I feel that my confidence as far as all the work I do is growing very evenly, solidly and quickly now.
Good news on the work front: I think I have enough confirmed work to get me through to the end of the year without worrying too much. And it's good work too, CV enhancing. Which is what I've been planning and putting together since the start of the year.
My own creative work...well, I just produced a piece of work that I'm extremely proud of. It involved co-ordinating a number of other people too, and they all came away with and extremely positive vibe about it all as well as the beautiful work we produced together.
This is a skill that I have, and am working on developing across all the areas I work in: making the opportunities to bring people together, making a positive and very creative environment for everyone and drawing the best out of them all. And doing this as well as contributing my own work. It's leadership I guess. Yes...I'm working on my leadership skills.
They were there, in seed form, before D, but I didn't know or understand what they were or that I could encourage them to grow into something.
I played tennis with my wonderful man the other evening. It was such incredible fun. I haven't hit a tennis ball for 40 odd years, since I was a child. I absolutely loved it, and felt a bit of a natural affinity for it. And he told me I had a good instinct for it (as well as the cycling we've been doing). I'm a bit bowled over by that, tbh.
I guess I've always lacked confidence in my physical abilities and physical presence. Maybe because I never really explored them as a child, or because I remember very feeling self conscious, even as young as 10 or 11. So I guess I deliberately shrank that side of myself and developed the academic/intellectual side of my personality. I worked hard and did phenomenally well at that I think it was also a refuge for me when things got difficult, especially around my mid 20s. After that, I think I felt overwhelmed by the presence and physicality of XH, so I just let him dominate that side of our R and M. And then obviously, I ended up feeling so low that when the EAs and PAs came along, I felt totally crushed.
Well, I remember the creeping sense of power in my own physical being, that started, say maybe 3 or 4 months after XH left? It started very small, and maybe as a result of all the interior work I was doing on myself? Now it feels like a definite and strong part of me. I'm enjoying it, for sure, and I know it can grow still more.
But I must value myself enough to make time for it.
Because the alternative is too expensive.
And I'm not prepared to pay that price any more in my life.
