Finding FREEDOM Again, Why I left my teaching career for full-time van-life & converting our new van

[Music] as an adult i didn't expect to be following rules and procedures just because someone says so carrying on teaching didn't align with what my inner soul knew to be true as children some of us are used to hearing because i said so and yet there i was an intelligent professional adult and i was following stupid rules that i didn't believe in all those wonderful inspirational reasons that i went into teaching for that i gave all of my energy and precious lifetime too that took me away from the most important person in my life and i just didn't believe in the actual reality of it teaching for me became all about jumping through hoops and filling in boxes and just when you felt you were getting somewhere the government would move all the goalposts and guess what it made me ill no surprises there i tortured myself for a long time with the concern that i would be letting children and colleagues down if i left but in the end i had to walk away i had tried by consenting to the bs for 13 years i thought i could make a difference as my voice was the voice of truth and justice the one coming from the place of what's best for the pupils i wasn't prioritizing government initiatives tick boxes or league tables i have a deep respect for ex-colleagues still there they do a great job but i didn't want to be the warrior anymore my energy for the fight was gone it was a fight i was never going to win it was time to honour myself time to stop get quiet and listen to that little voice inside my heart again so i let it all go big sigh of absolute joy and bliss and why didn't i do this sooner it feels so right and so great have i looked back no not once do i feel less worthy with no income or profession nope i feel freedom i feel a freedom i once had and lost a long time ago to the man the norm custom and convention if you like all well and good if that aligns with my truth but so much of it does not some of it feels so wrong and misdirected and nonsensical so a big part of this journey of the no plan plan is chartering these unknown waters and at times it is hard and confusing and contains decisions and dilemmas i could never have anticipated we have stopped and rested here in the uk for a few months now and it has been the perfect base to lay down the preparations for our next travels our storage unit full of stuff has been emptied many of the items large and small now sold and we are left with sorting through the final layer of our belongings no easy task that is for sure and i have so many little things in a variety of categories little compartment boxes have saved my life i have learned that letting go is a wonderful release and of course the new space it creates invites in the appearance of all sorts of magic i have also learned that it is okay to keep hold of the stuff that i love but don't need right now this is an unsettling exciting scary opening as we push forward into the unknown again we have a vision slash noticeboard with our no plan plan plans on many of the creative ideas on there appeared at the beach during our six months in greece and now the blurry vision is coming into focus many things appear just like magic we are working hard on practical necessities different storage options for the remainder of the stuff packing sorting organizing and james is building the interior of our new bigger van from scratch turning it into our new home newly fitted vents and skylights complete and he is currently insulating and putting in the electrics we are also learning our spanish as our next road trip will take us through france and into spain where we have a house sit lined up to take as well into the springtime and after that who knows we are pondering on traveling around spain and into portugal the weather at this point will be hot and sunny and beautiful yes back to talking about the weather again but one thing is sure we love the sunshine and the feelings of happiness and well-being it brings and after all this is our main motivation for doing all this stuff so finally i have learnt to listen consistently to my soul and i remind myself every day not just to continue listening but to actually act upon it i am back to questioning everything and it is the best i am giving myself the gift of my time sometimes i use that time just to stop and breathe and think thank you i take it back and i will never give it away so easily again i'll live my life spending my time how i choose to with honor and respect towards others and myself i trust that little voice in my heart above all other voices so got some good stuff there let's go [Music] fireplace do you know how how's [Music] rest with [Music] reach out for me [Music] so i'm really pleased with how that's turned out just putting one coat on so far and it's knocked back that really light colored wood of the ply that was there and now it just blends it in it doesn't match i know it doesn't match but i might put another coat of the walnut on and maybe three coats but probably two and i just said to james i mean this it was a really good trolley but now it's a great trolley and uh yeah it looks really good as well so yeah i'm really pleased with that and i'm gonna take you downstairs um james is outside and he is doing some van mods so last week if you'd have seen last week's video i was making the first set of curtains for the side windows for the van so we've just been to the shop and james has bought some curtain wire and little bits and bobs that he needed to fit them in the van and yeah we're going to hang the curtains i haven't done the back curtains yet i'll probably do those um later on this week i might dig out some bits and bobs as well for the van because there's a few things in the studio that we used to have in our van and i've kept hold of them and they're kind of van like and cute [Music] do [Music] quite a bit of material to it am i am i filming yeah oh it's like it's like uh back to the future when you're uh 1.21 gigawatts okay yeah check the um ceiling my new t the ceiling is actually quite thick so um what i thought i thought i was going to have to screw drill through into the metal of the body work um but actually i i reckon these curtain wires might be able to just hold on that anyway it's not going to be heavy isn't it let's get the first curtain let's bring it on thanks oh do you remember this job did we say we were going to split the curve in the back or not two curtains yeah we're doing two curtains uh that open in the middle is that how you want it still yeah i'm just thinking about it i think i've cut it putting a thing in the middle then oh yeah yeah you can do you can do because we are gonna have two aren't we i've cut them as two i think yeah that'll work really well then you don't get that saggy thing perfect okay there and then we've got jingle bells from my mama bear and she brought us those when we had our very first fan and we were just about to set off for europe and yeah cute of course they jingle all the way lol oh yeah it's really quiet i can pass there we go quite a lot of fabrics is cozy oh it feels just like being in dumb oh yeah that's really good we'll probably maybe velcro that as well to keep the light out where um it falls off the wall do something well cozy van life take four so good morning welcome to my lovely cool studio this week it's not so hot thank goodness so i've opened all the lighting out and i'm going to sort my art trolley out i think that's the first thing i'm going to do and then decide which projects i'm going to work on today in art wise and i found a few bits and bobs for the van so so when we first set off on our travels i got quite a few special gifts from i got one from my mum which was those bells that you saw me hanging at the back of the van and they've been in every van we've had and then i've had this little glass decoration sunshine from my sister one of my sisters but i've lost the sucker thing that goes on it that sticks it to the window so i need to see if i can get another one from somewhere and then i've also found found a little potential lantern which might look quite nice in the uh kitchen so that might be quite nice with um a fake fake candle in it probably or maybe a teeny tiny plant or something like that and then i've also got a few things that we've had in previous fans as well like the little heart and some bells that need to untangle and a little hook as well so we'll probably put them somewhere it's a very small van though obviously so i haven't got enough space to hang everything probably and decorations in a small van they just get in the way and they get really annoying so it's really strategic where you place things and things like that so if you've had a small van then you'll know exactly what i mean and then i also found some of these little teeny tiny hooks which we can use um for the lighting so james has bought some fairy lights and so we can put them on the ceiling so that's the plan for those so yes job number one art trolley job number two ponder on what art project to do and then job number three which i might have to leave till later because james has come on his bike today so he's not in the van and i need to take the curtains down and unpick them because the top seam has gone wrong so i told you last week i wasn't very good at sewing didn't i so it's a real pain in there you know what but when you try and draw the curtains to open them they bunch up too much and yeah so i think i doubled over the seam and i should have just done it singly and maybe done it a little bit wider as well so it's a bit bunchy and it's annoying so i'm going to redo them the top seam anyway i think james is going to help me unpick because i've already obviously unpicked the side seam of one of them anyway it's not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things it's just a little bit annoying it'll be worth it though when i get them right because they look cute and just that teeny tiny thing of hanging the side curtains has changed it from a van to a little cosy home a little cosy bedroom so it's amazing what a set of curtains can do isn't it really and of course i still need to go and get my eye on so i might do that later today and just get yeah a little discounted one because i'm not a big eye owner at all if ever oh and the other thing i need to do as well is do another coat of these the wood stain on the trolley and i need to sand a little bit as well because it's not very even so i need to just sand one of the edges a little bit and what i'm going to get james to do with my little um sponge applicator thing he's actually saw a bit off because when i was painting it on i kept kind of knocking the top of my hand on the the bottom of the other shelf and it was really difficult to get an even coat so i reckon if he chops off a bit of that i'll be able to get my hand under a bit easier so currently we've got no internet either because one of the tenants has just come through um to see if i've got internet and i haven't so hello charlie so that'll probably get fixed today but yeah we're not we're not online yet so which is quite good in a way because then i can just get on with my non-offline jobs and i have to say the last week or so maybe a bit longer i've stopped bringing in my laptop to the studio so it's really encouraged me to do non-internet type things there is that tendency to to lose a load of time isn't there when you're online scrolling and looking up things and then you get sidetracked and you get overwhelmed because you're multitasking too much so it's quite nice to have some internet free mornings at least i do check in on a couple of things though do a lens on the patreon and maybe an insta story as well i'm quite good on the insta stories but on the main posts i just kind of post where i'm in the mood really so yeah anyway so i've done my trolley another coat and i think actually two coats is enough i'll show you in a minute and it looks really good i showed james and he's really impressed he thinks it's really lovely as well so that's just finished it off and i know the color doesn't match properly but yeah it just it's quirky it's a mismatch it's very windy i like it a lot and i'm going to leave that to dry until tomorrow but i'm really excited to put all my stuff back on there i've been doing a little bit of work on this one can you see that okay so i haven't touched this painting for ages actually um she's been percolating a while and i got sidetracked with all my flower powers so i'm going to come back to her i wanted to work on her face i'm going to do a little bit more to her face and neck and then i want to work on her hand and then i'm probably going to do some of my abstract loose pretty flowers around her as well so it's nice to have moved her forwards a little bit anyway and also to be working on a portrait again just to change things up a little bit from the just florals and i'm hoping this week to get the canvas squares and other paintings kind of finished off i want to have like a finishing off sesh if you like and then just bring everything to a close and varnish and see all the bits and bobs that need it and i'm quite excited to see which pieces will look nice as postcards and prints and things like that and get some new things ordered for the shop so that's how the trolleys turned out and let's see let's turn it around for you yeah there's some parts of it that um maybe i could stand again and get more even but i don't know it's good enough for me nobody's going to see it except for you and me so um yeah super happy with that and i can't wait to get all my um stuff back on there it's currently sitting in the oval office here oh and a few weeks ago i don't if you remember but um five of my paints from this set went missing and i said i think the fairies have borrowed them well the fairies brought them back today and i found them in a really obvious place which i'm sure i looked but there you go that's just the way it is but yeah that was just um it was annoying me so i'm really glad i found those because uh two of the ones that were missing were my goals and yeah i was missing my goals anyway i think now i'm gonna go and see pop in and see what james is doing see if he's free because i might go to the shop and get an iron check let's go [Music] got the iron which is uh it was a bit weird because i haven't been to that supermarket there's like um an argos inside a supermarket it's our nearest one um and i haven't been since the first lockdown so over a year because we've been in lockdowns for over a year so that was really weird going in there anyway i pretty much got the cheapest one i could get um i think it was 16 pounds or so and yeah just basic but so needed for sewing so i don't think i'm going to sew now um i might do the curtains tomorrow because as i mentioned earlier i've got some unpicking to do for the side curtains so james has said he will definitely help with that tonight and then i can come in tomorrow and have a think about um these ones the um the back ones so i'm gonna make two for the back and make sure i don't make the same mistake that i made with the side curtains and make them too chunky at the top so hopefully these go better because i don't want to be doing any more i'm picking it'll be worth it though you'll be worth it in the end won't it [Music] so i'm just having tea this morning with you of course and i got in the studio quite early today in fact the building wasn't quite open so i had to wait a couple of minutes out front before i could actually get in that was okay gave me a chance to enjoy the garden a little bit and one of the really nice things about my room which i'm really really lucky and i'm really grateful for is the fact that i've got different areas where i can sit and so sitting this end of the room is a completely different feeling to obviously where i work so i thought i would have t with you and also my plant babies this morning so cheers to you if you're having your morning afternoon or any any time of day drink and i've just been sat this morning just writing my my morning list and seeing what i'd like to sort of get done today so basically last night i didn't unpick the curtains that had gone wrong so i haven't done that yet and it's partly because i forgot to take my little teeny tiny scissors home and the stitch and pick a thing so and james said he'd help me so we can do that another time this week and i want to do some more to my painting that i was doing yesterday my portrait painting so i'm going to work on her hand today i think and see how far i get and also because the new shelf on my trolley is all dry now the wood stains dry i think it takes six hours i can organize all my stuff and then i'm gonna do a little bit of filming for the patreon video this week i've done the art part so i need to do the secret vloggy part and then yeah give that footage to james i've got some nice things to do today and james is going to do the shop orders that we've had this week so far and post those so if you've made a little order from our shop thank you very much that will be posted for you today and then once i finish filming everything i can go home and edit this video for you [Music] so i've decided to slow down my day a little bit because if i'm really being honest in here which i want to be i'm not feeling that good today and without being i don't know i want to come on these videos and be cheery cheer you up you know i don't want to bring anyone down or anything like that um but at the same time i also want to be honest and authentic and you know just kind of share what's really going on and i'm doing okay you know if i was really depressed i wouldn't record a video at all i would just snuggle in and self-care and recharge my batteries and then film again if and when i was ready so it's it's it's not a problem it's just a little a little mini share if you like but i haven't slept very well again and i'm really worried about some of my loved ones still and that has an impact on my anxiety levels and things like that so i realized i just wanted to do a quick gratitude practice and instead of doing it just in my journal i have shared it on the instagram which i think i'm going to try and do every week yeah and invite comments from people so that everyone can put their three things down as well and we can kind of share our gratitude lists for me at the moment when i get sort of into that um stress or anxiety state i stop and do some breathing deep breathing belly breathing that slows me down straight away and i try really hard to flip my mood from the anxiety or fears into gratitude and yeah at night i've been still using breathe in love breathe out fear to help me get back to sleep and that does work quite well but yeah i just thought i'd jump in here and share quickly what what's going on what's happening so as well as that i'm also having a load of fun sorting out all my stuff on my art trolley it truly is such a joyful task to sort out all my stuff finally um because i couldn't do it yesterday obviously because i was waiting for the thingy to dry so and i haven't finalized everything yet i've still got my pencils and my crayons and my bits and bobs to go on and some more paper and things like that but um i might give you a little trolley tour later i'm thinking as well that i might not get as much done as i'd hoped and that's okay i am giving myself permission to slow down my day so cheers to you as well if you want to do the same and i feel better already so thanks for keeping me company again the best company so here it is so far yeah loving it really loving it got my rags on the end normal bits and bobs on the top loads of brushes and mediums what else have i got on there yeah i've got my all my ink collection here um most of them are acrylic liquitex inks some little inks i got from crete when we lived in crete still got some of those left and then i've got various um mediums mod podge um modelling paste my black gesso some more mediums that's my oil painting brushes and some white oil paint and and then some water sprays and things like that and then i've moved my brushes that were on my bench so i've opened up that area a lot more and i've still got a jar collection just behind there so i'm not sure where those should live really at the minute but um yeah just putting my brushes on here has cleared up my area which is priority really to get that as clear as possible so that my my workspace is um yeah roomy as roomy as possible and then i can spread out got all that space for my paints and palettes and stuff i'm using and so that really really helps free that up and then as i'm using different things i can swap things around obviously and then let's look at the other shelves shall we so here i've got some papers and that clipboard which is kind of some source material i'm using at the moment and then underneath at the bottom i've got paper pallets this is all my nice paper my strathmore mix media paper and the arches watercolor paper i bought recently and then some little scraps that i've got to work on of that and then on this side i've got underneath that i've got two glass pallets um one i use for oil painting and one i use for acrylic and then i've got my curiate curiate i don't know if i'm saying that right the gamsai watercolor set um with that palette as well it comes with that and then on the bottom i've got my pencil crayons so my prismas which i've had for years um and also the new ones i've got recently saved up for some luminance pencils and i have to say these just become in the most beautiful packaging and there's three trays of these absolutely beautiful um beautifully made not sponsored at all just my own opinion um i am finding them a lot harder though even though they're wax based than the prismas so i'm still using my prismas and then this side i've got my got my art journal and and this is my graphite pencils so all my pencils that i use and then under there just some bits and bobs so i'll probably be switching things around as i um yeah get used to my my trolley but that's where we're at so far i just wanted to say a little something as well about the um video last week and the comments i got on it i got loads of comments from people who really related to the blog post i read out which did contain a little story of my getting past a bullying situation at school and quite a lot of people related to that and had been through the same a very similar thing and i really appreciated all the sharing as well yeah the level of sharing that goes on is absolutely wonderful so that thanks so much for that because often it's not easy sharing these kind of stories but then if we do we recognize that we're not alone and i think that really helps support us and bring us together into this circle of support inspiration and love and that's what i truly love about the youtube as well so i can't thank you enough for watching and being here and keeping me company because the little community that we've built is truly heartwarming for me how lucky are we to have the internet really to connect like this it's funny as well because when i was rereading that blog post last week and deciding which one to read out on the video um and i was reading out the fact that i was feeling vulnerable sharing on the blog i would never have had any idea that i was going to do a youtube channel and i get quite a few comments as well from people who want to start youtube channels and all i can say to you is go for it some sometimes i get comments from people saying they're self-conscious of their looks or their voice or something like that yeah that that's all part of it and it's really interesting but i've always had a real difficulty speaking out and i've always had that thing where people have um made comments funny comments about my voice my speaking voice and yet one of the things i hear in the comments really often is that my voice is soothing and people enjoy the way i speak so you can only try can't you because that just rewrites the whole story and flips it all around which is basically i think what i've been doing in this video just trying to flip everything around so yeah you should go for it too and flip things around and whether it's a youtube channel or something else don't keep listening and don't get stuck in the old stories we never stay the same we're always learning and growing and we are all a work in progress so i just wanted to say that so i can't wait to share the van with you more next week and maybe we'll be going somewhere at the weekend i'm not really sure we don't have a plan yet so try to keep your lights shining bright and i will see you in the next one bye for now bye [Music] who cares

Channel: The Unexpected Gypsy

Views: 101,726

Rating: 4.9468751 out of 5

Keywords: mixed media art, art for mental health, art for self care, mixedmediapainting, art journaling, art rituals, patreon, artist studio, artist vlogs, journaling, grey hair, grey hair transition, natural grey hair, selfcare, fulltime artist, minimalism, slow living, leaving teaching profession, van curtains diy, van life, van conversion camper, van conversion ideas, running away from life, tiny house, natural living, small van conversion, anxiety tips to calm down, I left teaching

Id: NGB_z6ET9MA

Length: 38min 17sec (2297 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 11 2021