Read: The World Does Not Need More Frantic Women

For the last couple of months, I have driven myself crazy creating relentless promotion and event deadlines (not to mention cash outlays). My daily demands (laments) were that I needed to promote my course for women living from chronic illness. I also needed to promote my Relationship Workshop. I needed to get along to some networking events. I needed to get some new branding, and I absolutely had to hire a graphic designer! My business was going to flail and fail without one. Why? Well one of my big assumptions was that I could not promote my course to a breast cancer organisations without an engaging flyer.

Under the weight of these “must do’s” I became anxious, overwhelmed, edgy and to be honest I wasn’t a lot of fun to be around. Does this sound familiar? OK, you may not need a graphic designer, but I am sure you have a list of things you just have to do before you can relax. Before you can let go and put anything down you just need someone to…? You just need to achieve…?

For me, it was time for a good old-fashioned “talking to” myself. Time to get totally honest with myself. The marketing and positioning of my business really wears me down sometimes, while the client contact lifts me up. So I opened my heart to myself. I asked myself :

∞ What do I really need?

∞ What do I really wanted?

∞ What am I afraid of?

Do one hard thing

I did the one hard thing I had been desperately avoiding. I phoned Think Pink (a breast cancer support group) and had a great conversation with a program manager about my work and the course I have designed. Apparently, she was quite willing to talk to me even though I didn’t have a beautiful, compelling, graphically designed flyer.

Who knew?

A phone call was all I needed to do in order to make the connection. Because my authentic self is who they are connecting with. I mean really, you think I would know that!

That done, I did the next thing my heart wanted. I re-purposed my graphic design budget into a new clothes and lingerie budget. And I must say I felt a lot better!

I took the rest of April off. I slept a lot. I listened to music and started to dance again in my living room. Phew! Now things were looking up. I read books, ate fresh fruit and visited my beloved in Sydney for a Blue Mountains Easter rendezvous. I started to float in contentment. It wasn’t the ‘things’ that made me happy. It was the attention I paid myself; the self-care and nourishment. Out from under my inner tyrant I found myself renewing.

The world does not need more frantic women

The world does not need more frantic women. This is my core message in my Finding Feminine Maturity course. I mean it’s pretty obvious right? 

The world does not need more frantic people. But let’s just start with us, because there is beauty in the connection between women. We can love and support each other. We can encourage each other to take a break. And let me just put it out there: self-care is not optional, it is mandatory for your sanity. Without it, you slip and slide all over the place.

There is no reason, at all, for any of us to be strained or driven to the edge. We do not live in a war zone. We are not trying to ‘survive life’. Sure, it feels like that sometimes, but the feeling is the message, not the truth. We have education, intelligence, capacity and wealth.

We will not lead healthy, happy and nourishing lives if we are riddled with stress, fatigue and anxiety. We need to be accountable for our energy. Don’t worry about what others are doing with theirs, get focussed on what you are doing with yours.

Take the time to ask yourself what you really need, from you?

 How can you care for your beautiful inner feminine?

The world needs our feminine. It needs our softness, our sassiness, our love and our capacity to receive love. And most of all, we need our self-love.

PS: I would highly recommend firing your own inner tyrant too!

Image: Patty Maher @pattymaher