Freelance Monday - Navigating unexpected challenges as a highly sensitive person

This morning I woke up in a familiar bed surrounded by nothing but echoing, empty space. A backpack, some clothes in the wardrobe and a carton of almond milk in the fridge being pretty much the only items in this apartment. Some smoked licorice on the kitchen table that I ate late last night. The floorboards are squeaky in the same way, yet the place smells different, and I am very different from when I was last here. I didn't expect to be back so soon. And I definitely didn't expect to make this place my own again.The past month has been chaos. Everything in life moving towards a collective peak of emotional overload, yet at the same time demanding strength, focus and resourcefulness. A nightmare for a highly sensitive person. I always fear these scenarios. Having to deal with an array of unexpected changes, emotions and tasks happening simultaneously.The move back into town, we already knew about from the start, since our house contract was only for 6 months. So even though that's a stressful situation, we've planned for it. What we didn't know though, was that Hannah & I would decide to go separate ways. The last couple of months has been a serious challenge for our relationship, and frankly it's been kinda toxic for both of us. So perhaps it didn't come as a big surprise for us.But seriously, there's hardly anything more difficult to navigate than a breakup. Especially if you live together and have travel plans and whatnot and need to sort out all those practical things. It's tiring. That's all I can say. I'm not gonna go into details about why we decided to split up, but I will say though that it's the right thing for us.Even so, it still leaves me at a place where I need to figure out who I am outside of this relationship. Kind of re-evaluating how I want to live my life this year and in the future, now that the premises has changed.And I realize how clueless I am when it comes to a lot of this. I probably thought I was strong and independent and all that, and perhaps I was, but going from a long-term relationship to living alone kind of shakes you up and change the game.Anyway, I just wanted to give you an update on what's going on. Why I struggle to write and be present here. Why I'm a little slow on answering all your supportive emails (<3!) and comments. I have all this business energy bubbling inside me, so once I've settled into my old apartment (that I'm now moving back into) I'm pretty sure I will explode with ideas and fresh content ;-)Despite feeling a bit lost and having some emotional stuff to deal with, I've been kinda fine most of the time. I mean, it completely stresses me out when I don't have time to create new content or update the blog & Instagram often enough. Or when none of my daily self-care routines work out because of an upside down schedule or because my fridge is empty and everything's in boxes and my motivation is low.But I think I've been pretty good at just accepting the uncertainly and chaos right now, and doing the best I can of it. Just being ok with feeling bummed out & stay inside some days, and super happy and excited about spring and meeting new people other days. I've truly tried to embrace sensitivity this time. Aced it when I've had my hyper social days and cried everything out when I've felt overwhelmed or hit by the sadness of it all. It's important to let yourself be sad after a breakup, but it's also super important to allow yourself to be happy and have fun without feeling guilty. For example, I had an amazing time at the influencer convention last Friday & Saturday (huge thanks to everyone involved who made this into the inspiration event of the year!). And in between launching the food photography coaching and packing my stuff into boxes, I've spent quite a lot of time with a newfound friend, gone to yoga classes, dressed up and gone out for dates and just been active. A certain amount of distraction is good for me right now. So that I can do the processing bit by bit, in my own time. In the moments between activities, I write and read. Oh! I actually have something fun to celebrate that I almost forgot about! It might sound trivial to you, but it's a big business goal for me. I've been freelancing full-time since January this year, and most of the time it's a serious struggle, financially speaking. But this week I can for the first time say that I'm (pretty much) fully booked for the upcoming month! Which means I will earn enough money through my business to be able to take out an actual, full-time salary (and a pretty good one too!). Yaayyy!! I'll probably save the money, but anyway :-) This is so huge and important to me, because it means that I can continue to write, create recipes and share awesome content with you guys <3And don't worry, there's still space for coaching calls if you're thinking about booking one, and instagram collaborations as well for all you people out there representing cool brands ;-)

How's your life been lately? Have you also found yourself facing an unexpected challenge? Or reached a business goal worth celebrating? Talk to me in the comments <3

Ps. Sorry about the recycled photos. As you probably understand, I haven't got the chance to photograph anything new lately...Every Monday (-ish) I share my ever-changing schedule as a freelance blogger, stylist & photographer, with everything from upcoming events, photo shoots and stuff I’m working on to things I’m doing on my spare time. My personal and work life is forever intertwined, and that's how I like it! I would love to hear about your week as well :-) The comment section is all yours!

week 14

• Monday I took a day off because of a super intense last week and weekend. Spent some much-needed time in bed watching tv shows and went out for a long walk <3

• Tuesday (today) I'm at the office trying to catch up on emails and what feels like and endless stream of administrative tasks. In a moment I'm off to a hot yoga lunch class and later I'm going to Malin's (aka @poppyloveyou) vernissage at Snickarbacken 7. She is such an awesome photographer so I'm curious to see what photos the picked for the exhibition. Also, the place is one of my favorite cafées so every time I go there now I'm gonna be reminded of this wonderful person <3

• Wednesday is also office day! Writing blog posts and working on various freelance commissions. One project that I'm starting this week is to create a graphic profile for a new wellness concept here in Sweden. Gonna be so much fun to dive into this! I can show you more once the site is live :-) Hopefully I also have time to blog about our second day at the food photography retreat in Italy. In the evening my plan is to do some renovations in the apartment. Take down shelves, fill holes and prepare for fresh paint.

• Thursday I'm planning to take most of the day off work so that I can paint my apartment. I'm moving all my stuff on Saturday, so I wanna take the chance to finish the small renovations I'm doing before then. My apartment is pretty old (from 1940), with squeaky floor, old doors and old windows, which is super charming but it also means that it never looks really... clean. If you know what I mean? It's kinda scruffy. So I wanna paint the walls, doors and splines in a crisp white tone to freshen it up a bit. One wall is currently pastel blue (like in this pic), but I'm thinking about changing it to more of a grey/blue tone that will work well in photos ;-)

• Friday is major packing and cleaning day out at the house...

• Cause on Saturday I'm moving out!! Feels both amazing and a little sad :/

• Sunday I will probably just be unpacking. If the weather is nice I wanna go buy take away coffee at any one of the million awesome coffee places around the part of town that I'm moving to, and then hang out in the sun with a friend or something <3

Hope you are having a wonderful week in the sun!

Ps. If you like this post I would be very grateful if you wanted to hit the heart-button at the top or bottom of the post. That way I know which content you love and wanna see more of :-) Thanks!xxAgnesAll photographs, recipes and content are Cashew Kitchen originals, unless otherwise indicated. Feel free to go wild on pinning, but remember all content is copyright protected. Always link back here and credit Cashew Kitchen when sharing. Thanks!