommodation. No airport pickup, no neatly packaged tour. All just winging it, trusting it'll work out.
Eventually, though, the settled life was still too much. I left the UK with the promise of letting my wild side lead the way for a while. And lead the way she did. We spent seven years roaming free, going on ridiculous adventures and collecting a Bible-sized book of stories that still feel too bananas to be true to anyone who wasn't there at the time. Remind me in the future, I'll tell you some.
To satiate my security-loving side, I set up a couple of creative businesses, established myself as a travel writer, kept a certain threshold of savings, lived on a strict budget, and had a very specific way of keeping all my things in my backpack.
Every time I felt too stressed or like things were wildly out of control, I'd balance my books, pitch some articles, or take all my belongings out and repack them.
Once I arrived in Australia, though, that was no longer enough. There was just too much unknown in every aspect of my life - my mum’s declining cognitions, my family, my visa, my working rights, my savings, my career. When everything else around you crumbles, it makes sense to default back to the security-focused side. The one that desires stability above all else.
For years, my wild side had to take a backseat.
Work was more rigid; I didn't have the capacity to ride the freelance rollercoaster. Sunset adventures were off the cards as that was the exact time I'd call my mum every day. Road trips and other adventures had to be planned; limited on time, budget, distance. Faced with the entirety of the outback - a landscape I didn't know at all - I fell back into the habit of box-ticking, rather than exploring.
Eventually, though, I realised that my old way of doing things wasn’t going to work anymore. I knew I couldn't live like this, but I also knew I'd also left the dye, drink, and debauchery behind in my youth and couldn't just wait forever for wild wanderings or physical freedom to fill my cup.
Instead, I had to find it somewhere else.
I'm not sure if you've ever read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, but reading it hit a big nerve for me. I almost feel silly writing all this and then bringing up a book about the Holocaust - it certainly makes my own suffering feel comparatively trite - but either way, it was the catalyst for me to start making changes.
When I zoomed out and looked at everything a bit more objectively, I realised there was too much give and not enough take. Everything in my life was draining. Even the garden, which I'd so lovingly tendered my first few years here, was an energy drag. Every day, I'd be out there with my hosepipe, feeling resentful. I'd get annoyed at the sun for being too bright; at the cat for meowing.
My life was pretty much just work, calling my mum, taking care of the house, the garden, the cat, my partner, and my family.
I realised that even with my mum and my family suffering, it was no way for me to live, too. That it was actually a choice I was making to feel like this. (Ouch!)
I also realised that my mum's desire for stability above all else had held her back from living so many of her dreams; like coming to visit me. It was never the right time, she never had enough money in the bank, she needed to work. She'd come when she was retired.
I didn't want to end up in the same boat; full of regrets. I figured something had to change. And, as they say, action begets action. So I went all in.
My first step was getting a bicycle and going out into the world every day, rain or shine.
The second was joining a writing group.
The third, signing up with a mentor.
They were all stretchy and uncomfortable. Committing to a daily activity felt too much like a burden. Investing in myself was alien and awkward.
It took some time, but eventually, the fog that had surrounded me for years lifted. My daily bike rides helped me fall in love with where I live; to notice the tiniest changes in the seasons. They gave me something to look forward to, some non-negotiable time for me.
Investing in the writer's group and mentorship also meant I learned to show up for myself in new ways. I wrote poetry by candlelight, speaking my words aloud to strangers who would become friends.
My mentor didn't end up being the career coach I thought I'd needed, instead, she was like a mirror; helping me see that writing full-time and constantly juggling deadlines wasn't my forte. She helped me get clear about what I actually wanted; to use my own voice, write for myself and on my terms, and to help people through mentoring and running workshops. She helped me lay the seeds for making that a reality.
Together, all three showed me a pathway back to my wild self; one that involved creativity, community, curiosity, and nature, rather than wild adventures.
Spurred on, I leaned into what my wild side desired.
I took a step back from my main writing gig and rebuilt my creative career, pitching more of the stories I wanted to write. I started running my own writing workshops - laying the foundation for mentoring
From there, everything else grew, too. I built my website, ran more workshops, started a mentoring business and this Substack, wrote about taking my cat on road trips for one of my favorite magazines, being a long distance carer for Insider, and even landed a semi regular gig writing about ghost towns for another couple of pubs.
Before I left to go on this last trip, everything felt like it was all moving in the right direction. Like it had finally all come together. Clicked into place.
But now I've come back and the scales have been tipped, yet again.
It's funny how no matter how strong we feel or how much we feel we've overcome certain tendencies, in the right situation - especially emotionally and financially taxing ones involving family - it doesn't take much to go back to that innate programming.
So now here I am, fighting a losing battle between my inner “mum” who wanted to make up for the money I spent on this trip and not risk the consequences of saying no to offered work (it's always a risk that you'll fall out of favour), and the wild me who wants to read books, drink too much coffee, stay up late, and/or drive out to ancient lands where there's no phone signal and sleep under the stars.
In theory, I could try and do it all, but when the deadlines are looming it feels like a gamble, and when I feel this way I'm not really in the frame of mind to gamble.
I just want to play it safe - or burn it down.
No inbetween.
I've had a few clients recently who feel the same. I think I would do well to heed the advice I gave them, along with the advice my mentor gave me: to approach it differently to before, with more compassion than criticism.
To take a step back and look at it all objectively. And then to zoom in and look deeper. To see it too as a pathway, a torch, shining a light on the next stage.
To ask “What is this showing me?” instead of “Why the fuck did I do this to myself, again?”
Right now, it's showing me that I need rest and time away from my computer and my phone.
And on a deeper level, it's showing me that it's probably time for me to change things up a bit; to enact that last stage of the plan. To rip off the bandaid, and finally let go of my main writing gig so I can go all in with mentoring, running workshops, and writing the things I want to write; not the things someone else wants me to write.
If I'm honest, though, that thought is kind of terrifying.
It's scarier than hitchhiking, going into disaster zones as a relief worker, or quitting my job, flipping a coin, and landing in Sri Lanka with a backpack full of my belongings and no plan.
That said, staying here feels uncomfortable and terrifying, too.
I guess that's the point. To pick the hard. To back the version of you you want to be - not the one you don't.
And in my case, to try find my way back to that fearless wild child, and give her the reins again, for a while.
I'll let you know how it goes.
In the meantime, I'd love to hear stories of the things you've done that scared you. The risks you took, the things that worked out and the things that didn't. The eaps of faith that didn't land where you expected, but maybe landed somewhere better. All the ways you've made lemonade from lemons, and all the battles you've had between the different sides of yourself.
All my love,
Cx
PS: If reading this made you think working with a mentor might help you, please reach out! I'd love to chat. I offer free discovery calls, one-off sessions, and ongoing seasons of support, like the kind I sign up for with my own mentors.
PPS: I'd like to say a massive thank you to my paid subscribers for supporting me and to all of you for being here. All of my writing is currently free to read, but your support means the world to me, especially as I navigate these murky waters.
There is always middle ground, it’s not glamorous but it is balance and I think people underestimate the role of balance in life. You have been so brave in creating the life and world you want. It’s super admirable. Just keep stepping forward and just occasionally look back and appreciate how far you have come. It’s awesome. Xx