For about a week now I’ve had a nagging sense that I’ve forgotten to do something.

It was only earlier on this morning, when I was scrolling back through some recent blog posts searching for a particular piece, that I realised what it was I’d forgotten…

At the beginning of June I wrote about my daughter and her new-found interest in skateboarding.  In the post I made a promise to #dosomethingnew every single month.

And then I clicked ‘publish’ and promptly forgot all about it as life and all it’s adventures smoothly got in the way.

And now here we are, on the penultimate day of July, and I’ve remembered making that promise – not just to myself but to all of you too – and I can’t think of a single thing that I consciously decided to do that was new to me.

Immediately, I felt disappointed in myself (because, you know, therapists are humans too and just because we help other people work through and overcome their ‘stuff’ doesn’t mean we aren’t immune to flare-ups of our own issues from time to time).

But I still had that nagging feeling.

So I got out my diary and carefully looked back, page by page, over the last month.

And it turns out that nagging feelings can be quite useful sometimes… I’ve actually done quite a lot of new things!

1.  I got my face painted.

Ok, technically not my first time ever having my face painted – I remember insisting on being a tiger on a trip to London Zoo when I was little – but definitely my first time as an adult.

Every year we take the girls to a Teddy Bears Picnic at a place called Izaak Walton’s Cottage, which happens to be just around the corner from The Mill (where we got married).  Every year they delight in taking part in the teddy bear hunt, eating ice cream, watching the Punch & Judy show and… getting their faces painted.  Every year it’s the same lovely lady patiently creating works of art on the eager faces of wriggly little ones.  This year, she remembered us and as we quietly chatted I plucked up the courage to ask her to paint my face too.

Now, I HATE my face being touched, even by my husband and my girls, and will always turn away.  Bad skin, which I have struggled with for twenty years now, is a constant source of unhappiness for me.  So to ask a complete stranger to paint my face, and be up close and personal to me, in public, was really quite terrifying.

And yet, I wanted it more than I was afraid of it.  So I sat in her chair, closed my eyes, and let go.

2.  I took an afternoon off

This is unheard of in my self-employed, work-from-home, mother-of-three world.  Even if I’m not seeing clients, working with supervisees, answering email and phone messages or writing a blog post I’m usually found running errands in town, doing the food shopping, playing with the girls or (occasionally) cleaning the house.

And yet, just two days ago, I took an afternoon off.  The Travel Photographer of the Year exhibition is currently on at the Royal Geographic Society in London, and I knew that I had a jam-packed schedule of clients over the next six weeks.  So, it being the only day I could feasibly go and see it, I blocked out the afternoon in my diary, locked up my office, and went.

I spent two hours of pure joy being on my own.  I ignored the voice in my head telling me that I ‘should’ be doing this or I ‘could’ be doing that and what kind of person am I for indulging myself like this, and I wandered blissfully around the exhibition gazing at each and every incredible photograph, soaking up every tiny detail that I could.  I walked leisurely, in no hurry to be anywhere because I had nowhere to be other than right there.  I actually felt my body relax for the first time in what seems like months.  My shoulders moved down and back, my jaw unclenched and my stomach loosened it’s tight hold.  And then, when I was done, I people watched on the Tube, making up stories in my head about who these people were and where they were going and why.

It was wonderful.  I felt renewed.  My soul felt…satisfied.  Because I’d done something I loved, just for me.

3.  I helped photograph a wedding.

Two actually.  And a high school prom (complete with some of the students arriving by helicopter!).

I have never studied photography officially.  Everything I know is self-taught.  I’ve learnt through trial and error and perseverance and frustration and hope and making mistakes and feeling the joy that comes when I successfully manage to capture that perfect moment in time.

It was at a friends wedding a couple of years ago that I summoned up the courage to approached the photographer and asked if I could maybe shadow him one day to watch how he works.  He looked me straight in the eye and said “No.  You need to find your own style, not copy mine”.  A little disheartened, I retreated and refocused myself on enjoying the rest of the evening.

But his words stayed with me.  So I practised and practised and practised some more.  Then I bought myself a decent second-hand camera from a friend and approached him again, asking if he’d give me some tutorials on how to use it.  His advice?  “Put it on ‘manual’, leave it there, and play”.  So I did.

When my husband and I were planning our own wedding, I knew that there was only one photographer I wanted to use.  We booked him and as time has gone on from there he’s given me little tips about the technical side of using my camera.

Then, out of the blue he asked if I could help him out on a wedding he was shooting.  His regular second shooter/assistant needed to be on their stall at a Wedding Fair and he needed a second pair of hands to help him.

Without even a millisecond of hesitation I said yes.

And I loved every single aspect of it – carrying bags, helping set up lighting, shooting candid shots of the guests, even being able to capture moments like exchanging the rings in the ceremony.  I know full well that my shots weren’t brilliant, but they were ok.  Ok enough that he asked me to help out with a second wedding just a few weeks later.  And, as I said, a prom.

It just goes to show that the littlest seeds of an idea, and the smallest of intentions that you set, can one day flourish into things that you had no idea were even possible, just by doing something new.

I have no idea what my August #dosomethingnew post is going to look like or what I’ll be writing about.  But after writing this post, and remembering all the new things I’ve done, I’m already looking forward to finding out.

I’d love to know if you’ve made the promise to #dosomethingnew along with me.  If so, share your experiences here!  And if not, why not?  Set your intentions in the comments section below, and who knows what you’ll find yourself doing…

Thanks for reading 🙂

 

2 Comments for: #dosomethingnew – July 2015