To all those busy ladies out there,
Are you a little like me? Do you find yourself racing to finish everything? (as if ‘everything’ can ever be finished!). Do you naturally tend towards over-ambitious to do lists? (while understanding there is nothing wrong with aiming for goals but sensing acutely how it can squash out the enjoyment of the moment). Are you a bit of a juggler, and do a pretty good job of keeping those balls going round, but then something can happen and they all end up bouncing around your legs?
This year for me, that something has been my beautiful youngest child who has had recurring illness. Nothing major or life threatening, (so please don’t worry) but something which has interrupted schooling a lot and which despite alternative and mainstream medicine we haven‘t been able to overcome just yet. It has meant quite a few calls from school requiring sick bay pick up, and many completely missed days. So my Greatest Showman style ball juggling while standing on tip toes in a tutu gets suddenly shoved to the side as I need to care for my little one. Some days I feel proud to have gracefully shifted from working mum back into mummy mode. And other days I have felt quite a tug of war within me as things get cancelled and my day instantly rearranged to accommodate. I am essentially a freedom seeker and those days I am not proud to say, I have felt emotions like anger, resentment, selfishness and, most annoying to me of all, a dash of victim – that ‘poor me’ voice that is so rarely ever helpful and which I really dislike.
The interruption and cancellations of my personal plans often left me with a frustration of not being able to get traction. Time was like sand slipping through my fingers. And so I felt the urge to speed up to counter any more down time. But speeding up for me means more multitasking and worse, doing it with that faint undercurrent of panic. It’s like email apnea – yes peeps, that’s a thing – where you don’t realise you are holding your breath while you are simply reading your emails. No thank you!!
So how beautiful to go to Laurens’ Sacred Women’s Circle last month and have the most amazing breakthrough as she drummed around our heads.
Beloved yoga teacher Lauren Falconer (from Friday morning yoga) created and held Transform’s first women’s circle. This space allowed all the wonderful women who attended elevated empathy, kindness, sharing, forgiveness. I was privileged to attend and I am positive the others like me, were in awe of the sense of great healing take place. We witnessed and absorbed the love in the room. And emerged with that amazing feeling of being full, yet empty which is what happens when great healing take place: Full of the good stuff, enriched and empowered. Deeply human, humble and soulful. Yet empty – having touched what is truly important in our lives, feeling reminded of our purpose, our hopes, our dreams and able to let go of the clutter, falsehoods. It’s wonderful to watch the unhelpful general life craziness fall away.
One of my core values is freedom. And this sometimes brushes up rudely with being the on call parent. My personal breakthrough was that I can still feel relaxed freedom by just letting go of speediness. I remembered that the delicious feeling of freedom and ease is always inside me. It’s always accessible to me when I take those moments to feel it. And actually, thanks to years of yoga practice, I find it pretty easy just to drop into that zone.
By relinquishing that need to achieve, I can just let go and simply enjoy my little girl. I can love the honour of being the number one member of her fan club. And I can help her know she will always have a fervent support crew with me in her corner. The interruptions have continued since that circle of sharing and openness at Transform five weeks ago. But I am proud to say I have navigated them with a lot more grace, by letting go of the fast track, and just enjoying the freedom I can always feel and access inside.
Thank you to all those women who attended and shared so openly and I hope you enjoy the next one – coming June 30! Here’s where to book.