Hello, Hello —
How have you been? I took a deep exhale. I think this is the third time this has happened and we are barely into the third month of the year. But you know what, every time I put something down and walked back into doing, well, Life she shook her head and said, “Let go more.”
I am in the midst of planning a course, but it is not so much the course that I am in a deep process on (although I am) but the planning. The learning to plan as an act of creation. The learning of what can stay and what has to go. What it really means to honor the time and energy of a day versus endlessly adding onto a To-do list, haphazardly weighing down my own shoulders.
A woman asked me recently, “How do you have time to record a podcast with everything else you do?”
To which I quickly answered, “I don’t. I just do it anyway.”
Sometimes that is the really good and right answer, but it wasn’t the right answer for me. How did I know? Life showed me; She was listening.
I couldn’t get that question out of my head, first of all. How did I have time? How do I make the time?
Honestly, I didn't even consider that. I just knew I liked doing the podcast, and I committed to do it and so I did it.
Something else was happening; something else was tugging at my perspective. I started looking at all the things that I was doing and outputting and asked myself: Where is the return, the reciprocity coming from?
Crickets.
I got crickets.
Now, it is fine to do passion projects and it is fine to give from the heart, I love that. I will never stop doing that. Interestingly people sometimes remind me of that with a raised eyebrow, and I think, “Do you know me?” I’m the woman who created and epic four month course and poured my heart into it, then gave it away for a song because I wanted to help everyone….
I digress.
But not really, because: B.O.U.N.D.A.R.I.E.S.
Not really, because giving without receiving is not unconditional if we do not understand our needs. Giving from over-flow feels very different—to everyone.
I think we live in phases, and we move out of them. I think some phases repeat and some fade away. I think there is time in life to burn the candle at both ends because you learn skills and fortitude and endurance and how to exercise you will.
I am 46. I am not in that phase.
I am in mid-mother and turning toward Elder (or Crone, if that is your term). I’m not close to there, yet I surely am not a maiden. Nor do I want to be either. But like so many things about mothering it is just the phase that loves and cares so we tend to turn backward or forward instead of sinking down and anchoring into right here and now.
I mean. Have you seen some mothers of toddlers? The less informed may judge the yoga pant, ponytail, lifestyle, or they may understand it comparatively, but very few see it as a collective responsibility. Few wonder why do they look so frazzled. Few see it as a connection to the whole that we are living. You know, not their problem. But that’s just it—it’s not a problem it’s an indication of imbalance for us all.
There are many issues these days that have become a collective responsibility, but not-so-much Mother. Not-so-much the Middle path. Maybe it goes unnoticed because it is not a role that cannot be escaped and therefore it is kinda dreaded. Kinda just hushed over until you are there.
You don’t have to be a parent, but one day you will be in the middle of your life and it will be a time of change, and the angels will be leaning close in, with their notebooks deciding what path you are writing; what way you are churning your lessons; where you are deciding to stay young, or grow bitter. They will want to know if you are all in.
And you know what you need to be all in?
Love and Boundaries.
More next week -
Kate
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