Content note: includes talk of disordered eating. Please note and skip if that is a sensitive topic for you.
Moving at your own pace is a way of honouring yourself and treating yourself as valuable. It communicates high self worth and, it’s hard to do, if you’re a people pleaser.
Several years ago, I was running a teacher training and there was this remarkable student in the group called Ashlea. I had this little exercise for us all to do at the end of the first weekend, where we got crafty and made a poster from a big pile of words that I had cut from magazines and newspapers and cards. They had also been asked to bring in some words that were meaningful for them - words to live by, quotes, song lyrics, a paragraph from a book, whatever. The invitation was for them to stand up and share a little about their poster, tell a story if they wanted to, or read or whatever so that we might hear about inspires them, what principals guide them and what they value.
It took my breath away to watch this group of people choose to share something of themselves with eachother. Each person was so brave and vulnerable and honest and you could feel the whole room listening. So I was really primed by the time Ashlea got up and read this quote about everyone running their own race in their own time zone.
It really struck a chord with me. I think it was just the honesty of her delivery most of all. I felt a tear in my eye and my heart clenched. At that point in my life, aged 35 or so, I hadn’t given much thought to whether or not I was operating on my own time line or another’s… I guess, I thought I was happy with the pace of my life and that I hadn’t ever really found it difficult to keep pace with my peers or what society had asked of me. But I’ve returned time and again to what Ashlea shared in the years since and I’ve started to interrogate that idea a little more.
Have I been running my own race? Have I been keeping my own pace?
Here is a snapshot of Teenage me:
Year 7, 8, 9 at school, with whatever academic workload that entailed, alongside all the emotional and hormonal load of my changing body and navigating high school relationships. Plus, I was a high achiever, a perfectionist, had some disordered eating going on and was driving an hour and a half each way from my home twice a week and every Saturday for Ballet, including a couple of years at the Australian Ballet School where the pressure felt high and my anxiety about it would see me binge eating all week.
A recurring fantasy I entertained at that time was that I might have a small accident of some kind - perhaps just an almost-harmless-for-all-involved-except-maybe-the-car, car crash that might put me into a coma for a week or two, so that I could have a break. I had it all worked out: I wouldn’t have to go to ballet, I wouldn’t have to complete my school work, I’d be allowed to just be. And then I would wake up and everyone would be so relieved that I was okay that they wouldn’t ask too much of me. I might be able to just read some books and go for walks and take it easy for a while, while I got better.
Reflecting on that now, I can see that teenage me did feel enormous pressure and stress. I wasn’t running my own race or setting my own pace. I was a chronic people pleaser. Everything I was doing, I was doing to earn the approval of the adult people in my life that I cared about - my parents, my teachers, my ballet teachers. If you’d asked me what I would have preferred to do with my Saturday mornings, I would have told you I’d like to stay at home and watch Saturday Disney and have poached eggs on vegemite toast with my fam. Instead, I was up at dawn (and so was my endlessly hardworking Mum) riddled with anxiety about my 9am class at Southbank with the Aus Ballet. I didn’t enjoy the classes there, as I didn’t really feel part of the group. The majority of the other girls knew eachother because they were full time dancing (part time school) and all were together at Danceworld or the College of the Arts… So I felt like an outsider. But it was such an honour to go there and it was the kind of opportunity that only comes at that time, at that age and if you are going to go on and become a serious ballerina, then that is the first step. It wasn’t like you could say “I’m not ready for this, I’ll come back in a couple of years”, the chance would be gone. So I just felt that I had to go on. But I rebelled in other ways. I ate my fear during the week when no one was looking. Snuck into the pantry and just consumed anything I could find. I didn’t throw up because I don’t have much of a gag reflex. So I just binged. At the time, I didn’t connect the two things in the way I’m doing now, so i’m not sure now, so many years later, how accurate it is to say one thing led to the other… but I think binge eating was just my way of trying to cope with the feeling of being overwhelmed by my life. The feeling was, of just wanting to take the pedal off the accelerator.
But was it wrong for my Mum to encourage me to keep up with the Aus Ballet School, to keep trying? What devoted parent wouldn’t try to help her little girl to fulfil her dream of becoming a ballerina if she had the potential? And I wasn’t saying ‘No, I don’t want to go’ because honestly, I didn’t know I didn’t want to go. Because I only knew, I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. And so I thought I wanted to go. I wanted to love it. Because me loving it would have made everyone feel that it was worthwhile - all the driving to Melbourne three times a week for years and years and the sacrifices of the family to have Mum away all the time helping me. But I didn’t really love it. I did love dancing classes with my friends. I loved performing too. I just didn’t like competitions and I didn’t like the competitive environment at the ballet school. But that’s only clear now. Then, I had mixed feelings about dancing and I couldn’t possibly admit them without hurting someone so I kept them to myself and unconsciously self sabotaged with food. Which also made me feel awful about myself when I put on my tights and looked in the mirror in the dance room.
Going beyond my limits in order to please others, is something I have struggled to shake. Unsurprisingly perhaps, given my patterning, in workplaces i’ve often found myself doing extra, even at a cost to my family, for nothing more than to earn approval or recognition. I’ve wanted to please. Be a person that’s indispensible. Highly valued. I’d often stay at my desk the latest, or skip lunch, or fail to drink any water because I would prioritize other tasks.
It also would show up in how hard I’d go to achieve certain chores in my home life - you know, that ‘no rest till it’s all clean, or all presents are wrapped, or whatever’. As though I had to earn the right to rest. Not worthy of rest unless I have gone above and beyond.
I’m slowly, now, learning to go at a pace that’s more my own, that honours my own ebbs and flows of energy. Daily, when I feel tired, I make myself a cup of tea and sit down and drink it. I ask for 15 or 30 mins to rest if Bobby is home and can make it happen for me and I put my feet up - literally do Viparita Karani pose ie. ‘legs up the wall’, lying on my bed.
I realise now, to say ‘this is enough for today’ , or, ‘I’m ready for a sit down and a cup of tea’ is how I can value myself highly. I don’t have to push to exhaustion point to be able to take a break. We’re worthy of rest, no matter how productive I’ve been. I can take a midday nap on a pile of washing. That’s allowed.
And not only am I, and are we, worthy of rest during our days, we also have a right to take our time across our life. We don’t have to do life according to anyone else’s timeline or expectation. Sometimes it might be okay to let an opportunity slip you by, if you don’t feel ready or called to it - no matter what a high honour it may be.
We don’t have to achieve anything at all in our lifetime to be worthy of rest, love, belonging, approval. As in, there’s no need to have an impressive job, or build an empire or have a family, or whatever messages you might have received from white supremacy culture growing up.
At this point it feels perhaps important to state my positionality; extraordinarily privileged. I’m a white, heterosexual female, with University education and a supportive family, healthy body, living in a beautiful part of the world, within an affluent society. I mean, I did ballet for goodness sake! My Mum drove me there because she loved me so and wanted to see me shine and share my gifts with the world. It seems unreasonable of me to even utter another word without first saying, thank you for all these blessings. And then, to own that I’m not oppressed by this society in the same cruel way that many marginalised folks are, due to their lack of privilege and how they are dismissed, disregarded and devalued in this neoliberalist, Capitalist nightmare we live in that gives priority to privilege. It’s true that society doesn’t value folks highly who are homeless, disabled, unemployed, unwell, elderly or marginalized due to race or economic status or myriad other factors but that doesn’t mean that those folks aren’t valuable. It just means we live in a callous world that fails often to recognise the inherent worthiness and value of every human and instead treats those with privilege as more important than those without.
We all suffer within a culture like this. Even those with privilege can be harmed by it. Feeling that we must achieve a level of ‘success’ in order to be valued undermines and eats away at our self worth and our inherent sense of having a right to be just as we are. It’s what creates this idea that we have to keep pace and keep pushing when we might need to rest.
It creates, what some call ‘Grind Culture’ which is for me a perfect word for it. It reminds me of grinding my teeth, which is something that I involuntarily started doing when I was breastfeeding. Getting up in the night to feed babies is a grind, literally. My body so craved sleep and the warmth of my bed that I would kind of hunch over and grit my teeth in order to stop myself from falling asleep on my children. I remember that it was punishing. But I was also doing other things (like work) all day long, which I didn’t know how to stop. And I didn’t want to stop. Because I was trying to keep pace with my old pre-kid life and didn’t want to fade out of my role into the abyss of Motherhood, which to me, did not seem to be a very valuable role… Not because I don’t value, treasure being a Mother. But because it just seems kind of unimportant. Probably because there’s not much status or financial reward attached to it, which means something in this society. Also, without accessing support, it’s often lonely and dare I say it, boring.
It was too much, in the end. I didn’t realize, of course, until the pandemic hit. But the fact that it was such a welcome relief to me to have the world stop did say a lot. Initially in all the panic and uncertainty my pattern of hustling for worthiness continued (and became grossly worse) but after a while I finally stopped grinding.
Since then, I’ve been working on standing in my worth.
I’ve been trying to live into the truth that we are already whole and part of the whole and there’s nothing we need to do to be so. And we can rest. We can take our time. We won’t be letting anyone down.
You are worthy. Just for existing. You don’t have to prove a thing.
That’s the affirmation.
Sometimes you might do something brilliant to uplift the world. Sometimes, you might just exist. Just the way you are. In either case, you are worthy.
Sometimes I’m concerned that without the external motivators for action - like striving to please or impress or win approval - I might become uninspired, apathetic. The fear is, that I’ll become ‘lazy’ and a burden. But (after watching the Crown!) I realise that’s just the messaging from the Neoliberalist narrative.
When rested and moving at a healthy pace I find that I’m inspired aplenty! I have much more zest for life with my family, which is important to me. My ‘mojo is back’ is how it feels. I’m less going through the motions and more energized to the tasks. One massive tell is how I enjoy making meals. When I’m depleted, making dinner is such a DRAG. When rested, it’s a joy.
I’m also inspired to write, which feels important to me.
And my meditation and yoga practice has become more personal, more intimate and much more weird and unimpressive looking… cos I’m not doing it to please anyone but me.
I’m studying things that interest me. Just carving out a bit of time every week because weekly is all I can manage with everything else going on in the household without it becoming a stress.
I’m valuing my own well being enough to say, “I’m at capacity for now, I’ll return to this when I’ve had a break or when I’m ready”.
And comparison is losing it’s grip on me. Because I’m not racing anyone else. I’m doing my own thing. It has opened up more joy for what others are doing too.
I’m fortunate that I’m not a single mother. I have the enormous privilege of being able to share the workload of parenting with Bobby. And, he is earning the moula to keep a roof over our head, while I look after the small folk.
I love teaching once a week at the moment, when the kids are in bush school and next year, I’ll add more when school and preschool starts for my little people. I look forward to it.
What I’ll do exactly is the next question… What outside work might feel meaningful and fulfilling, and allow me to operate from a place of deep worthiness? Could I share more yoga? I’m thrilled to be planning a retreat for September… Could i make that my life’s work?
Tell me, can we really live in such an abundant way in this day and age?