What I Learned When I Did The Creative Home Spa

The Creative Spa has been somewhat astonishing to write, and this weekend I took the time to see how it feels to actually do, hour by hour, task by task and the results were equally astonishing…
If you are anything like me, you find it hard to STOP until you literally collapse. You are the Duracell Bunny of housekeepers. A whirlwind of action until you run out of steam and feel like hiding away until you have had time to restore your batteries. You are all or nothing or nothing at all. And it is hurting you.
It hurts to not know when you will come to a stop. When momentum will die and you will be left floundering because life is so all consuming you forget to re-charge your batteries and shuffle through life blind. It hurts to not be able to see tomorrow because you are so busy concentrating on surviving today. Just surviving hurts. It hurts physically and it hurts mentally and still we keep doing it. Because these are our very own dark ages: an era of our lives in which we see no other way.
But Darling there IS another way and it involves CHOOSING when to stop, instead of having it forced upon you. I know, because these weekend I STOPPED completely and I know I will reap the benefits of this weekend for a very, very long time to come. I know because my muscles are aching, but my heart feels light.
I chose this weekend because I wanted to make sure that the program (which started today) is as wonderful as it could be in practice as well as in theory,  but I struggled to find two completely empty days and had to squeeze in an hour or two at the school Summer fair on Saturday in it’s midst, but just as I hoped, there is room in the Spa schedule for tasks and obligations that you cannot escape and venturing into normality for a while did nothing to dilute the sense of quiet bliss I experienced during these two lovely days.
The Creative Home Spa is a medley of clean diet, pampering tasks, puttery treats, planning sessions and accepting what is. Some of it is blissfully lovely and some of it is admittedly hard. Hard because sometimes what is good for us tastes rank or drags our truth out kicking and screaming. While I enjoyed the baths, the flowers and the planning for the house, some of the journaling moved me to tears and I learned that my addiction to my phone is life-threatening, that I am not cooking enough and I miss it, that my yearning for another baby is not quite as buried as I thought it was and that psyillium husks do exactly what they promise to. Ahem.
At times I felt exhausted with emotion and the lack of sugar. At others elated with sheer possibility for this house, this business, me! Today, two days on I feel light, hopeful, focused and more organized. I know what needs to be done and I am working on plans to make that happen. For there it is: The Creative Home Spa will not change your life overnight, it will merely re-set the buttons of possibility and clear out all the congestion, both physical and meta-physical that is preventing you from embracing it.
Nor is The Creative Home Spa particularly revolutionary: it isn’t supposed to be. It is designed to offer you highly specific, scheduled instructions for doing all those things you wish you had the motivation or time to do in an ordinary day. It is extreme self-care the Brocante way, puttery treats, and Alison style journaling prompts et al. It is gentle, slow and kind and I have so appreciated existing outside of myself for long enough to be able to see the road ahead.
If you too are doing The Creative Home Spa then I urge you to take it as seriously as you can. Offer it to yourself as the gift it is and make the most of it. You won’t regret it, I promise…