I’m actually totally mortified to share this, but this is exactly the type of thing I want to stop to make my life easier.
December is always a crazy month for me as it is everyone else. Included in December for us, it’s my twins birthday (15 this year!) and my birthday (46!).
Not only did I spend the normal amount of time, energy and money on Christmas/birthdays etc.
I became obsessed with buying a sofa for Christmas.
And because of 4 kids, a dog, environmental reasons and I like a bargain… I decided this sofa would be off marketplace or gumtree.
It had to be a specific size, colour and a good make and within a budget I’d set.
Sounds easy.
But it was not.
In total, I spent…. And this is what I’m mortified to admit… I reckon in excess of 30 hours, maybe 40… searching for the fucking sofa.
There were sofas I missed out on, sofas that I wasn’t quite sure about, sofas I saved hoping they’d come into my budget and sofas I messaged about and waited for replies on.
Then TWICE sofas I was all ready to pick up in the evening AND it was cancelled. I even curtailed swimming to get back home in time to go back out only to find a message saying they’d decided to keep the sofa.
Here’s the thing though – in the midst of sofa-gate I was tired because it was bloody December, I’d been juggling work and the 5 billion commitments from school and kids and it was the start of the school Christmas holidays.
Yet, I was so set on the PERFECT Christmas with the PERFECT sofa, that I ignored my needs and my kids and my husband – all in the name of the perfect sofa.
On the second cancellation I was like – fuck this shit – and I re-arranged my sitting room, bought a coffee table instead from the bargain corner in Ikea and I am DELIGHTED with my sitting room without the fucking perfect sofa.
And in all of this time – did my husband once look second hand sofas? No because he was like who fucking cares about having the perfect sofa and house for Christmas – it’s not important.
What I wish I’d done instead was focussed on ease and simplicity and bloody well slept, read a book, chilled with the kids, baked, danced in my kitchen… what I did was the opposite – I caused more work and stress for myself.
And what I realised is Ease and Simplicity isn’t easy. It’s not easy to access those things. Not because we can’t but because our minds and programming get in the way – especially as women.
I am sure almost 90% of you will recognise something in this story in terms of your own behaviour – things you’ve over-thought, over-planned, over-researched and lost 30+ hours on. I know that because I hear similar stories all the time.
This work is deep. It’s deeply rooted in the perfectionists among us. And because 95% of our actions are done by the subconscious – I wasn’t acting from a conscious/rational place – I was acting from a place of subconscious programming.
Over the last few years I feel I’ve worked on so much stuff. This Christmas was actually my most organised and easiest Christmas I have ever experienced and that included us hosting. Whilst I might have been at the shops at 6am on the Friday before Christmas – I also took a list and my husband and we did it all together and I/we felt TOTALLY relaxed and calm. I even slept for like 7 hours on Christmas Eve night. This is a big shift for me/us.
There’s still stuff I am totally fed up with in terms of how I am/act – like when I get a bee in my bonnet about sofas or other things.
I want it to stop. I want ease and simplicity.
Much love, Tricia xxx
