I’m a firm believer that good things can come out of adversity. Sometimes it can feel like the universe throws everything in the air and turned it upside down.
Can you relate? We are all experiencing this to some extent during the global pandemic. I wonder if the universe decided that its time for a change and this is the way it is being expressed?
Pre Covid I had a complementary health business of 20 years. I provided massage in care homes for vulnerable adults and I also had a private practice in a clinic. The clinic I was working from closed down and the care homes stopped me going in. Everything changed overnight and now I haven’t worked since 10th March!
After the initial panic and scrambling around trying to find a way to counter the changes and keep myself earning in some way, I eventually had to accept my situation. Everything I tried led no-where, and the more I resisted the more stressed and helpless I felt.
Thankfully I have a meditation practice that keeps me sane. I upped my meditation sessions and did the only thing available to me – let it unfold. Knowing that everyone was in similar situations helped me to feel less vulnerable and it allowed me to take stock of what I did still have.
Once I settled and managed to allow what was happening, I started to explore my photography in more meaningful ways. I started taking self portraits, finding images in the mundane and everyday objects in my home and thinking about how expressive I could be with my creativity.
It has opened up so much in me and so much opportunity for new collaborations and I can see unlimited possibilities ahead. I have pitched an idea for a project around Coventry City of Culture., I’m working on album cover artwork and I am being messaged most days by people asking me to collaborate with them on exciting projects. It has also helped me to push my horizons further than I had believed possible before.
Although there is a hive of activity around everything at the moment, I still haven’t earned any money from it. However, it feels like I have time as the pandemic continues to unfold around the world, to put things in place; and I definitely see the potential for earning more than I was before.
Somehow it feels to me that we’ve all been given and opportunity to press the reset button and to know what is important to us. It’s rare to be given so much free time away from work to actually be with what is really necessary and worthwhile, and to let go of what is no longer working.
I would probably not have made the leap from therapist to photographer in the way it has transpired. There was always a reason why I couldn’t just stop working – mostly because of money. And now, I’ve not worked for 5 months and I’m still here, all be it by the skin of my teeth; but it feels like life gave me a gift to change my future for the better.
