Finding safety in the slowness

Pregnancy & birth taught me the importance of deeply listening to my creations and trusting in the pace they are asking of me

Those who know me well know that I’m a determined, motivated, (over) achiever kind of person. 

I’ve dived deep into this one; unravelling the unconscious motives behind it and releasing the role a bunch of times to try to shift it.

Yet I still love to push my ability, I’m motivated by creation, and I love making money and achieving my goals. 

My pattern is pushing, rushing and collapsing.

Life has been trying to slow me down for years now. 

A fractured ankle in 2020, physically disabled me for around eight months, so I channelled all my energy towards my business creations. I achieved a lot in business that year. 

But come 2021 I experienced burnout from many years of pushing and chasing those quantum shifts (and the subsequent high) that the personal development industry promises. 

In business, I tried to scale too quickly and collapsed. 

I felt stuck in this cycle of over-doing, collapsing, and then over-doing again to catch from the period of collapse. 

In 2022, just as my partner and I were getting ready to hit the road in our bus, we discovered I was pregnant. This was another period of slowing down and surrendering to my limited capacity. 

My pattern is to underestimate the time and space I need to create sustainably. So, I rush to finish and birth, then move straight on to the next creation without relishing in the magic or giving it what it needs to fully land. 

After birthing my son and I was already talking about having the next baby even before they had stitched up my third-degree tear… WTF!

(Stay tuned for my birth story landing here soon).

Pregnancy & birth taught me the importance of deeply listening to my creations and trusting in the pace they are asking of me.

In this current season of my life in early motherhood, I am seeing this cycle for what it is; a dysregulated system wired for survival. 

This passionate, action-oriented part of me is fueled by a scarcity mindset; believing that I am running out of time and needed to make it all happen now! 

Constant change (new stimulation) has been a drug that kept life exciting and new and meant I didn’t have to face the deeper layers that arose in the stillness. 

Whenever a relationship felt safe and stable I’d get bored and fantasise about a life of more freedom.  

I deeply craved, yet feared stability. 

I thought I could quantum leap my way to abundance. 

I thought I could heal my trauma and be happier If I just attended another retreat or participated in another program or sat with more plant medicine. When what I need most was to learn to resource more safety in my system, so that I could slow down and enjoy the present moment. 

I was stuck driven by the past (trauma) and consumed by the future. I was deeply unregulated. I used to think that regulation meant to calm myself but I’m learning that regulation means to be present so that I can process what is happening in the now. 

There’s nothing like having a baby to trigger this deep desire and need for stability; both Internally and externally. 

I am currently calibrating my nervous system to feel safe in the stillness and the slowness, and being deeply committed to creating from a solid foundation.

I am even embracing the slowness in my client sessions. I’m pausing more; allowing more space for my clients to be in their bodily experience, allowing the next steps to unravel in that space. Instead of me and my expertise guiding the experience, I’m trusting in my client's body to guide the session.

 When I discovered I was pregnant I was hoping for a quiet, chilled-out little girl but instead got a busy, determined little boy who is easily bored, already on the move and into everything at only four months old. He is my mirror. 

As I give my son the presence (co-regulation) he needs to resource the safety he needs to process his experience, he does the same for me. 

I still unravelling this pattern and on a path of healing. But now I am wise enough to know that I can’t rush it. Healing is a slow unravelling. 

Somedays I still resist the slower (yet busier) pace life is calling me into and avoid through “overdoing”. Then my boy looks at me with his big blue eyes and cheeky smile and I am reminded than there is nothing more important in the world than being with him. 

Instead of believing the grass is greener on the side of the meadow, I am bringing my focus back to what my meadow needs to flourish and what resources I have in the here and now I support that.

Some days the inner bully beats up on me for having a slow morning or tells me I should have achieved more at the end of the day. 

I am learning to embody the truth that my worth does not lie in what I create or achieve.

Often when I find myself wishing I was somewhere I am not, my son brings me back to the joy and gratitude of the present moment.

He reminds me to drink in every moment before it the moment is gone.

This chapter of my life is all about honouring the slowness, deeply listening to my body and its capacity, and giving it the fuel it needs to support my family and creations.