Thank you Hayley Anderson for writing this.
Your words highlight why, despite having so many things to offer swimming within me, I am not pushing my work at this point in my mothering journey (which saddens me to say is a privilege). I feel so acutely aware of my edges and the precipice upon which I currently teeter and that, if I take on too much, I will easily burn out.
So, I go slowly… because my body asks it of me… because I want to challenge the patriarchal cultural voices within (and out with) that tell me I have to be it all… because there is so much richness in this journey and, as far as I see, a greater need for cultural recovery, real time connection and resting within the liminal space that rejuvenates me rather than overriding the cyclical nature of my body wisdom to pander to an unhealthy belief that my worth is based on how many workshops, courses and clients I facilitate space for or how many people know my name (bleugh). It’s tension to hold and it’s sometimes incredibly frustrating, uncomfortable and financially unstable… yet… slow I will go.
Worth can never be defined by these things. And humanity (and nature) cannot be squeezed into convenience, linear time and square boxes. No matter how many layers we add, there will always, deep within us, be a voice singing unabashedly, a dancer in wild rapture and a bear unapologetically sleeping her way through winter… <3