🔥 WHAT STUDYING ARCHITECTURE TAUGHT ME 🔥
I burnt all my architecture work today 🔥
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This has been something I wanted to do for a while now, to get rid of all my architecture stuff. That’s what I studied 5 years ago. Then I worked in few places then realising I really don’t like doing it. So I stopped.
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Yesterday I googled, ‘how to burn stuff in the garden’ and bought an incinerator bin this morning, one of those metal bins you can burn things in. I took a Uber to Amanda’s place where we did the fire. The Uber driver was asking me (turned out to be a stunt man who is a dive master, kickboxer, free runner, professional gymnast lol), why I wanted to burn them instead of throwing them away. Good question 😍
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I first got the idea after doing a breathwork, it came to me super clear, ‘burn your architecture stuff’. I was like, wow ok I’ll do that. There’s something very cleansing about fire, I believe burning something ceremonially frees you from it. Every time I moved houses, I was carrying them with me which was pointless and felt heavier and heavier.
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Studying architecture is not a walk in the park. ‘I have so much work to do.’ was the normal thing you hear in a stressed out studio. The first 2 years, I was super lost. I didn’t really understood how anything worked, I experimented a lot to see what worked for me. One of the things I tried was flipping my sleeping cycle for a month to work at nights - terrible idea.
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I wasn’t sure if this was what I wanted to do later on anyway. Questioning something back and forth while at the same trying to succeed at it, takes a lot of energy. You can’t move forward doing that. Final year, I told myself, ‘You know what, this is my final year. I’m not going to question this anymore. I’m going to put my absolute best into this year, graduate, then figure out the rest later.’
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So I did that.
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For a whole year, I didn’t have a social life or a partner (slight crush in the end of the year as a perfect distraction). All I did for myself was writing 3 pages every morning as part of the Artist’s Way book. Then studio all day, all night until 2am.
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Towards the end, I really missed going out as I loved dancing while I was out. My housemate at the time told me, ‘You can put your headphones on and dance in your room.’ I thought, what a great idea, I gave it a go. It was bliss, pure bliss. Every night between 2-3am I would dance out the day in my room after studio, go to bed at 3am then wake up at 7am and do the whole thing again with occasional sleep ins.
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The biggest lesson architecture taught me is showing up no matter what. I showed up for 3 years doing something I wasn’t passionate about. It showed me, well if I can do that without enjoying it, I can absolutely nail the things I enjoy no matter how scary they might feel at times. I had a proof of it working basically, I can make it work again.
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There’s a beautiful quote by Steve Jobs, ‘You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.’
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My dissertation was called ‘Architecture as a form of meditation’ - looking at places to meditate all around the world, what makes them a better place to meditate in etc.
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First year, I did a project on circus skills - I always admired circus artists, did pole dancing after graduating and will soon start doing aerial silks 😍
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Third year, I designed a kindergarden/art school for children - When I accepted that I didn’t want to do architecture, I worked in a school looking after kids until I find out what I want to do, I loved being with them at the time. I feel like there’s more to come about this one in the future 👩👧👦
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Throughout the projects, I used body, movement a lot in the concept and danced every night - I didn’t know 5rhythms or ecstatic dancing existed back then, I was just releasing and moving emotions out of my body. Now I guide movement/dance in my workshops.
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Sometimes I find people making a huge deal out of finding your purpose. It’s always there. You’re looking at it, you’re doing it in some form or another. It’s what brings you alive, something that you would do anyway even if you weren’t paid for.
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I used to walk around in the studio, talking to people comforting or motivating them. People would come to me when they were stressed. Helping them get out of that place brought me so much more joy than doing drawings.
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It took me a whole year to fully let go of architecture to move forward with coaching, healing and workshops. It took me another year procrastinating throwing away all the work and carrying them with me every time I moved houses 😊 Today I finally let go of all of that physically, only kept dissertation and final portfolio as a souvenir from that time.
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It’s such a good feeling when you do things you keep putting off no matter how small or big they are. Thank you for the beautiful ceremony Amanda 💛
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What can you physically get rid of this week?
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Something that is already long gone to you, but you’re holding onto it physically. Would love to hear it in the comments below 😍❤️
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Loads of love and freedom to you 🔥✨
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