beyond the usual metrics
I’ve found myself having a bit of an out of body experience this holiday season. As if I’m hovering over, watching myself go about the business of being a maker during this thing we call the holidays.
Mind you, this observer self of me is not a casual, uninvested observer. She is taking notes. Assessing. She’s not a task master though. She’s curious. She’s proud. She’s cheering me on.
And what she is most proud of is not found in the usual metrics. What she is most proud of is how well I’ve learned to take care of myself.
It’s been a long road.
Steeped in hustle culture (as we all are), it’s been a focus of these last few years for me to unlearn + repattern myself into a more sustainable way of being.
I look back at the me of three years ago. In addition the running a one-woman handmade business during the holidays, she was teaching yoga at multiple studios, commuting to the Bay Area on the regular, and picked up a local retail job.
She was hustling hard.
It was all she knew to do.
When the world fell apart and everything paused, amongst many, myself included, there was a great reassessment. How, really, do we want to live?
And the rewiring + rearranging of thoughts, mindsets, patterns, beliefs, actions was not a passive or comfortable process.
There was real work + real confrontation happening there amidst 3 hour morning routines, midday naps, and saying no. Permission slips were written and rescinded on the regular.
And that hustle, while it still rears its ugly head from time to time, its power over me is greatly diminished.
While the me that hovers above it all may see me at a lot of markets (maybe too many) and coming out with new collections and late night work sessions, she also sees slow Monday mornings, sleeping in, snuggling with cats, saying no, moving through work with joy instead of frenzy.
Over time, these quiet moments and care-taking acts have become the norm. They are not the outliers anymore. They are the non-negotiables.