And I am taking it.

I have not been my best self this past week. I have done my best, tried my best and given my best but I have not been my best. There are many reasons why and while I know the reasons, I am aware and can acknowledge that none of them could have been avoided or different. This is growth for me.

See there’s a part of me that pops up when I have weeks like this to say “You know this happens when: you don’t do those things, when you cut corners, when you let go of the things you know keep you well. You know!” It’s right, in the sense that the words are true but that noisy, pushy, part of me that jumps to self-blame and criticism wasn’t challenged for many years and really needs to be kept in check now. To be balanced out by a softer, much quieter part, who I’ve only met recently, who I can now hear say “You had to do those things, that way. You needed to prioritise what you did, the way you did, it all had to be done. You had no choice but to overcommit, over-exert yourself, stretch and squeeze because all of that really mattered. But you don’t have to stay here and you shouldn’t.

In a bubble, on my own, I’m confident I could be well and vibrant and my best self all day, every day. But what would be the point? The people in my life push and pull me, they ask things of me, they want things from me. Life itself does too. Life itself and the people in mine are the reason for me to be here, to be well, vibrant, my best self.

The reality of being a highly sensitive person in this world and still wanting to have a big and full life is that I let life have me sometimes. Knowing that I will deplete, knowing that what I give over to it and them is not infinite, needs to be nurtured with time and space to replenish. That I will have to take something of it back for myself, eventually, so that I can be ok. That I can come to this place for them but I can not stay here.

I am a shell today. Feeling emptied and depleted, feeling a little sad but also acknowledging how it stands out to me now, more than it ever has in my life. Empty is not my baseline anymore. Empty is where I sometimes land. I can end up here when I allow the world outside of me to have everything it wants from me for a time, for a reason.

The important thing is that it has become the place I jump off from to find my way back. The interesting part is that the minute I acknowledge that I have landed here and that it is not somewhere I am willing to stay, life starts working with me. Putting the things I need and ask for in my path.

The right person, willing to stop for a chat at IGA. The one who hears the subtlest request for support and over delivers. The opportunity to pause and breathe a little deeper, laugh a tiny bit. Today, an entire afternoon of space for me to take, as mine.

And I am taking it. Not because it is Mother’s Day weekend this weekend but because none of us are on this Earth to be shells. Our bodies and our souls tell us when we have landed in the space of being a shell of ourselves and they need us to listen. They need us to hear them over the many voices and messages out in the world trying to tell us that as mothers we should set up camp, put on a smile and get on with it.