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!
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
So beautiful Lauren, thank you for this reminder. It is so easy to lose ourselves when others’ demands are so loud and we don’t intentionally choose ourselves. It resonates that it is now a different, evolved version of myself that I am returning to, with all of the past selves contained there too. I love your remembering list and feel called to do that, in my mind I’ve been calling it ‘pieces of me’ and also making my joyful practices a priority when I can. I totally feel the guilt you mention and also the diminishing of my own needs when others’ feel larger, more important (or louder). Perhaps there is also something about an underlying control thing too, that they can’t possibly survive if I go off for half a day but of course they do and in fact they thrive! Thank you also for talking to the challenges and discomfort of being at home with children, it feels very validating to hear that it is not the easy option (as can be not so subtly insinuated)! xx
I have some very similar issues with taking that me time, Lauren. I think as well I try to tell myself that work is respite. I know from recent experiences that I need to work and I need that stretch of my creative muscles whether its writing/design but while it is essential, it isn’t truly rest in itself and it isn’t just for me. It’s definitely something I want to try to forge into our weekends that aren’t filled with work: time for ourselves - my partner and I are so frazzled without it. Thank you for the reminder 🙌🏻❤️
Wow 103 years old - that’s amazing longevity! How wonderful to have four generations celebrating all together like that 💕 I’m thinking a lot about grandparents - and grandmothers especially - at the moment. I’d love to hear more about your grandmother’s life some day if you ever feel like sharing some of her story. Extraordinary to have experienced the 1920s and now the 2020s.
I relate so much to this especially yoga mat part, my many mats are my alter, to meditate, to practice Asana, to journal, to work.
This has actually made me cry after another long night of teething and night terrors in my eldest. It's been a poorly house for nearly 3 weeks and I am craving some vitamin ME! (Love this) and realise I need to do this daily. I have lost my temper and took it out on my eldest far too many times, it happens I'm human but it breaks me. Thank you always for your honesty words, encouraging me to lean in and be with myself. ❤️
Loved this. My 3 boys are now teenagers and I still found this so relatable, albeit at a different season in life. Thank you for this beautiful, heartfelt piece Lauren.
Oh Lauren, the poem at the end, gosh that made me emotional - lots of nights trying to settle my youngest with his constant scratching because of his eczema, and the feeling of helplessness that I as his mum can't settle him. Feeling like I should know how to settle him but I can't. But what you say in the poem about having that thread of connection - I'm going to remind myself of that in those dark and lonely nights.
I love that list you wrote about the things that make you you - what a great list to come back to again and again, I need to write one of these lists.
A fantastic post Lauren, I just relate to every single word! xx
That poem pull all my heart strings...we are night weaning this week and there has been a lot of crying and rocking in the dark. Thank you for this whole piece, I love every part of it. I’ve been thinking I should get a new yoga mat but it is the one I used through teacher training and I cannot seem to part with it. Your writing move my soul and heart every time.
Beautiful. I feel like being broken and brilliant all at once is the path we walk in those early years. Now my kids are nine and three my time is more my own and my spirit is so tired. ✨🙏
Coming from my own lineage of hardworking women over here! It's quite the gift of heritage to unravel, and has its own dark underbelly...I'm so curious about the many stories your grandmother and her long years must hold.
What a beautiful list of remembrance. I did something very similar for my new years resolutions this year, more or less freewriting a list of the many ways I support my own thriving (and thus the thriving of my whole family). I really savored the idea of your yoga mat being a sort of traveling homecoming; objects and talismans of safety have felt very near and dear to my heart from the time I was a small girl. Never a yoga mat, but I had a a small ceramic elephant I carried with me for years in my early twenties, and in my late teens I had a small ribbon necklace with an Icelandic symbol of protection on it.
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!
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
So beautiful Lauren, thank you for this reminder. It is so easy to lose ourselves when others’ demands are so loud and we don’t intentionally choose ourselves. It resonates that it is now a different, evolved version of myself that I am returning to, with all of the past selves contained there too. I love your remembering list and feel called to do that, in my mind I’ve been calling it ‘pieces of me’ and also making my joyful practices a priority when I can. I totally feel the guilt you mention and also the diminishing of my own needs when others’ feel larger, more important (or louder). Perhaps there is also something about an underlying control thing too, that they can’t possibly survive if I go off for half a day but of course they do and in fact they thrive! Thank you also for talking to the challenges and discomfort of being at home with children, it feels very validating to hear that it is not the easy option (as can be not so subtly insinuated)! xx
I have some very similar issues with taking that me time, Lauren. I think as well I try to tell myself that work is respite. I know from recent experiences that I need to work and I need that stretch of my creative muscles whether its writing/design but while it is essential, it isn’t truly rest in itself and it isn’t just for me. It’s definitely something I want to try to forge into our weekends that aren’t filled with work: time for ourselves - my partner and I are so frazzled without it. Thank you for the reminder 🙌🏻❤️
Wow 103 years old - that’s amazing longevity! How wonderful to have four generations celebrating all together like that 💕 I’m thinking a lot about grandparents - and grandmothers especially - at the moment. I’d love to hear more about your grandmother’s life some day if you ever feel like sharing some of her story. Extraordinary to have experienced the 1920s and now the 2020s.
I relate so much to this especially yoga mat part, my many mats are my alter, to meditate, to practice Asana, to journal, to work.
This has actually made me cry after another long night of teething and night terrors in my eldest. It's been a poorly house for nearly 3 weeks and I am craving some vitamin ME! (Love this) and realise I need to do this daily. I have lost my temper and took it out on my eldest far too many times, it happens I'm human but it breaks me. Thank you always for your honesty words, encouraging me to lean in and be with myself. ❤️
Wow Lauren. Tears and goosebumps reading this. Thank you for your words as always ♥️ just written my own remembrance list x
Loved this. My 3 boys are now teenagers and I still found this so relatable, albeit at a different season in life. Thank you for this beautiful, heartfelt piece Lauren.
Oh Lauren, the poem at the end, gosh that made me emotional - lots of nights trying to settle my youngest with his constant scratching because of his eczema, and the feeling of helplessness that I as his mum can't settle him. Feeling like I should know how to settle him but I can't. But what you say in the poem about having that thread of connection - I'm going to remind myself of that in those dark and lonely nights.
I love that list you wrote about the things that make you you - what a great list to come back to again and again, I need to write one of these lists.
A fantastic post Lauren, I just relate to every single word! xx
That poem pull all my heart strings...we are night weaning this week and there has been a lot of crying and rocking in the dark. Thank you for this whole piece, I love every part of it. I’ve been thinking I should get a new yoga mat but it is the one I used through teacher training and I cannot seem to part with it. Your writing move my soul and heart every time.
Beautiful. I feel like being broken and brilliant all at once is the path we walk in those early years. Now my kids are nine and three my time is more my own and my spirit is so tired. ✨🙏
This was so beautiful Lauren. Absolutely honest and just… all the feels 🥰🥰
Coming from my own lineage of hardworking women over here! It's quite the gift of heritage to unravel, and has its own dark underbelly...I'm so curious about the many stories your grandmother and her long years must hold.
What a beautiful list of remembrance. I did something very similar for my new years resolutions this year, more or less freewriting a list of the many ways I support my own thriving (and thus the thriving of my whole family). I really savored the idea of your yoga mat being a sort of traveling homecoming; objects and talismans of safety have felt very near and dear to my heart from the time I was a small girl. Never a yoga mat, but I had a a small ceramic elephant I carried with me for years in my early twenties, and in my late teens I had a small ribbon necklace with an Icelandic symbol of protection on it.
This is brilliantly, movingly written. Thank you Lauren.