An antidote to the mundane
When I left the corporate world I was naïve enough to think that I was also leaving behind the mundane. While I absolutely loved my last role it did involve a five hour round-trip commute across London when I went into the office. When I eventually got into the office there was a lot of sitting in meetings. And the office was in a business park in the middle of nowhere so all the glitz and glam of my previous central London jobs was completely absent. No people-watching, luscious parks, exquisite window displays and general city life to distract and entertain me.
I swapped my mind numbing commute and back-to-back meetings in windowless rooms for motherhood and working for myself. While children are wonderous, humbling and inspiring beings — the day to day of motherhood can be very repetitive. That never-ending pile of laundry, food prep for forever hungry tiny mouths, and tidying up again and again and again. Even working for myself, doing something I absolutely love, involves some pretty mundane days filled with admin.
Now I realise that of course, whatever you do, however actively you’ve chosen to do it and regardless of how much you love it, you are inevitably going to have to do some things that are humdrum and routine. The monotonous mundane. It’s part of life.
I do think it is possible to find meaning and even experience the divine in the mundane. This can be a beautiful spiritual practice of the highest order. However, I personally struggle with it and certainly can’t do it every time I’m monitoring teeth brushing or filling out my tax returns. More and more I’m finding that in order to maintain perspective and feel connected and really alive I need to experience a regular amount of the sublime.
For me, the sublime is about experiencing something awesome, wonderous, enchanting, expansive. It is a full-body experience. Two of the main ways I access it is through conscious dance and being in nature. Both enable me to get out of my monkey mind (which can be a very repetitive place to be) and into my body. I am able to let go, feel connected to something bigger than me, and access peace and bliss.
When I start to feel worn down by the humdrum or feel like I’m losing perspective or connection I go out into the woods and disappear on a journey into nature or I put the music on and take a journey into myself. Both are like plugging into source for me. I come back with more energy, greater clarity and greater perspective and often some much needed guidance.
What feels sublime is totally individual. The important thing is to know what is it that you can access regularly that makes you feel alive, elevated and connected.
So what is sublime for you? When did you last experience it? Are there ways you can incorporate more sublime experiences into your day or week when life starts to get a bit too mundane? Or are you content with the mundane?
As well as knowing where to receive your regular dose of the sublime it is also useful to be open to experiencing the sublime because sometimes you’ll find the most sublime moments in the most unexpected of places.