Carrot Up The Bum Much?
- Woman In The Middle
- Feb 2, 2020
- 4 min read
Are you familiar with the syndrome called "Carrot-Up-the-Bum"? It is that time in your life when you seem to be stuck and you are forced to find solutions to problems you've been ignoring forever.
I have had a few of these moments in my life. You know them. When you lay awake at night, thinking "what the fuck do I do now"? And the pattern is this: an incredible effervescent and creative period ensues, followed by moving on i.e. finding solutions to the original problem.
People do not generally like to have a metaphorical carrot up the bum. They like the comfort of their clean panties, thank you very much. But is it all bad, or are there any benefits?
Susan Miller, (my guiltiest of pleasures, if you must know), thinks that at eclipse time for example, the universe urges us to take action about situations and people that may have been a weak link in our life.
Because we don't like change, the universe forces us to take action regardless of how we feel about it.
It is for our own good, no question. It wouldn't be ideal to be doing exactly the same thing for your whole life, eat the same food, see the same movies, talk to the same people. We need variation.
So, the first conclusion is "change is in fact good for us".
But a change in an environment must come with a change in attitude and mentality. I will give you one example. If you lost 15 kg but still see yourself as fat - what good would that do (other than lower your blood pressure perhaps)?
This is bonkers. Do not do this.
But if you lose the weight and you appreciate yourself for the effort, then we are talking progress people. You blossom. You shine. You radiate confidence. You inspire others.
Look:
Stick your tongue out when you're happy.
Generally speaking I do not follow trends and the things that work for most, don't work for me. It's a blessing and a curse, trust me on this. But looking back, I can tell you that those carrot moments forced me to create the things I am most proud of.
In one of these moments, I created a concept for a very special playground? activity centre? magic place? for children called The Curious Cottage, where the level of engagement for kids and parents was amazing (even for me).
The Cottage was the kind of place that would have a huge magnet at the entrance to literally attract the kids (bad idea, I know). It would have a reenactment of a cat rescuing from a tree by the fire department - only that the cat would be an actor dressed as a cat and the firemen would be employed to teach children safety measures.
The Curious Cottage for Curious Cats
Parents could anonymously write their parenting problems or questions in something called THE NO FACE BOOK and other parents would reply to them.
There would be a secret door masked by a bookshelf that would lead into a magical reading area. On the weekends, The Cottage would have more actors dressed as house pets (cat, dog, chinchilla etc) to sit at a Mad Tea Party and have tea with the kids explaining how they like to be petted, what food they like, how they like to be groomed etc. They would be in character all the time and would act as Cottage Pets. (The costumes would be Hollywood production quality, of course.)
The kids could press a button called PROBLEM to call for help and there would be another button called NO PROBLEM that would make a fart sound. For laughs.
There would be a constellation of small gold stars on the wall with the names of children that have done a good deed and on the opposite wall there would be a telescope where other kids could look through and see this constellation of Good Deeds. For inspiration.
In the loo, a spectacular phosphorescent night sky would come to life the moment you turn off the light, so that kids would be encouraged to do this by themselves and save energy.
I think you get the point.
The Curious Cottage was a magical, amazing, wonderful and of course, impractical thing, that should exist but doesn't.
I wrote my concept down furiously on a lined Moleskine notebook with yellow covers. Ideas were gushing out of my brain, day and night, I had drawings and stickers and that notebook was worth its weight in gold for me.
One day I was waiting for the tram and I put that notebook under my backside so I could sit down on the cold bench. Yes. Yes and yes. I left that notebook there.*
My yellow Moleskine notebook. A sorry attempt to recreate the original.
The point is this. The Cottage never got made but I benefited in a thousand other ways from writing it. I earned the respect and admiration of the investor I presented my concept to, a very serious business woman who saw immediately how impractical it was as a business but how creative I was and later employed me in another capacity.
She once confessed that when she has a hard day, she takes the Cottage presentation out and flicks through it to elevate her spirits. (That made me happy then and it makes me happy now.)
After writing my presentation I had a new energy, a new vibe, a new superpower. I could invent things that don't exist. I could do that.
I am still in love with The Curious Cottage, but I am more and more appreciative of our own power to get over The Curious Moments life throws at us (maybe at eclipse time, maybe when we are stuck and we need to move on).
Did you have any carrot moments in your life? What did you do? How did you move on? What is your superpower? You can answer all these questions in the comments below or in an email, I would love to hear from you.
If not, share my story to inspire someone who is in a relationship with a carrot at the moment.
🥕🥕🥕
#life #changes #eclipse #susanmiller #superpower #revelations #progress #evolution #personaldevelopment #carrots #thecuriouscottage #forcuriouscats
* I did return for the notebook immediately, but I was too late. I am sure I will see the Cottage made one day and the owner would tell people how they found this wonderful notebook on a bench and then fulfilled their destiny. (Perhaps they can say that on their death bed, for added drama).
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