On the ways we have been damaged.

The outside world asked too much of me this past week, way more than I can manage, take, move through with a smile on my face. It asked way more than I would usually, willingly put myself through, but it asked so nicely, challenged me so cleverly and for such good reasons that I said yes. With a big slow breath, rather than rapid, panicked ones. With intention and awareness rather than resentment and powerlessness. I said yes, I will, for this I will. I will accept, take on and deliver the ‘too much’ for this amount of time, for this. I will shift and stretch and push myself beyond the comfort, ease and peace that I have learned I need and deserve, for this. Temporarily and in a different way than I used to when it was my all day, every day, only way of being.

I didn’t ‘do it all’ this week, I did a lot and too much but I know now that I only ever have 100% to give. I know that anything more puts my health into debt and at risk, anything more doesn’t feel like a badge of honour to me anymore. I did give more of what I have to give to the outside world this week though, by borrowing from my inner world. I gave more than I usually would before replenishing. I let myself get closer to empty than I usually do. I asked things I usually value and prioritise to wait, just until this week was done. And today I found myself in debt, to my family, to my friends and to myself. Today I needed to balance things out again.

Because as I continue this shift from a space of healing and rest into a space of building strength and resilience it is even more important than ever that I am aware and in control of the pushing and stretching that I choose to say yes to. Because as I, and the outside world see that more is possible, it is only natural that I and it will be tempted to see and imagine what could be achieved if we were to put week after week like this past week together, strung into a month or even a year. We could do, achieve and make so much out of that pace, that drive, that kind of determination and grit. It is tempting to try except for the knowing that I have that I would soon find myself broken, burnt out and unable to function at all, again.

Only I can make sure that doesn’t happen to me again.

Today I stopped, today I stayed still, today I soaked in salts and immersed myself in stories of other people and other places, familiar but not mine. Today I had to allow my inner world to take back what it needs…while three little people all took a turn to sit close beside me and rebalance their worlds too. Because a week living out of alignment with our needs, values and boundaries takes a toll on me and that in turn takes a toll on them.

Only I can make sure that toll doesn’t go on for weeks or months on end. That it doesn’t become our norm and eventually swallow us all up.

Little Wildflowers is my anchor and has been for years now and there have been a few realms within it. First ‘sensitive’ then ‘aware’ followed by ‘embodied’ and now it seems ‘strong’. Strong is still unravelling, I’m still working on strong and while I do, while I’m right in the middle of it, of becoming more than my sensitivity, I’m teaching about the other three. About how it feels to be a highly sensitive person in a pretty insensitive world, how the experience of it feels so much different once we are aware of it and how we can heal through understanding and owning it. By reconnecting with our selves, our knowing, our voices.

For most of us, it’s our Little Wildflowers who have brought us to this path and this work. We have them and the way they challenge us to thank, for showing us all the ways that ignoring ourselves and trying to live up to unrealistic expectations have hurt and damaged us. It’s for them that we are here, because it is so much harder to abandon them, to allow our precious children to be damaged in front of our eyes, in the ways we have been.