#182: What stepping back feels like
For the last 6 years I’ve been in a film.
A film called Sanctus.
This is the best metaphor I have, for what it feels like to step back from the business I started and now have a lighter touch relationship with.
In the film, I was the main character, the lead role.
The film was my hero’s journey. It was me against the world.
It started out just me in the film.
Then there were other actors and plenty of extras. Even some bad guys too.
It’s been a thriller. Action packed. A love story. A drama. A tragedy.
There’s been love, war, tears, plot-twists.
I was writing the script and acting it out at the same time. Sometimes, you literally couldn’t write it, it’s been wild.
My whole world was this film. Everything in my life became the film. Everything supported my role in this film. The film was my world.
Family, friends, relationships they were all sub plots to the main plot - Sanctus. Sanctus was always the story, the thread, the drama.
Being the main part became tiring. Being the hero in the film was too much, too intense and too consuming, too self-indulgent, too self-absorbed.
Over time I began to realise that the film wasn’t my world. The film was a film, a business, not life itself.
I pulled myself out of the leading role into the Director’s chair. A sigh, a moment’s peace.
I saw the other actors, the team, our customers in a different way.
I even spent a little more time off set and remembered the big wide world outside of the film-studio.
Yet even Directing the Film, the film was still my world. It was all I ever saw.
Then I decided to leave a chair there for me, yet only come back to it every now and then.
Now, I’m not in the film.
I go onto set every now and then.
I speak to some of the team and hear about life in the studio.
But I’m not in it.
It’s weird. I can’t really remember life without the film, or what life is supposed to feel like without being in a film at all.
Now I see that everyone is in their own film, watching their own movie, playing their own lead role.
I never felt I had a choice to what film I was in, or watching or acting in.
I miss the set, the people and the world I was in. I miss the film.
I feel a bit lost without a film. Everyone else is in one, I can visit their set, but I don’t know where mine is.
It’s good to remember that it was just a film, not my entire life. It’s good to remember that perhaps at times the cameras were too focused on one part of the story.
Now, I don’t quite know if I’m in the matrix or the real world. I feel a little disorientated, like I’ve slipped through a crack in the pavement.
Perhaps I’m in a new film,
Or perhaps I am waiting to start filming my next one.
Cheers,
James x
Poem of the week.
On the Death of the Beloved by John O'Donohue.
Like many I'm sad to hear about Jamal Edwards death this week. I didn't know him, we had an e-mail exchange once and everyone I know, who also knew him, only said good and inspiring things about him. The world has lost a bright light this week.
Great ramble in the Peak District on Saturday. Bakewell to Chatsworth loop. ~8 miles.
Podcasts
I had the pleasure of being on Katy Leeson's "I Shouldn't Say This But..." Podcast. Katy created a really great space for me to share and it wasn't the typical "Why did you start Sanctus?" questions. I shared in ways I haven't before. I really enjoyed it.
I'm often listening to On Being with Krista Tippett (Desmond Tutu episode) or Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard (Ed Sheeran and Bradley Cooper episodes)
What I'm writing
My new segment Crazy Talk Here i'll be sharing all the wacky ideas in my head for what to work on next.
All of my Published Writing here
What I'm reading
I write reviews of what I've read on Good Reads.
I'm reading "Piranesi" by Susanna Clarke.
My pocket read is Upstream by Mary Oliver.
My book - 'Mental Health at Work'
You can order my book 'Mental Health at Work' from Amazon, Bookshop.org, Foyles and Waterstones
You can listen to my book as an Audio Book too! Here it is on Audble.
Personal Website with writing and other bits -
https://jamesroutledge.co/
Sanctus website with more about Coaching in the workplace -
https://sanctus.io/
Who am I?
I'm Founder of Sanctus and Author of "Mental Health at Work"
I write this newsletter about mental health, startups and my life journey. 8,000 people like it enough to still be here. I try to respond to everyone who emails me, it just takes me a while.