This post is a transcription of the Starting with a Song Podcast, S3Ep6: Week Five of #The100DayProject

Week Five. Can you believe it? Now that we’re in the ballpark of Day 30, I’m remembering my first attempt at The 100-Day Project two years ago… and I actually quit around this time. It feels like a bit of a lull, especially when I’m embracing a very broad, abstract “project” with no definitive guidelines. Knowing I can do anything may start out really empowering, but once you get going, “knowing I can do anything” also starts to feel like it may need a bit more structure. 

I was strapped for time this week, coupled with coming off an autoimmune flare, so most of what I created and posted was in the camp of photo manipulation and animation, although I did manage a 15 minute plant scribble with oil pastels on Wednesday. Sidenote: I’ve kept the set open on my desk since because I really want to have more time with them.

I had a hair appointment on Wednesday, too! This is the second salon I’ve followed my hair stylist to and through our many conversations and discoveries of similarities, I also learned she has a degree in nutrition! Not only is she supportive of me embracing my natural curls, but she loves hearing about my time with the holistic nutrition center and what we’ve discovered about my condition through muscle testing. 

As she was cutting my hair, she drew attention to the way my hair was curling in a totally different direction than it was last year when we started cultivating them. Huh. That’s new and different. She shrugged and said, “Cool. So this is what we’re doing now.” I laughed but it was like a lightbulb went off for me. 

For my entire life, the relationship with my body has been a bit of a struggle bus to say the least and even after all the work I’ve done to repair that, I still refer to my body in moments of a flare up as it’s “revolt against me.” But to my stylist’s point, my body is leading the charge here. You want to curl inward? Okay, we’ll curl inward. And to the point of holistic nutrition and muscle testing, you want 9 drops of liquid chlorophyll this week instead of 6? Ok, let it be so. 

And this was my lightbulb moment: If I’ve been learning to heal the relationship with my body and I say that we’re on the same team. I need to listen to my words. Words are powerful. My body isn’t revolting against me, she’s just trying to tell me what she needs. She actually may be protecting me from something.  

#100DaysofSONG

Using the acronym S. O. N. G. to add a little fun and help sum up the week:

S – Singing

We’ve had a good week, but a week that was really email-intensive. Those types of weeks are not my favorite. Have you heard the term “Don’t kick the cat?” I remember my dad illustrating this to me when I was younger – it’s a metaphor used to describe how a relatively high-ranking person in an organization displaces their frustrations by abusing a lower-ranking person, who in turn takes it out on their own subordinate, and so it continues to roll down hill… until the person at the bottom goes home and kicks the cat. 

Oftentimes, as service providers, we’re at the bottom of the hill, so we’ve been using that term a lot this week. 

After a loooong chain of emails yesterday and thinking to myself “your failure to plan and communicate does not create an emergency for me”, I got back to business today with Taylor Swift’s Shake it Off and of, course, Led Zeppelin’s Ramble On.

As the lyrics say…

“Ah, sometimes I grow so tired, but I know I’ve got one thing I got to do: Ramble on”

—Led Zeppelin

O – Observation

Several of my friends got together to celebrate some birthdays last weekend, where one girl asked me about The 100-Day Project. “Are you going to put on another art show this year?” I thought of all the weird art I’d created in the first 25 days and quickly said, “absolutely not.” I laughed, but really. This is more an exercise. Even though my job is heavy into creative, there are definitely days (or weeks like this one) where I’ve kept my head in the computer and my admin hat on. I think having a daily creative practice will benefit me in the long run. And hopefully it encourages everyone to tap into their own creative potential along the way. 

Did you need that reminder? Everyone is creative.

N – Noteworthy

One of the books I’m juggling at the moment is LIFE by Lisa Harper. She is hilarious and has a real-world way of putting things that make what she says far too relatable. I was thinking about living a wholehearted life – putting yourself out there for friendships and living with consequences that not everyone will return the efforts you’ve made; remembering not everyone has the same love language. I was recalling the work I’ve done around my own vulnerability and what Brené Brown says are The Gifts of Imperfection, when I saw Lisa included this quote by C.S. Lewis. I promptly highlighted it:

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

—C.S. Lewis

G – Gratitude

I’m grateful for some fun this week to break up the work days. Tomorrow, I’m meeting four of my girlfriends from Creative Mornings Nashville and while I love seeing them once a month to produce our chapter’s event, I think it will be really good for all our souls to hang out just because; for no good reason at all.

Thanks for taking the time to listen today! Are you participating in #The100DayProject? I’d love to hear about it! You can connect with me and follow along with me on Instagram at @artisticamanda. 

Don’t forget to subscribe to the Starting with a Song podcast for stories and updates, too.

Till next time, always keep singing.