What I want to follow today are threads of delight: those thinly glowing strands that we catch sight of through the snarled-up wool of our days.
How can we follow these threads through the tangle, separate them from the mess and place them gleaming on the table?
How is it possible to knit these golden strands into the shape of a life that fits us?
A life that feels true to who we are. A life that is filled (more often than not) with delights and (mostly) abundance.
In searching for vocabulary to describe tangles and threads, I Googled ‘How to untangle a ball of wool’ and came across this delightful (and oddly soothing) YouTube clip.
Roz, the crochet-loving YouTuber, explains the steps to untangle a ball of yarn. Weirdly enough, these are also very apt for what I want to express here, which is: if you’re frustrated / unhappy with an aspect of your life, following delight can help to create flow, invite unexpected opportunities and bring about gradual change.
Step One: Evaluate your yarn and see if you can find a starting point.
For many reasons, the early part of this year was really hard.
Now, if you’ve read my book, you’ll know that I gave up self-help books. I gathered up all my Eckhard Tolles, Louise Hays and Deepak Chopras into a box and deposited them at a local charity shop.
It was time to tune out external voices and listen intently to my own inner whispers,
But in March this year, in desperation, I bought my first self-help book in fifteen years - Melody Beattie’s Forty Day Miracle - and read it in one night. I liked that the title had a timeline and I REALLY needed some kind of miracle to pull myself out of a deep, muddy pit.
Beattie’s invitation is to write a gratitude list every morning.
On the first day I wrote:
I am grateful that I am scraping the bottom of my bank accounts
I am grateful that my business is very quiet
(Beattie explains that there are many things in life we absolutely can’t be grateful for, but we can practice being grateful that, which helps us see things as they really are. In my case, it wasn’t forcing gratitude for not having income, but choosing to look at this experience with gratitude.)
This clear-eyed acceptance of what is, is the first step towards evaluating our situation - or our ball of yarn - and finding a starting point to make change.
My working life felt stagnant. There was very little flow or income in my small software business or in my freelance writing.
Then, a friend of a client texted me. She’d recently self-published a book and was hoping to meet to get some advice on how to get it out into the world.
As I read her message, my inner bitch rolled her eyes: Someone else who wants something for free. I can barely afford a coffee at the moment.
Luckily the wiser part of me trusts that we are in constant conversation with the world; that seemingly random messages/requests have the potential to guide us to find the next thread of light as we stumble around in the dark.
I’ve learnt that when I’m in a slump, it can be helpful to follow little breadcrumbs of energy. It’s a bit like detective work, searching for and following the trail to the light, or delight.
So I accepted Sarah’s invitation.
And I’m so glad I did. We spent an hour together (she paid for coffee, thankfully) and we both left feeling uplifted.
Our initial connection turned into a collaboration and she agreed to be part of my beta testing for a course I’d been planning on book promotion for authors.
And now I’ve just run my first course for a lovely group of authors, and I’m planning the next round early in 2024.
Step Two: Use a soft touch.
I kept doing my gratitude lists. And although nothing outwardly changed - I didn’t win the Lotto - there was a gradual lightening of the heaviness. I gained a clearer perspective on my all-consuming feelings. And I slowly began to face in the direction of moments that brought gentle delight.
I put a lot of thought into the kind of working life I wanted.
Step Three: Most tangles are just a bunch of loops that have wrapped around each other. Just create space between the loops.
I took my time. I didn’t rush into anything in desperation, even though money was tight. (It helps to be part of a dual-income household, where one can pick up the slack for the other if needed.)
My thinking process was about gently following the gleaming threads of enjoyment: starting with what I had: time, skills, a great home office set-up, a wonderfully supportive partner.
Step Four: If you feel any resistance, stop. Go back to creating more and more gaps and spaces.
I also paid attention to what I didn’t want. Although I’m a qualified high school teacher, the thought of teaching teenagers extinguished any feelings of lightness.
I never want to work in an office. I love being my own boss, wearing comfy clothes and fluffy slippers to work. I don’t want to be tied to my desk for eight hours a day. I like having Fridays off, if I can.
I became more proactive in reconfiguring my working life in line with what energised me. I reached out to connections, got kind responses but no work.
But every morning in my gratitude list, I was zoning in on the moments in my days that felt life-giving. I began to feel a slow bubbling up of possibility alongside a deepening confidence in my own competencies.
Step Five: Start winding what is loose and findable into a ball, and eventually the end will get closer and closer.
Then one night I dreamt I was chatting to a colleague I’d worked with twenty years ago. I’d taught at a juvenile detention centre where he was the principal. The next morning his name was still in my head and I remembered that he now ran a training company. So I emailed him.
And didn’t hear back.
Step Six: Be slow and patient.
Two weeks later, I gathered my courage and sent him a brief WhatsApp. Turned out my email had got lost in his Spam folder.
Two months later, I was facilitating a course on Business Writing for his company. It was lovely to be back in a room with people, helping them build their confidence and understand new tools. It’s a training company with heart and purpose, and I feel lucky to be part of their team.
In the same month, a friend contacted me for copywriting work for a company that runs Study Abroad programs. They turned out to be a great team offering unique opportunities for students and I’ve loved working with them for the past three months. From my home, in my fluffy slippers.
Today, seven months after I started tracing what gleaming threads of delight I could find in the mess of emotions that weighed me down, I have good clients, exciting plans to grow my software business and my course for authors. There is flow and abundance.
Of course, I’m also pretty wiped out! I’m learning to manage my time, and keep caring for myself and my body in the midst of the flow.
I don’t think we are meant to spend our days always tired and mired in drudgery. In the warp and weft of our lives, there are always threads of hope and delight, glinting in the gloom. Our work is to notice them and then disentangle them, so that we can weave a new shape that is more becoming.
Step Seven: Take a break when you need it. Go make a cup of tea.
P.S. Another fun thing I learned from the crochet-loving YouTuber is there are groups of people who love to untangle yarn that is in a giant tangled mess. They’re called Knot a Problem. Now isn’t that delightful?