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Katie Woods's avatar

Thank you. I love how the right words always find me at the right time on Substack. I have 4 year old and 18m old. Have been very snappy this morning. Wrung out, you wrote, YES, that is how I am feeling today. 5 days with both of them and I still have to ask to have a 10 min cup of tea by myself, am found after 5 mins, and still find it hard to deny my 4 year olds request to play. Mild resentment has been bubbling and martyrdom is the familiar default. How am I going to chose myself amidst the relentless childcare of the Easter Holidays? What can I do to fill my cup (whilst not letting the house & laundry fall into anarchy?! 😅) I wish I could let it fall into anarchy, not notice the things piling up. The only way I can tune out is to be out of the house and physically away from the people and stuff within it that constantly demand my attention!

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Ellie Nova's avatar

I relate to so much you share here Lauren. Homesickness...yes. That's what it feels like. And like you I feel a door is shut pretty hard. There's so much gripping in my body, safety in trying to be in control of everything. The safety of the familiar, though - not the true safety that allows slowness and softening. That comes with knowing everything really is OK.

Also I relate to what you shared about the generations of hardworking women. I have so little connection to my maternal line but what I do know is there is so much trauma from my grandmother and my mother that is imprinted in me. And the story around my mother when she was alive and after she died was always how hard she worked, how she grafted to get everything she had. My dad always said how 'tough' she was - like this was the greatest thing anyone could be. As a kid I remember how controlling my mother seemed to be of everything and how stressed and angry it seemed to make her, and I thought - I can't imagine being like that. Now, aged 37, here I am - doing exactly that!! Using her same coping mechanisms to feel safe.

I'm so glad to hear you have been calling in so much for just YOU and thank you for this reminder - I need to do this too, I know I do. When we model this, we give others permission. Grateful to you xxx

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