Simply, radically slowing down

This is the calmest I’ve ever seen you, spoke my brother this afternoon as we wandered through the forest behind my house. It’s true, but it’s not without its discomfort or unease. As I witness my internal daily struggle to remember that this is allowed and that this is welcomed, I have to keep reminding myself that, ultimately, this is necessary.

I’m not sure if I made this decision or if the decision made me, but at the start of this year I was radically called to rest. I don’t mean the kind of rest where I get an early night or two, treat myself to a massage or cut back on a few plans. I’m talking, completely flipping my priorities upside down and my diary inside out.

I’ve left my corporate work in diversity and inclusion and the steady monthly pay cheque that went with it. I’ve moved out of city life and found myself in the very same woods that called me to them three years ago. I’ve got next to no plans in the diary for months, bar a few special weddings and family occasions. I’m deliberately only taking on three or four grief space clients and a couple of circles at a time. My diary has so, much, white, space.

It doesn’t make sense on paper, the sums don’t really add up, but my whole body is telling me that this is what I need to do.

Rest more, soften more, be outside more. 

Earn less, spend less, consume less.

The truth is that I’ve been trying to grieve – and live – in a culture that isn’t the least bit restorative or healing. I’ve spent most of the last decade looking for (and also creating!) safe spaces to feel, only to then yo-yo back into the fast lane like nothings happened.

I spent my twenties moving so quickly and abruptly between deep healing retreats on the weekend, to a corporate client facing job in the week. From slow gentle yoga classes to drinks in a loud city bar. From deep trauma releasing workshops to party weekends away with friends. From intimate vulnerable grief circles to light-hearted banter over a Sunday roast. 

I told myself that this was balanced, this was healthy, but in all honesty, it wasn’t very integrated. I was trying to grieve in a lifestyle that wasn’t internally healing. I was trying to forge my own path, but also trying to keep up with all my friends. I was trying to start a heart-led business, while maintaining a corporate job for safety. I was trying to be myself, but also making sure I fit in.

In short, I spent my twenties trying, trying to keep up, and for what? As Francis Weller says “When our grief cannot be spoken, it falls into the shadow and re-arises in us as symptoms. So many of us are depressed, anxious, and lonely. We struggle with addictions and find ourselves moving at a breathless pace, trying to keep up with the machinery of culture.”

For the first time in my life, I’m finally understanding the overused metaphor that we need to put our own oxygen mask on first. I’m realising that deep self care is a sustained and deliberate way of being that isn’t the least bit selfish but wholly necessary if we are to heal ourselves and the planet at this critical time. 

And so, I’ve committed to myself, to my community and most of all to my darling Mum’s legacy that I will not take another step until my cup is overflowing. I will not give away what I do not have to offer. Just as we cannot keep expecting the earth to hold under the weight of our extraction.

This feels confronting, this feels strange, but this also feels new and a new way of being is deeply needed.

I’m so looking forward to sharing this journey with you and seeing where the magic takes us together.

Thank you to a dear friend and mentor who shared the below poem with me last week… was it written for me?!

Breathe by Becky Hemsley

She sat at the back

and they said she was shy,

she led from the front

and they hated her pride.

They asked her advice

and then questioned

her guidance.

They branded her loud

then were shocked by her

silence.

When she shared no ambition

they said it was sad

so she told them her dreams

and they said she was mad.

They told her they'd listen

then covered their ears

and gave her a hug

whilst they laughed at her

fears.

And she listened to all of it

thinking she should

be the girl they told her to be

best as she could.

But one day she asked

what was best for herself

instead of trying to please

everyone else.

So she walked to the forest

and stood with the trees,

she heard the wind whisper

and dance with the leaves.

And she spoke to the willow,

the elm and the pine

and she told them what

she'd been told,

time after time.

She told them she never

felt nearly enough

she was either too little,

or far, far too much.

Too loud or too quiet,

too fierce or too weak,

too wise or too foolish,

too bold, or too meek.

Then she found a small clearing

surrounded by firs

and she stopped and she heard

what the trees said to her.

And she sat there for hours

not wanting to leave -

for the forest said nothing,

it just let her breathe.