Big Sis Briefing: On Rest, Rushes and Coming Home to Yourself

Last week, I spent time with one of my very good friends on our annual mini girls’ trip. We had so much to share and celebrate: how far we’ve come, how much we’ve achieved compared to the promises we made to ourselves not just this year, but the year before that, when we went to Bali and I retreated and healed from a significant personal life event (the Big D).

As we do every year, we held a mirror up to each other. We celebrated, we supported, we reflected back the parts of ourselves we’d forgotten in the rush of time. Claire, being Claire, also held space and challenged some interesting new habits that have emerged for me since then.

She was very much pointing a spotlight on things I think I knew but didn’t really want to admit yet. Because admitting them meant more space with myself, more time, less distraction, less time on my phone. Coming back to my nervous system. Truly, not in a “tick the box, yes I’ve done my meditation for the day” kind of way, but being led by intuition, being intentional in my actions, taking time to reflect and rest before rushing into the next big thing.

Because she knows, as well as I do, that my rush is as much toward all of the goodness I want to create as it is away from the shadowy parts of myself. My ego, bad habits and maladaptive thought patterns that will eventually catch up to me whether I like it or not.

(How many times must I learn my lessons?)

So (and let the record state that I don’t like it) I’m surrendering back into more rest and more space. More patience. More unlearning.

I’m trying to rein in my commitments, my plans, all of the things I was hoping to achieve in such a short period of time. I don’t really know where the rush of it all comes from.

No. That’s a lie. I do know.

I’ll share one of my known sources with you now.

I still hold so much fear and have a scarcity mindset about money, which is completely illogical looking at my savings account but bears all the hallmarks of someone who’s still figuring out how to hold space for money in a mature way, create stability and be financially independent in a way that she hasn’t had to be for a very long time.

Also while she’s decoupled from the stability of full-time corporate life, because it really was the best and only way she could have this space to heal at all.

I’ve been rushing from corporate to new business with the same veracity (maybe more) in fits and starts of energy and passion. Mainly because I wanted to quickly replace my income as much as possible, to prove to everyone that I had made the right choice and also, and mainly, to avoid the discomfort that comes with space with yourself.

I often talk about what my 85-year-old self would say to me right now. Right now, she would say: “Yes, you’re on the right path, my darling, and I’m so proud of you for finally taking the leap. But you have to give yourself more space and more time. You have to go deeper. You have to sit through a little more of the crunchiness, the darker side that I know you don’t really want to look at, but that will be foundational to how you build something sustainable over the long term. You are finally learning about yourself and why you think in the way you do. There is work to be done there first. Please, my love, rest, heal and reconnect with the human being, not the human doing”.

As much as I want it all (yes, today), am I really just operating from my deeply ingrained corporate hustle culture conditioning, or is it truly what I actually want inside at this time?

There’s a joke somewhere here about being the ultimate corporate pick me girl and now picking myself?! But I need to noodle some more on that one…

I still don’t have all of the answers.

I’m still sitting in this as I write from my cafe on another stiflingly hot Brisbane summer morning. Legs sticking to the chair, coffee too hot and the inevitable storm brewing in from the west.

But I’m grateful for good friends who can give you space to decompress and make you think a little bit differently.

I’m committing to winding down now. This is the gift I give myself after a monumental year with so many highs and so many lows. Still working, still tidying up things and keeping some momentum. No new 1:1 clients and no new commitments. They can all wait.

Can I trust myself in this space? In the rest and in the pause? I’m not really quite sure. It’s actually very scary for me to do this and maybe, for you?

It is time to wander home to that little inner child of mine, sit down, allow her to play, allow her to make music, allow her to create. Not for show, not for performance, not for applause, not for validation or love.

Just for her.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ She needs it.

💖