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Pressing pause - reflections on slowing down


It’s not been long, but it’s been the longest I’ve stuck to this without illness being the reason.

There are many times before that I’ve made a commitment to slowing down, and many times has it become so uncomfortable that I’ve allowed the busy to creep back in. And that’s what it does, it creeps un-noticed until suddenly, boom you’re back hitting that brick wall of exhaustion wondering - how on earth did I get here?


But this time there’s seems a deeper pull to slow, a pull of my daughter, the longing to be a better mum, to be there for her, to not repeat the stories of the past, to show her a new way, more present way, a way of nature.


So what’s come up? A lot! Each day a new narrative that I didn’t realise I lived by surfaces and causes me to look deeper at where my priorities are, where I place worth, value, where I place my energy.


The biggest shift was yesterday, it literally felt like a veil had been lifted and I could suddenly see what I was doing really clearly, it was huge. This realisation that I still was trying to do it all, was massive, to you it may sound obvious, to me I’d masked it and told myself so many lies about it that I hadn’t seen it before.


As I sat in my office with Olive calling for my attention, the pile of paperwork heaped next to the laptop and my brain feeling a little more than fried I just suddenly felt this resounding energy of “hell no” “what the fuck am I doing!”


No man would ever even think that looking after a baby and being in the office working at the desk was ever in their daily task...yet here I was thinking this is totally normal, this is what I have to do to be a good mum! A good woman, a good feminist!


Women are meant to do it all, the career, the mothering, the house, and don’t get me wrong my husband does change nappies, but Olive is still exclusively boob fed (her choice not mine) so it’s me who does the feeds, the naps, the nights, the days and then I’m adding another layer, I’m trying to be a secretary and then I’m also a yoga teacher and studio owner...oh and diversification manager of the farm....what the f*+k!


This is my doing, no one else’s, this is me saying yes, thinking I can’t say no, this is me thinking being a mother is not enough.


So here’s my revelation for the week, your worth is

not how much you do in the day, it’s not how busy you can be, it’s not saying yes to everyone, it’s not valued on how happy you keep everyone else, on how you make everyone else’s life easier, it’s not that you cook brownies, or can do a sit up, it’s not that your thin, or have amazing hair. Your worth is your heart, your worth is your soul, your worth is being true to yourself and no one else, here’s my realisation if I want to be the best mum I can be, I need to show Olive how we don’t have to do it all, how we are enough doing just enough, how time is much more valuable than anything else, and how being present is the best way I can be her mum.

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