Cos just as you get up and going with what you love, you lose the regular income you had that was enabling the bridge to the new life and bang, you are held back by having to go through the old mill to pay the bills.  Buggar, buggar, buggar.

Thank you for that.  I’ve been exhausted by a medical condition for two decades and I’ve mostly done what I love with what energy I’ve had.  Now I’m learning how to make money at it, I’ve just completed my first play project!  Not luck, but determination, courage and hard work meeting the right advice for a distracted scanner.  PS John, I always put my needles in the hold… will they not even allow that now?

That sounds awful Jenny. Really glad you’re coming back from it and making progress. 
Re needles, I carry them in the cabin because they’re packaged with the drug itself. The bigger challenge is getting them not to XRay it!

Sometimes it’s been awful… but it’s given me a kind of freedom too.  I don’t have to fear giving up the 9-5 because I never had the 9-5 but more importantly I’ve never had to think like someone who has had years of 9-5, operating within a corporate culture and having someone else impose structure.  I’m probably unemployable but that’s okay!  Sometimes your barriers contain your gifts.

So true, my friends used to say, ‘ah you’re so lucky.’ They completely ignored the fact that I worked hard and had to be super courageous to do the things I did. They thought courage just came easy to me when in reality I am often crippled by fears and still go ahead. How can I do something I love now that I am responsible to provide for my daughter and want to stay close? I love to travel and make new experiences. I can still find ways in smaller doses. Most of all, unleashing my creativity is a HUGE adventure into my inner world. It’s really enriching my life and I won’t shut that part off anymore.

I have a very recent example of this, not related to work, but to circumstances. I love running and had got to a point where I was letting a dodgy knee tendon and once-broken foot stop me doing it completely because not running on hard surfaces meant I couldn’t join a club or do a lot of races and routes.
I was in the Olympic stadium watching the incredible moment when Richard Whitehead won gold in the 200m at the Paralympics (if you haven’t seen it, it’s on YouTube) and it made me realise that I had been making really lame excuses about my own ability to run. Right there and then I promised myself I was going to find a way to run, find something that worked for me and stop making those excuses. 
To cut a long story (with gym & running details) short, I ran 5km on Saturday morning at “Parkrun” for the second time in 3 weeks. I’ve rediscovered something I love doing because I stopped letting circumstances get in the way. 
Now to translate that into my working life….

Absolutely Muriel!

Hi Jo, well your health is THE most important thing at this stage and giving yourself the space and time to simply do things you love, ANYthing, forget whether you can imagine it being work-related is the place to start – that is where the play process – getting paid to play – starts. If your job is causing you the stress that is exacerbating your illness then I suggest looking at a stop-gap job – something that brings in the money you need for now, something you can do with ease and that gives you the space, time and energy to explore what you love to do.

thanks Selina,, guess i’m impatient!