How becoming a full-time creative has transformed my wellbeing
I’ve recently made the transition from being a part-time mindful potter to a full-time business owner and artist. It definitely hasn’t been the easiest of transitions, but wow has it been worth my while. Like many, I found myself slipping into the narrative that a career in the corporate space is the only way to “adult.” It might have to do with the fact that I’ve been primed since childhood for a corporate life path. Whatever it was, as soon as I started to wake up to the fact that spending everyday from 9-5 glued to my laptop screen wasn’t for me, I fell quickly into the vortex of my life’s purpose.
It’s a slippery slope (in the best way possible) when you start to turn your nose up to things that don’t make you feel right inside. I’ve heard too many Gabor Maté interviews to be alright with suppressing my true nature. So I started to step back when I felt that familiar feeling in my gut. The feeling of “this is not the space I am supposed to be in".
My happy place :)
Escaping the grips of corporate work
The way I broke out? I got myself fired.
Yep, I stood up to a disrespectful boss and told him I did not appreciate the aggressive communication I was receiving from his side, and he fired me. It was the first time in my entire life that I’ve actually been fired. Sure, it’s been subtly threatened to me a few times and definitely held over my head at a lot of toxic jobs I’ve worked in the past, but I’ve never been on the receiving end of a boss who was bold enough to actually pull that trigger. In a way, it was incredibly liberating.
At the time of being fired, I already had Mango in a Pot in a place where I could lean into it as my full source of income. I had been working part-time at this corporate gig for a steady pay-check and something to fall back on if my life as a potter didn’t go as planned. I took it as a sign from the universe, a kind of push out of the nest of security into the life I actively dreamed about.
What changed?
It took my nervous system a few weeks to adjust to a new lifestyle, but when I was in the corporate space, I didn’t realise how much it was actually affecting me. I guess I had been around that type of (toxic) energy for a while (arguably my entire life) and I kind of adapted. Now that I look back, I find myself understanding that my wellbeing (mental and physical) was under attack. I now feel a sense of freedom that I want to share with everyone, and I’m hoping that sharing my story with the depths of the internet will help at least one other person crawl out of the corporate hole.
Out of everything that I’ve moved away from since transitioning to full-time creative and entrepreneur, there seems to be the over-arching issue that has a hand in enforcing all of the unfavourable lifestyle rules of corporate life (intense amounts of screen time, toxic productivity culture, unfair hierarchies, discrimination, unhealthy work-life balance, the list goes on and on). I feel like I’ve crawled out from under a heavy rock of oppression, for the first time in my life, I’m not having someone over my shoulder telling my how to live.
That might seem like a huge statement, and it most definitely is, but if you think about it, when are we truly free (in the western world)? As children we are kept on a rigid school and extracurricular schedule up until we turn 18 and then most of us are contained by the university’s ecosystem only to be released a few years later as subservient employees. It was when I took a step out of that system that I realised it was not serving me.
My internal systems are finding their natural pace
We are not machines, we cannot produce the same amount of output on a daily basis, contrary to popular belief. Once I escaped the productivity mindset, I was able to understand how my body works, honouring the days when I feel a bit slower and taking advantage of the days when I feel like I’m superhuman (see my blog post, “Living with the Moon Cycles” if you’re a woman and want some insight on how our energy levels can fluctuate with the moon). Having the freedom to decide how and when to do work has not only made me more productive than before, but my creativity has been able to flourish.
On top of the very real transformation in my mindset, I’ve also experienced my body finding its own equilibrium for the first time in years. My skin has become clearer, my digestion is more regular, I’m able to sleep better and wake up without an alarm, I’m less dependent on numbing substances, and more.
It’s been hard work (and it’s still ongoing) to release ingrained beliefs that growing up in our modern society has bestowed upon me. I’ve had to redefine what success means to me, I’ve had to break away from the productivity mindset and I’ve had to dispel the illusion of individualism. I’m constantly evolving and my daily practices can shape me into the person I need to be for the life I want to live.
Some great podcasts that have been inspiring to me in this period are “Medicine Stories,” “For the Wild,” “On Being,” and “Emergence Magazine.”
If this blog post resonated with you and/or you have something to share, please reach out, I would love to hear from you! You can find me on instagram @mangoinapot and we can chat there :)
