Find micro, meso and macro pleasures

and build them obsessively into your life.

This morning at 6.30am, as I sat alone in the kitchen, a big mug of steaming coffee between my palms and my family still asleep upstairs, I thought about this chapter of my life. I’m being pulled into motherhood with such voracity, but also into creativity.

I want to give everything to my children, and that sometimes mean pushing aside all my work while I obsessively research around their needs and watch webinars and speak with experts. This has happened many, many times over the past year or so.

And I want to give everything to my creative life. I want to push aside motherhood and domesticity and to sign up to a painting course, and do ceramics. I want to go to art galleries and the theatre and write a screenplay and a novel and a musical.

I wrote about how I was learning to court myself. I had a period of really leaning into my creative desires and feeling myself fill up with a bubbling energy. But then I was pulled back into motherhood, like an anchor pulling me to the ocean floor.

It’s not that I don’t want to be in motherhood. I do. But it’s when I’m floating in creativity and motherhood tugs that I feel like I want to growl. I’m not ready to return, but I have no choice. And then I’m with my children and they are the ocean.

Many times, lately, I have thought: what matters most to me is motherhood, and so perhaps I should do just that and let the creativity rest awhile. Go fully in rather than feeling the push and pull. Other times, I’ve thought about getting a full-time job.

I think that what I’m looking for is a simpler life. But there is no such thing as a simple life for a creative who needs to earn and is also a mother. These three elements can complement one another but they also create great friction.

My kids are my inspiration, and also get in the way of it. My creativity helps me to earn a living but also makes it more complicated to earn an actual salary (because I need to work for myself). Motherhood reduces the hours I can spend working.

So, I was drinking my coffee this morning and thinking through the quite hectic schedule we have with two children in school, one out of school and both being self-employed. I was looking, as I always am, for a solution that would create more ease.

But I was distracted by a light, to my right. It was like someone had turned on a light in the street. Only, it was filling the sky, fast, and pluming through the front window. I could see through to the back garden, and that light had shifted, too.

I stood up and saw the most beautiful pink sunrise stretching across the horizon.

I don’t think words can do justice to the way a sunrise can fill not just the sky with colour but also the entire land. Everything changes. The light, the energy. It is quite magical. And it happens every morning, in one way or another.

I stood watching until the fluorescent pink dulled to pale and the indigo strips slipped away. I then sat back down, noting the importance of moments like that. Micro moments of pleasure. Deep pleasure from an aesthetic that moves through the body.

My husband crept down to join me and we drank coffee together. I tried to explain the sunrise, knowing that really, he needed to have seen it and also, that it was my micro pleasure but not necessarily his. He gets to choose his own. We all do.

These micro pleasures and the sense of awe they create can have a hugely positive impact on our general wellbeing. We need to mix them into our everyday but also, find time for the meso and macro pleasures; the adventures that take more planning.

I’m going to share a list of my micro, meso and macro pleasures and I’d encourage you to create your own list and to build them into your everyday/ week/ month/ year. Perhaps there will be some crossover between yours and mine.

Ultimately, the more pleasure we seek and find, the more pleasurable general life becomes. And then, that shift (for me) between motherhood and creative work feels less cumbersome. There is more flow. Everything is lighter. Life is brighter.

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Micro pleasures

The simple, mostly free, everyday ones

• Watching the sun rise and paint the sky pink.

• Likewise, the sun setting like a ball of rose gold.

• Listening to the patter of rain.

• A big mug of something warm and milky.

• The hum of a fan in the summer months.

• A light breeze on a hot day.

• Sinking into a bubble bath.

• Sniffing lavendar.

• The feel of a fluffy blanket on bare legs.

• Listening to beautiful music (like this).

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Meso pleasures

Those that take a little time, thought and financial consideration

• A long weekend walk with women friends.

• Going to see a film at the cinema.

• Having regular saunas (I joined a gym to do this).

• Starting a new creative class or activity.

• Buying the heavenly scented candle and actually burning it.

• A trip to the theatre or a gig.

• Cold-water swimming.

• Having a fancy haircut where they massage your head while shampooing.

• Buying new (or new to you, secondhand) clothes that make you feel good.

• Investing in lovely bath/shower products because the smell makes you feel high.

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Macro pleasures

Bigger adventures that need forward planning.

• Going on retreat.

• Having a weekend away with friends.

• Spending a month focused on a creative project (and living off savings).

• A romantic night away.

• Making a big life change.

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What would you add?

Annie x

Ps. If you like the idea of making tiny as well as big shifts in your life, in order to find more joy and pleasure, you might like my latest book Raise your SQ.

Pps. I’m so grateful to those who support my writing by paying a small monthly subscription (of £3.50). If you’re able and would like to support, you can do that here:

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