This is such a beautiful reminder... and I know how important it is... and yet still it feels like such a struggle to allow myself to do the thing! I’m determined to add little bits gently though this year and the first priority is to join my local gym and start lifting weights again, and also rekindle my yoga practice. I know they will make me a way more patient and loving human because I will feel replenished. It excites me to think of it! Xx
It IS a struggle, isn't it??? Especially for us Mamas. The little bits and the gentleness were key to keeping my self-doubt tamped down to a bearable level. Wish you so much joy on your journey. xo
What an excellent read. I’m going to journal on this tonight because I fear some of me has been lost in the hustle of life. That said, I’ve been fantasizing about being outdoors more, so maybe it really is as simple as that. Thank you. 🩷
I loved this post Stacey - especially the part when you say 'so what' and you do it anyway. Doing things that bring you joy and make you feel brave and bold sounds like the perfect antidote to the usual hollow new year's resolutions that we think we should make.
Ah - and there you found the nub of it, didn't you? *That we think we should make*. So much of what we all do is just rubbish we *think* we ought to do. The story is the same for the things we think we *ought not* do. Turns out, I think, that most of the time that stuff is all in our head, and even when it isn't - everyone else is too absorbed in their own rubbish heap to notice you escaping yours. So I figure, I might as well!
Love this so much! I actually returned to a childhood hobby with my whole heart last year so my initial thought after reading the first part of this newsletter was "go me! I've already done this." Then I was reminded of another hobby I keep writing about in my journal, that I want to return to but for some reason do not. I even have a wishlist of related books but for some reason it still remains abandoned. So I left your newsletter mid-read and ordered two of the books (second-hand) on my wishlist and that in itself sparked joy as it's the first step in coming home to that part of myself. Then I returned to your newsletter and read to the end and again felt joy. 😊 Thank you for this powerful and necessary reminder, for sharing your own return to joy and the reminder that it isn't about trying to reclaim lost youth but rather reconnecting with the deepest, truest parts of who we are. 😊
Leanne, you made me tear up. These tiny seeds of joy really will self-sow into fields of wildflowers if we just give them a little space and care and grace.
I love your visual of reconnecting. I hate this whole notion of 'finding' oneself. We're not lost, even when we most feel like it. Our selves, the best parts of who we are, are always here. Sometimes they're just buried under a mountain of self-doubt, fear and 'shoulds'.
Would love to hear more about what you're diving into next!
"Our selves, the best parts of who we are, are always here. Sometimes they're just buried under a mountain of self-doubt, fear and 'shoulds'." 100% THIS!!! My two books arrived today. One is a vegan cookie recipe book and the other is a "healthy" cookie recipe book. I want to get back to baking but thought maybe it would be easier to stick with one type of baking initially. Thank you for being the spark to reignite this particular form of joy for me 😊
I'm glad I found this post. I am the mother of a one-year-old and am also an author, with an overdue novel that I still haven't submitted to my publisher. I spent months refusing to acknowledge the change that was needed in my life to be both happy as a writer and as a parent. I would layer both responsibilities, writing on my phone whilst nursing her, not able to do either well. For me, this year is less about layering and more about being in one place with both feet and both hands and my eyes open, whether that's stacking bricks with my daughter, or losing myself in the edit of my book.
What a gorgeous read and reminder! I had a really similar experience in 2023 after spending most of my 20's working with no space for joy. It's been a slow, uncomfortable at times, process, but I'm learning to make time for similar things too. Something I realised last year is how fundamental feeling strong in my body is, this year a big one for me is gaining more strength through weight training also. Thank you for being honest about the discomfort that comes with this sort of stuff too, it can feel tricky and sometimes lonely to navigate! x
The loneliness is a big one, isn't it? I think we are too quick to discard the difficult parts and that's where the loneliness comes in. If you feel like you can't be seen to be *trying*, never mind failing . . . Ya. It's been a tough go and at times, to be honest, pretty dark. If I come home to myself fully, will that end my marriage? Will it make me a bad mum? Am I selfish to want to be - just for a moment - the centre of my own life? But it has been a year, and so far - the sky hasn't fallen. Hehe. For now, anyway!
I love the idea of strength as a goal. Weightlifting is such a meditative practice for me, and so powerful in that it has such a concrete feedback loop. So much of our modern lives lack that direct correlation between effort and outcome. It's a beautifully grounding practice. Have so much fun with it!!
An excellent read, Stacey, thank you! I recently started a similar experiment, as I'd come to a realisation that my life doesn't make any room for me. All my time was going to my children, my partner, my dog, my home, my job, and it was getting me quite depressed.
On Christmas day (chosen for no other reason that it was a Monday and I didn't want to wait until new year), I identified seven things that I wanted to do more of and resolved to spend at least 5 minutes on each habit per day.
The similarity to your list is quite uncanny, actually:
Journal and reflect
Learn a new language (te reo māori)
Write more
Take more photos
Improve my fitness
Establish a daily drawing practice
Learn to play the ukulele
Many of these are things are thing I gave up in my 20s, and like you, I've somehow convinced myself that it would be selfish to allow myself these things when there are my other things that need my attention. I've also come to the realisation that this is ridiculous: I don't want to spend the rest of my life not being me.
I'm excited to do things for me again, and am not allowing myself to feel guilty. "Coming back to me" is such an excellent way of framing it
Ooph - *my life doesn't make any room for me* that hit home! All those things sound like so much fun. It's been a strange and weirdly uncomfortable process and also overwhelmingly joyful in what are otherwise mundane moments. I've realized there's a lot of fear in there - fear of changing "too much" for the people closest to me . . . but then I remember my hubby fell in love with the tattooed guitar-playing painter, not the rural soccer-mom I am now, so it's probably ok if I call part of her back into my soccer-mom present. It's good for our kids to watch us navigate this path home, too, so that they will know the way should they ever need it.
A great and timely piece as the new year turns. Thank you. Booked myself a solo theatre ticket for something I spotted yesterday after reading. Here's to a year filled with more of doing what makes us feel good.
total awesomeness. i love that, thankyouverymuch ! I restacked Stacey, you will find what I wrote there. Thank you for being.......becoming and having been.......thank you for you!
It's amazing to witness your courage in breaking free from the constraints that held back your passions. The way you embraced your desires without seeking external permission is a powerful testament to the authenticity of your journey. Thank you for sharing your beautiful and transformative journey with us.
What a beautiful and insightful piece. Wholeheartedly agree with your premise. One of the biggest things I've learned about mindfulness meditation the past couple years is practicing mindfulness is a potent tool for nurturing an examined life, involving focused, non-judgmental attention to the present moment. Since I've been practicing mindfulness for the past year, it has enhanced my awareness of thoughts and emotions, enabling calm, rational responses.
I started reading The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis last night and was struck by this quote. "If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. " So glad you are loving yourself!
What a lovely take. I'm so curious about that push / pull between un/selfishness and this sense that being a whole person in the world is an inherently good thing for both ourselves and the souls around us. It's something I've been trying to untangle my entire 12 years as a (rather reluctant) homemaker. I haven't unknotted it yet, but I think there are a lot of interesting threads to be pulled ...
We have much in common. I was a reluctant retiree ay 60, but could no longer stomach what I was being asked to do. The Covid years were CRAZY at work. I am slowly getting used to not having to do something 'productive' - which my brain equates to what will impress someone else and make money, not happiness or free time - and hope to get back to painting very soon. I painted so much while working, but when you're at home all the time, the stress releases feel very different. Of course, there's no damn STRESS but my brain is taking its' own sweet time figuring it out. Thinking it's what my sisters went through when their kids left for college? Hmm.
Oops, forgot the link for Weight for Glory, there's a PDF online. https://www.wheelersburg.net/Downloads/Lewis%20Glory.pdf Here's my NEXT favorite part. I'm having to read it slowly to absorb it. I am not as quick as his Oxford audience in the 40s, for sure. ;) "These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years. Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modem philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth."
Especially soothing since I've spent the last six months MOURNING living in Germany and trying desperately to figure out a way to get back there rather than here. (I'm in Georgia now.) My husband patiently points out that even if we moved back, the TIME is past, all of our friends are gone, it won't be the same, we just need to remember and be glad we had such a happy time. And he's right. I'm going through the perfect sehnsucht storm for lots of things, and they're gradually getting distant and bearable again. And now I'll end, sorry for being so chatty. It helps to put down what my brain is learning as I go along. ;)
Transitions are tough, aren't they? And so many of these things tend to come all at once. As my mum used to say, It never rains; it pours. Even if we are moving towards our heart's desire, change is often painful.
And sometimes, no matter our best intentions, the universe has other plans for us. I tell myself there's no use fighting it and do my best to lean in and trust that 'whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should' - m.e.
Beautiful words Stacey. I love your reclamation, and of doing it without asking permission! Time feels really precious to me with two young kids who are in my presence more or less from sunrise to sundown, but actively pouring myself into my personal passions when the house settles for the night is sustaining me in this season. I look forward to reading more of your writing this year ✨
Oh Stephanie those early days of melting boundaries between sea and shore of mother and child are so beautiful and also so freaking difficult! I used to get up before dawn to try to steal time for myself - I swear the stinkers had radar. No sooner than I'd poor my coffee I'd hear tiny feet on the stairs. Mine are 10 and nearly 13 now, so I have the luxury of more time to do these things. But even doing them with your kids can be beautiful and shows them that it's normal for mama to have needs and passions beyond the needs of others, as precious as they are. Good luck!!
I really loved reading this, thank you Stacey. It is a brilliant reminder to find those personal pieces of joy that are strewn about and bring them back together, front and centre. The idea of selfishness resonates and I think that has been underlying much of my thinking subconsciously. I love the idea of being bold in joy and that modelling it wholeheartedly is really the best thing we can do for our children xx
Rooting out the selfish element was key for me this year. No lie, it's not gone, I still feel it on some days especially when I know there are so many other pressing things I *could* be doing. But being curious about it and simply noticing it, instead of judging myself for it, has allowed me to stay more or less consistently practicing my joy all year.
total awesomeness. i love that, thankyouverymuch ! I restacked Stacey, you will find what I wrote there. Thank you for being.......becoming and having been.......thank you for you!
This is such a beautiful reminder... and I know how important it is... and yet still it feels like such a struggle to allow myself to do the thing! I’m determined to add little bits gently though this year and the first priority is to join my local gym and start lifting weights again, and also rekindle my yoga practice. I know they will make me a way more patient and loving human because I will feel replenished. It excites me to think of it! Xx
It IS a struggle, isn't it??? Especially for us Mamas. The little bits and the gentleness were key to keeping my self-doubt tamped down to a bearable level. Wish you so much joy on your journey. xo
What an excellent read. I’m going to journal on this tonight because I fear some of me has been lost in the hustle of life. That said, I’ve been fantasizing about being outdoors more, so maybe it really is as simple as that. Thank you. 🩷
It happens without much fanfare, doesn't it? One day you look around and ask - where did I go??
Spending more time outside sounds like a lovely place to start. xo
I loved this post Stacey - especially the part when you say 'so what' and you do it anyway. Doing things that bring you joy and make you feel brave and bold sounds like the perfect antidote to the usual hollow new year's resolutions that we think we should make.
Ah - and there you found the nub of it, didn't you? *That we think we should make*. So much of what we all do is just rubbish we *think* we ought to do. The story is the same for the things we think we *ought not* do. Turns out, I think, that most of the time that stuff is all in our head, and even when it isn't - everyone else is too absorbed in their own rubbish heap to notice you escaping yours. So I figure, I might as well!
Love this so much! I actually returned to a childhood hobby with my whole heart last year so my initial thought after reading the first part of this newsletter was "go me! I've already done this." Then I was reminded of another hobby I keep writing about in my journal, that I want to return to but for some reason do not. I even have a wishlist of related books but for some reason it still remains abandoned. So I left your newsletter mid-read and ordered two of the books (second-hand) on my wishlist and that in itself sparked joy as it's the first step in coming home to that part of myself. Then I returned to your newsletter and read to the end and again felt joy. 😊 Thank you for this powerful and necessary reminder, for sharing your own return to joy and the reminder that it isn't about trying to reclaim lost youth but rather reconnecting with the deepest, truest parts of who we are. 😊
Leanne, you made me tear up. These tiny seeds of joy really will self-sow into fields of wildflowers if we just give them a little space and care and grace.
I love your visual of reconnecting. I hate this whole notion of 'finding' oneself. We're not lost, even when we most feel like it. Our selves, the best parts of who we are, are always here. Sometimes they're just buried under a mountain of self-doubt, fear and 'shoulds'.
Would love to hear more about what you're diving into next!
Thanks for sharing. xo -s
"Our selves, the best parts of who we are, are always here. Sometimes they're just buried under a mountain of self-doubt, fear and 'shoulds'." 100% THIS!!! My two books arrived today. One is a vegan cookie recipe book and the other is a "healthy" cookie recipe book. I want to get back to baking but thought maybe it would be easier to stick with one type of baking initially. Thank you for being the spark to reignite this particular form of joy for me 😊
I'm glad I found this post. I am the mother of a one-year-old and am also an author, with an overdue novel that I still haven't submitted to my publisher. I spent months refusing to acknowledge the change that was needed in my life to be both happy as a writer and as a parent. I would layer both responsibilities, writing on my phone whilst nursing her, not able to do either well. For me, this year is less about layering and more about being in one place with both feet and both hands and my eyes open, whether that's stacking bricks with my daughter, or losing myself in the edit of my book.
This is beautiful, Abigail. xo
What a gorgeous read and reminder! I had a really similar experience in 2023 after spending most of my 20's working with no space for joy. It's been a slow, uncomfortable at times, process, but I'm learning to make time for similar things too. Something I realised last year is how fundamental feeling strong in my body is, this year a big one for me is gaining more strength through weight training also. Thank you for being honest about the discomfort that comes with this sort of stuff too, it can feel tricky and sometimes lonely to navigate! x
The loneliness is a big one, isn't it? I think we are too quick to discard the difficult parts and that's where the loneliness comes in. If you feel like you can't be seen to be *trying*, never mind failing . . . Ya. It's been a tough go and at times, to be honest, pretty dark. If I come home to myself fully, will that end my marriage? Will it make me a bad mum? Am I selfish to want to be - just for a moment - the centre of my own life? But it has been a year, and so far - the sky hasn't fallen. Hehe. For now, anyway!
I love the idea of strength as a goal. Weightlifting is such a meditative practice for me, and so powerful in that it has such a concrete feedback loop. So much of our modern lives lack that direct correlation between effort and outcome. It's a beautifully grounding practice. Have so much fun with it!!
An excellent read, Stacey, thank you! I recently started a similar experiment, as I'd come to a realisation that my life doesn't make any room for me. All my time was going to my children, my partner, my dog, my home, my job, and it was getting me quite depressed.
On Christmas day (chosen for no other reason that it was a Monday and I didn't want to wait until new year), I identified seven things that I wanted to do more of and resolved to spend at least 5 minutes on each habit per day.
The similarity to your list is quite uncanny, actually:
Journal and reflect
Learn a new language (te reo māori)
Write more
Take more photos
Improve my fitness
Establish a daily drawing practice
Learn to play the ukulele
Many of these are things are thing I gave up in my 20s, and like you, I've somehow convinced myself that it would be selfish to allow myself these things when there are my other things that need my attention. I've also come to the realisation that this is ridiculous: I don't want to spend the rest of my life not being me.
I'm excited to do things for me again, and am not allowing myself to feel guilty. "Coming back to me" is such an excellent way of framing it
Ooph - *my life doesn't make any room for me* that hit home! All those things sound like so much fun. It's been a strange and weirdly uncomfortable process and also overwhelmingly joyful in what are otherwise mundane moments. I've realized there's a lot of fear in there - fear of changing "too much" for the people closest to me . . . but then I remember my hubby fell in love with the tattooed guitar-playing painter, not the rural soccer-mom I am now, so it's probably ok if I call part of her back into my soccer-mom present. It's good for our kids to watch us navigate this path home, too, so that they will know the way should they ever need it.
This brought me so much joy. Saying yes to all the little things that fill up our hearts. 🫶
Meee too! Loving hearing all the morsels of joy others are claiming. Beautiful.
A great and timely piece as the new year turns. Thank you. Booked myself a solo theatre ticket for something I spotted yesterday after reading. Here's to a year filled with more of doing what makes us feel good.
Oh, Sue, that makes my heart sing!
total awesomeness. i love that, thankyouverymuch ! I restacked Stacey, you will find what I wrote there. Thank you for being.......becoming and having been.......thank you for you!
Appreciate you so much.
It's amazing to witness your courage in breaking free from the constraints that held back your passions. The way you embraced your desires without seeking external permission is a powerful testament to the authenticity of your journey. Thank you for sharing your beautiful and transformative journey with us.
What a beautiful and insightful piece. Wholeheartedly agree with your premise. One of the biggest things I've learned about mindfulness meditation the past couple years is practicing mindfulness is a potent tool for nurturing an examined life, involving focused, non-judgmental attention to the present moment. Since I've been practicing mindfulness for the past year, it has enhanced my awareness of thoughts and emotions, enabling calm, rational responses.
So beautifully said! Yes - non-judgemental attention - such a powerful tool. Not easy to cultivate but so worth the effort.
I started reading The Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis last night and was struck by this quote. "If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. " So glad you are loving yourself!
What a lovely take. I'm so curious about that push / pull between un/selfishness and this sense that being a whole person in the world is an inherently good thing for both ourselves and the souls around us. It's something I've been trying to untangle my entire 12 years as a (rather reluctant) homemaker. I haven't unknotted it yet, but I think there are a lot of interesting threads to be pulled ...
We have much in common. I was a reluctant retiree ay 60, but could no longer stomach what I was being asked to do. The Covid years were CRAZY at work. I am slowly getting used to not having to do something 'productive' - which my brain equates to what will impress someone else and make money, not happiness or free time - and hope to get back to painting very soon. I painted so much while working, but when you're at home all the time, the stress releases feel very different. Of course, there's no damn STRESS but my brain is taking its' own sweet time figuring it out. Thinking it's what my sisters went through when their kids left for college? Hmm.
Oops, forgot the link for Weight for Glory, there's a PDF online. https://www.wheelersburg.net/Downloads/Lewis%20Glory.pdf Here's my NEXT favorite part. I'm having to read it slowly to absorb it. I am not as quick as his Oxford audience in the 40s, for sure. ;) "These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited. Do you think I am trying to weave a spell? Perhaps I am; but remember your fairy tales. Spells are used for breaking enchantments as well as for inducing them. And you and I have need of the strongest spell that can be found to wake us from the evil enchantment of worldliness which has been laid upon us for nearly a hundred years. Almost our whole education has been directed to silencing this shy, persistent, inner voice; almost all our modem philosophies have been devised to convince us that the good of man is to be found on this earth."
Especially soothing since I've spent the last six months MOURNING living in Germany and trying desperately to figure out a way to get back there rather than here. (I'm in Georgia now.) My husband patiently points out that even if we moved back, the TIME is past, all of our friends are gone, it won't be the same, we just need to remember and be glad we had such a happy time. And he's right. I'm going through the perfect sehnsucht storm for lots of things, and they're gradually getting distant and bearable again. And now I'll end, sorry for being so chatty. It helps to put down what my brain is learning as I go along. ;)
Transitions are tough, aren't they? And so many of these things tend to come all at once. As my mum used to say, It never rains; it pours. Even if we are moving towards our heart's desire, change is often painful.
And sometimes, no matter our best intentions, the universe has other plans for us. I tell myself there's no use fighting it and do my best to lean in and trust that 'whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should' - m.e.
xo
Beautiful words Stacey. I love your reclamation, and of doing it without asking permission! Time feels really precious to me with two young kids who are in my presence more or less from sunrise to sundown, but actively pouring myself into my personal passions when the house settles for the night is sustaining me in this season. I look forward to reading more of your writing this year ✨
Oh Stephanie those early days of melting boundaries between sea and shore of mother and child are so beautiful and also so freaking difficult! I used to get up before dawn to try to steal time for myself - I swear the stinkers had radar. No sooner than I'd poor my coffee I'd hear tiny feet on the stairs. Mine are 10 and nearly 13 now, so I have the luxury of more time to do these things. But even doing them with your kids can be beautiful and shows them that it's normal for mama to have needs and passions beyond the needs of others, as precious as they are. Good luck!!
I really loved reading this, thank you Stacey. It is a brilliant reminder to find those personal pieces of joy that are strewn about and bring them back together, front and centre. The idea of selfishness resonates and I think that has been underlying much of my thinking subconsciously. I love the idea of being bold in joy and that modelling it wholeheartedly is really the best thing we can do for our children xx
Rooting out the selfish element was key for me this year. No lie, it's not gone, I still feel it on some days especially when I know there are so many other pressing things I *could* be doing. But being curious about it and simply noticing it, instead of judging myself for it, has allowed me to stay more or less consistently practicing my joy all year.
Yes I can absolutely imagine that it is a practice, thank you for these nuggets of wisdom xx
total awesomeness. i love that, thankyouverymuch ! I restacked Stacey, you will find what I wrote there. Thank you for being.......becoming and having been.......thank you for you!