;

Three thirty on a Friday afternoon and what do I need? Breakfast dishes piled up but what do I need? After a day out watching my kids in their sports carnival what do I need? Walking around the house now buzzing with the energy of a sunny, people and excitement and anticipation filled day, I’m procrastinating, unfocussed, getting nowhere fast, but what do I need? To ground, to settle, to direct all of this inside of me into something useful and positive. To move it through and out. After two weeks of no writing, two weeks of having nothing to say here what do I need? After using all of my writing, sharing, creating time these past couple of weeks for my work out in the physical world, what do I need? To go in, to check in, to sort out, to clear out some space.

To ground and to clear. Two weeks is a long stretch for me, having created a habit, a ritual of doing this daily last year and for the first half of this one. A habit and ritual of staying clear of, avoiding filling up, of minimising anything that might fight for the space inside me. Now I don’t have every day and now I’m not supposed to. Another layer of challenge has presented itself, an opportunity for growth. Asking ‘So? Can you keep it up here? Can you do more than you have been doing? Can you stretch to this edge over here and still hold your energy, still stay steady, still keep those boundaries strong and your stress moving, moving, moving through and out as it presents?’

It fills up quick if I’m not careful, it did when I was not aware. The stress, the impact, the space within me and so I slowed it all right down to find my way, find my rhythm, to find the patterns and the tools required. Now the pace is quickening and while it feels unsteady and even frightening to remember this pace, it’s different. It’s possible because now I know how. Now I know how to clear the space, to notice the stress I’m prone to due to the way my nervous system is wired, to move it through. Now I know my nervous system, my energy, my differences, my needs. I can do this now, at this pace, as long as I stay with what I have and what I know. I can work again now, having healed the damage and trauma I once experienced in a work environment that did not suit or support me. I can see what I need to insist on and say no to in a work environment now. I am clear on what I can do and what I need, to be able to do it well long term. Sustainability is a part of what I take on and agree to now. My health is in the contract, it has to be. Now that it is, now that I am in a space where I can be clear on those things and have been I can also be at rest there, attuned there, safe there and creative there. I can bring my full, authentic and best self there and have no need for a side gig that ‘fulfils’ those things in me.

I can be fulfilled, understood, held and accepted in my ‘day job’ now. I can make a real difference there and have time off at the end of the day. I am feeling ‘done’ at the end of the day for the first time in a long time. I don’t come home with 6-8 hours of processing to do, I don’t come home drained of every skerrick of me needing to refuel, I don’t come home needing to build and strive for something else. I’m in the something else now, I can take the something else in with me. I don’t need to be switching between ‘real’ job and ‘side/future’ job. I don’t need to be split in two.

These past couple of weeks I’ve written talks and workshops instead of blogs. I’ve written about stress and self care, I’ve talked to colleagues, strangers and clients. Every consult, presentation, conversation has LW’s in it because LW’s is in me. There isn’t a single scenario I could come across in my work now that doesn’t link to stress, that won’t benefit from my experience of it, from where I’ve been and how I’ve healed. As women, as humans, our health depends on how much stress our bodies are under, working against, able to move through, or not.

Little Wildflowers may not be my work right now but it is coming to work with me every day now. It has all been for this, not for nothing but for this. This is where I am, this is the only place I can and should be. ‘What does he need in this moment?’ is where LW’s started, unravelling him and his challenges, which led into unravelling me and mine. Into ‘What do they need from me in this moment and what do I need in this moment to be able to provide them with what they need?’. It’s gone from needing to be my main focus to happening in the background of our daily life. From needing my full attention to being part of our way of being as a family. From being my work to being embedded in my work. From something that needed to be explored, processed, built upon, shared and heard to something that just is…for now.