I’ve been fairly quiet on here the last couple months, as I’ve been in the midst of healing and recovering… from postpartum, from overworking, from stress and neglect from the pandemic… from just… an overall neglect of my own health and well-being while trying to survive and get my needs met in a hyper-capitalist 21st Century United States of America.
(That’s honestly the best way I can summarize it).
The whole process of healing and recovering has been very unpredictable.
It’s been super hard.
It’s been super challenging — in both physically and emotionally getting through it while trying to find help that actually helps.
Fortunately, the last few weeks have become far more stable and I finally feel like I’m on the right path. Thought, I must say, I do feel like the last 14 months (all my time postpartum plus maybe some time in late pregnancy) has been a gradual uprooting. So many of my experiences while pregnant and postpartum has forced me to completely break away from things that I believed I could trust and rely on and discover what will actually help… for the health and well-being of myself, for my son, and for my family.
At this moment in time, I feel like I’ve been ripped out from my roots. It didn’t happen all at once, but it has happened over time. I’m not at all where I was 15 months ago and I’m not at all where I thought I would be. I feel like I’m in a state of free-floating on a wave just waiting to see where the water is going to take me next and not even worry about making my next move until I feel truly ready for it.
And while living in a country that is so incredibly hyper-focused on doing-more, being-more, creating-more, producing-more, making-more… perhaps just pausing and not really doing *anything* for a while is actually the wisest decision.
It can be hard to get out of the habit of believing that you constantly need to do more.
It can be hard to get out of the habit of believing that you constantly need to produce more.
It can be hard to get out of the habit of believing that you constantly need to prove yourself more.
It can be hard to break the habitual cycle of feeling the need to do more, create more, and produce more when you’ve been conditioned since childhood that you need to do more in order to prove your worth to authority figures.
It’s harder to break the cycle when you’ve been conditioned since childhood to believe that you are not inherently valuable just as you are.
The other day I went out to my hot tub for a little afternoon break while the baby was napping. It had been a very long time since I had gone out and actually took some time to enjoy the hot tub.
It was a perfect afternoon. Warm, but not too warm with a slight cool breeze. I took the time to just enjoy the scene: the sun dancing on the water, the breeze slightly moving the branches of some nearby redwoods, the breeze blowing in my face.
As I sat there in the hot tub and was looking around, I could see a neighbor with some flowers in a vase in their window.
It took me back to a time when I was a pre-teen when I took up the hobby of flower arranging every summer. I would go around and pick flowers from my garden or ask neighbors to pick flowers from their garden to make various arrangements. This went on through my teen years and it was a creative outlet for me during the summer months.
The last time I made an arrangement was when I first moved to California about 10 years ago when I made myself some fake flower arrangements for some seasonal/holiday decorations for my apartment.
As I sat there in the hot tub, noticing this vase of flowers I realized that in the midst of all this working, producing, giving and doing that I’ve inevitably been so focused on the last several years, I completely forgot about… myself. I forgot about what I like. I forgot about the option to just create something just for the sake of creating it. No need to sell it. No need to share it. No need to have it evaluated or judged by anyone else. To just make something for the sake of making it because I enjoy it.
And so… I did. And it felt like a huge weight was lifted off of my shoulders in doing so, because it gave me some time to just connect back to parts of me that have been neglected for far too long.
Things that have been nourishing lately:
Blueberry smoothies
Kale salads
Flowers
Sauna
Float therapy
Spending my time and energy with those that help and support, while not giving an ounce of my time and energy to anything that doesn’t.
Breaking the “rules” that I’ve been conditioned to follow that don’t serve me anymore.
Dreaming of potential possibilities for the future that would best support my family and I.