Remembering to take that nap: an interview with the deliciously insightful Lisa Baldwin

Today I’m delighted to be interviewing the deliciously insightful Lisa Baldwin. Lisa is @zenatplay over on Twitter and author of the blog of the same name. Her new ebook, Take That Nap, has been a comforting companion to me during my recent fallow period.

Lisa on napping

MN: Hello Lisa, can we start by talking about napping?

Do you nap regularly and have you read SARK’s Change Your Life Without Getting Out of Bed: The Ultimate Nap Book, a book that helped me come out as daily napper?!

LB: I am a nap enthusiast, yes. I’m also enthusiastic about just getting horizontal and staring into space for a while if a nap is not forthcoming. Even so, I was tragically unaware that SARK had written such a book. Please excuse me for a moment while I request it from my library. Okay, done. Thank you.

MN: Do you prefer short and sweet naps, or long and luxurious ones?

LB: I like the idea of long and luxurious naps, but I wake up feeling groggy and regretful if I nap more than 20 minutes or so, and it’s no fun when a too-big daytime nap messes with night time sleeps. So I go for short and sweet, with the emphasis on the sweet.

Going with the flow

MN: I get the impression that you’re someone who generally goes with the flow of life, creating some boundaries and plans yes, but being gentle with yourself (and life) if things don’t always work out as you think they “should”. Is that a fair statement?

If so, have you always been like that or is a way of being you’ve learnt?

LB: I’ve always needed to go with the flow, but didn’t always recognise that. For a long time, I thought my reluctance to push and shove myself was my greatest weakness. I spent a great deal of time and effort concocting absurd schedules and reading stuff that was supposed to make me all motivated and get-stuff-done-ish, but it really just made me feel like crap.

Deliciously, I found that I got good stuff done when I was gentler, softer, more curious and less pushy. I’m constantly exploring that sweet spot between the wide open and the contained – noticing where I need open pasture, and where I need fences.

Using “containers” to get things done

MN: I love how you talk about creating limits to work within and how having limits often leads to innovation. I know the truth of that from my own experience too. At my illest I had a very real physical limit of about 20 minutes a day. I had to be very creative with those 20 minutes to find ways of doing just a little of the stuff I wanted to do. Now my health has improved a lot my limits are softer, more moveable, which of course makes them easier to ignore!

How do you decide where to set your limits? Do you generally stick within them and how do you do that? When you were working on Take That Nap for example did you have boundaries to work within? Did you get carried away with the excitement of the project and ignore them?

LB: I have a repertoire of helpful containers that I draw on at different times. One is the container of time, which I talk about in my book. I alternate sit-down work time with moving around time when I’m in hyperfocus mode to keep me connected with my body and surroundings. And I’ll put lids on things that are getting too sprawly, like time spent on the internet, just for the practice.

But I like to experiment with other kinds of containers, like qualities. When I set out to write Take That Nap, I had a history of stressful attempts at writing ebooks. There were so many shoulds and rules piled up in my head, and none of them fit with my way of doing. So I decided that I would only make books if I could do it in a way that felt light, easy and playful. Those qualities created my container, forced me to put aside the rules, and freed me up to write in the way I do best – incubate, throw my paint on the canvas, then see how it shows up.

Lisa’s wise Future Self

MN: In the book you talk about your Future Self, and how she daily offers you small pieces of advice to keep you on track with what is important. She sounds like a wonderfully wise person. How did you discover her? Do you ever ignore what she has to say?

LB: She is a wonderfully wise person, and she’s not even blushing to hear you say that.

I started chatting with Future Self after a call with my super-smart friend, Cairene of Third Hand Works. She was talking about finishing, and how when we don’t do things, we’re making a deal with our future self – the one who’ll need to deal with the thing we’ve left undone. I’ve never been much of a forward planner, so I wondered what would happen if I asked my future self for her opinion in advance. Turns out she had some very helpful suggestions.

Do I ever ignore what she has to say? I go through patches where I forget to check in with her, and in those times, I often don’t hear what she has to say. When I do ask, I listen to her because I like her a lot and I know she’s smart. (Hint: if you ask your future self a question, and the answer is mean or bossy, you’ve probably dialed the wrong number).

On procrastination

MN: I think what you say about procrastination is insightful, the idea that laying fallow or doing something other than the thing you’re thinking about doing is procrastination only if you “spit at yourself while doing it”!

I think in time, if we work this way, we can learn to trust the truth in it. We can see that if we treat ourselves gently and listen to our needs (and maybe our Future Selves!) we can still get things done.

What advice would you give someone who hasn’t learnt the truth of this yet. Someone who is maybe very limited in terms of energy and scared that life is passing them by and that the only way to achieve is by charging full speed at life, with some sort of complicated “getting things done” plan in one hand and a stick to beat themselves with in the other?

LB: Our responsibility as artists is to hold the space for our curiosities to reveal themselves. The creative impulse is right there in our DNA – it’s not something we need to trick, train, or beat ourselves into. And when we cram our days beyond our capacity, or fill our heads with unhelpful hurry-up talk, we’re pushing our attention away from the very things we care about.

So the magic trick is to practice trusting curiosity, and being curious about trust. Experiment. Explore. Play with the idea of spaciousness, even if only for a few minutes at a time. What might you do differently if it’s true that your job is to hold the space? What might your to-do list look like? What if it’s true that elaborate plans and self-harassment are hindering more than they’re helping? What thoughts or ways of doing might you be able to put down for a while?

Curious, gentle questioning opens up possibilities, and illuminates assumptions. It’s the most useful tool I know.

Thank you Lisa!

MN: Thank you Lisa. I hope things go well with Take that Nap. It’s a lovely book.

LB: Thank you, Michael. It’s such a treat to be invited to share my thoughts with your lovely readers, especially when guided by such juicy, thoughtful questions. I appreciate you and your work very much.

You can find out more about Lisa’s new book, Take that Nap, here, follow her updates on Twitter here, and read her thoughtful blog here.