No need to rush: 2023 reflections & recommendations
“No need to rush, no need to sparkle, no need to be anyone but one’s self.” — Virginia Woolf
Everything takes longer than you want until it happens very suddenly.
I thought about this in the weeks leading up to my birthday, which I celebrated on Monday. It’s the first birthday that comes with a distinct feeling of change: I feel different, in the best possible way, a feeling of expansion and new energy. I feel more capable of deep self-compassion and I have a desire to show up for myself every day.
For a long time, I’ve felt on the precipice of deep internal change but unable to get to the other side, as if I were blowing a bubble that wouldn’t pop. Perhaps because a new age approached looming with its intimidating maturity, I began asking myself: What am I gaining from resisting showing up for myself in the ways I want to? I knew there must be benefits. By identifying the positives of staying where I was, I could meet myself there, instead of yelling at myself to be somewhere else. I could admit how much control I had over my circumstances. I began wanting to show up for mys…