You know that expression ‘getting in your own way’? It’s often used in writing about personal development, referring to the way in which we can sabotage our attempts to change our lives, we can trip ourselves up, cast a shadow over the possibilities.
I literally and graphically got in my own way when I was trying to photograph this tree, early one morning during my weekend away in the Yorkshire Dales. The sun was just rising and the shadows were long. No matter what I did, little bits of Jan-shaped shadow crept into every shot.
After a few frustrating minutes, I stopped for a moment, took time to look at my own shadow, and realised how pleasing it was, just to the side of the tree I was trying to capture.
I could simply accept what was happening, and use that to create something interesting and fun. Not a work of art, but a light-hearted shot, a shrug of the shoulders.
Have you ever been so keen to get out of your own way in order to achieve perfection that you overlook the opportunity to do it differently, to create something unique, to include ‘you’ in a way that adds to not detracts from re-creating your life?
‘Deliberately including you’ – what a satisfying idea!
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