Embracing the chaos - thoughts & musings

I knew that the first ten weeks of 2024 would be madness. I mean - I signed up for it.

I agreed to take part in a Toyota TV commercial in Morocco. Then I signed up to film my third episode with the BBC Travel Show in Slovenia, two days later. Soon after, an opportunity came up to film with NatGeo in Iceland a week after Slovenia (!). And in the midst of it all, I was preparing an expedition to the north of Norway, and training to run a 185-kilometre ultra marathon in the Arctic Circle. Ten weeks of total chaos.

I'm currently in the middle of week four. I had fully expected myself to be running on fumes by now, propped up by copious amounts of coffee and sugar.

But somehow, I feel... the opposite.

I am buzzing with so much energy.

I barely touch the booze - not even to relieve the stress. I get one coffee per day. I work out as much as the shoot schedule allows. And when I get to work, I enter a state of flow, where time doesn't matter, and all that exists is whatever I'm doing in that moment.

This isn't *like* the version of me in 2023. 

See, all of last year, I drank too much beer, drank too much coffee, felt uninspired and low. Big projects, long stretches of intense work - they terrified me. There was little about work that excited me.

Something has changed.

Looking at the last 4 weeks, and ahead to the next 6, all I am capable of feeling is excitement and gratitude. 

And I've been wondering what exactly caused this shift, this chasm between myself last year and myself this year. 

I have a hypothesis.

If you saw my last video in 2023, you'll know that I had some pretty good insights in that one:

Don't take all advice to heart; guard yourself against insta-philosophies; take a good and honest look at yourself; try to stay in tune with your own melody even if it's not always in harmony with others. 

For me, a big outcome of all those insights was starting therapy. And although I've only done a few sessions so far, it's already been an incredibly liberating process.

Because my therapist has already helped me embrace my own chaos.

How empowering to hear from a professional working in mental health that you are just fine. That you can have that chaotic temperament and be happy and have an incredible and unique and fulfilling life, and that none of those things are at odds with each other...

Damn.

I guess I really needed that.

I needed to hear - from someone who has worked with countless different people - that I can dance with the chaos.

That I can run alongside it, I can stand within it, I can move with it, and dance with it, and tame it if I need to. I just needed to know that chaos and I can be really, really good friends.

Maybe we need to normalize becoming good friends with what we label as our dark side? Maybe it is actually our route towards the light?

And so here I am, buzzing with that newfound awareness and plain happy to be here, putting in long days, meeting tons of people, creating beautiful things and feeling very much alive.