Getting out of bed is an act of self trust 🪷
Listen to your body is an extremely cute thing to say to each other, but an insane concept in practise.
I hate getting out of bed in the morning. I cannot wake up. I’ve tried every trick. I’ve gone to sleep earlier, I’ve bought lamps that slowly get brighter to wake you up, I’ve set 68392 strategic alarms, placed my phone across the room taken vitamins and tinctures. But I cannot wake up. I cannot get out of bed.
“Stay here” is the first thing my body whispers to me every morning. A beg for staying under the covers just a little longer. But when I feel this tug I know I could sleep for days. Its always a gamble, a roll of the dice of what is actually needed. Having the first conversation with self when I feel barely alive enough to know there is water sitting next to me on the bedside table is a gymnastics course in intuition I run everyday.
Listen to your body is an extremely cute thing to say to eachother, but an insane concept in practise.
Is it worth listening? I tell myself I need it. Rest is good. Everyone on instagram tells me so and a book I half read thats sitting in my bedside table tells me it is radical. Surely sleep, or at least just laying in this bed is what I truly need. If I just slept long enough the exhaustion would wear away.
Or I get up. I push myself. Is this beg for staying in bed a beg for sameness. For not actually living. For depression and understimulation and sensory overwhelm? Is it worth bearing the coldness of the floor beneath me and squinty my eyes to open up the blinds? To see what happens if I experiment beyond my carefully selected linen sheets? The stakes feel high and a lifetime of gaslighting my sensations and abandoning myself and my body for the efforts of “keep going” are ever present.
The embodiment of reliable worker, friend, girlfriend, artist, person that shows up on time with a smile is at the expense of inner knowing.
There are days I haven’t gotten out of bed. When getting out of bed is all I can possibly muster. The internet loves to tell me to “not to feel shame for mental health” but I’ve yet to have found a cute pill that pulls away with level of exhaustion tired. I think if instagram reels were to see this exhaustion they would not want my mental health for their campaign. It’s not cute to say the most you’ve done today is brush your teeth and the mere thought of someone asking you a question makes you cry. Except you can’t possibly call this crying. Banging your hands into your head, tears falling from your face wondering where they could possibly be coming from because you’re positive you haven’t had a glass of water in days.
In my 20’s I thought if I just worked hard enough I could cheat the exhaustion in some magnificent backflip. Working a 9-5 job during the day, changing into my waitress apron on the bus at 5:30 and cleaning on weekends. I could get ahead of the tug of staying under the covers if I just kept running. If I worked hard enough I could earn enough money to sleep forever. So that when that tug of “just stay in bed a little longer”came, I had the funds to rest and rot for as long as I liked. My own personal year of rest and relaxation.
The thing that gets me out of bed is the cultivation of self trust.
Of knowing when the tank is truly empty, my spoon are used up and that actually yes a day in bed, the couch, is what is needed. That my capacity shifts. Of grace and permission.
The only consistently in my creation is inconsistency. Patterns and cycles to reference when I can get there but the inner knowing of me knowing exactly what my body wants and that I can be the one to give it to it.
Because somedays I get up. I muster a little courage and brace myself for impact when I pull the sheets across my torso and my chest and legs meet the cold air. I feel the sun glimmer just beyond my black out blinds enough to know another day is here and I can face it with only what I have got.
I run. I feel the sun on my face. I look into the distance, carry my mothers orchids with her to the sink to soak, kiss my friends faces twice just because they taste so sweet. I look at the blooming jasmine in the greenhouse and ask it what rest looks like. I try for the magic of another day.
FINDINGS 📍
FOAMIN AT MINE MOUTH TO LEARN FROM
COME TO CLASS WITH ME WE CAN WALK TO THE DIGITAL SCHOOL TOGETHER 🍎 // Applications for Artists WorkshopIf like anything I have ever made ever it is because I have had the insane privlage to learn and work along side (and be too many treats in the cafe friends) with Robin Lacambra, she is back to work with Inward/Outward Guide to self care
I am teaching inside the Do You Ever academy next month! HOW TO MAKE MEDIA A day to develop, design, produce, and promote your next [INSERT BIG IDEA*]
ON MY TBR list rn
Alice Cappelle’s Collapse Feminism: The Online Battle for Feminism’s Future
Joanne Limburg Letters to My Weird Sisters On Autism and Feminism
xx
Phoebe 💕
*typos are left to reflect the fury passion and 3D humaness of being a passionate freak in the world – and you know not a robot *beep boop* I am just a human girlie living on earth with a mortal brain 🤸♀️(and also like, don’t be an ableist freak🥰)
Thanks for reading the Creators Dispatch. A weekly essay about the creative journey! Here I write about being an artist, human, angry woman on the internet and living in the dumpster fire of a world that says not to make your art. If what I say here inspires you (or pisses you off 🥰) share my work with the group chat, or your best friends neighbour. Word of mouth is the most special and radical way of sharing – plus it helps put the Zuck 🏄♂️ out of business 👼
can’t waittttttt 🍎
Getting! Out! Of! Bed! Is! An! Act! Of! Self! Trust! My mind is 🤯!! Enjoyed this read <3