Learning to Slow Down...

Writing this blog feels like my return to the land of the living. The very fact that its taken me almost a month to complete just proves the relevance of this blog. 

Living on a seasonal island can be hard to navigate. When the island transitions from Summer to Winter, it always has a heavy effect. If you work here, if your business is affected by tourism and the flocks of happy holiday makers that head here each year- when the winter comes around it brings with it a substantial change of pace. 

For me in particular the end of the season always comes with an intense push of work. Taking up weekends and evenings and often meaning disconnection from family and routine. That leaves a mark.  

Being a working mother means a life of guilt. Whatever you do, you are letting one side go. For me at the end of the season, my inner voice shouts words of guilt at me. My kids start to behave differently, getting more emotional and sensitive - and of course I feel its because I am working so much. The workload also has an affect on my marriage. Both of us working so much just means we have hardly any time together as a family, which leads to resentment & disconnection. 

But it isn't only my family that suffers. When you are both an employee and a business owner- this also leads to some push pull. I want to focus on building my business, my passion project which fills up my soul. But with the days filled with work, and my head filled with worries about my family it almost sends me into a creative block. I believe that our brains can only cope with so many things, and when it becomes to much - it shuts down. Thats what happens with burnout. Thats what happens if you suffer from panic attacks or breakdowns. Your brain simply says NO! 

For most of my life, I’ve lived in a masculine way — constantly doing, fixing, pushing, achieving. I set the goals and I hit them. Rest and stillness are things I dont feel comfortable with. Almost like im letting myself down if I stop. Im one of those people that are always busy!  Wearing productivity like a badge of honour.

That is, until I had my children. Until I studied matrescence and found via Mama Rising the concept of feminine and masculine energies. 

I started to see how many of us are living entirely in our masculine energy — chasing progress, structure, control — and how deeply disconnected that leaves us from the softer, slower, cyclical rhythm of our feminine energy.

Showing or being in your feminine energy isn’t weak. It is intuitive. It means knowing when to pull back, to listen, to feel. It means not needing to push through; knowing when to rest before getting back to it.

Sometimes living in your feminine means retreating — disappearing and crawling into that metaphorical cave and going inward. For me, that’s exactly what these last months have been about. I couldn’t post on social media. I couldn’t plan ahead. No matter how many times I wrote the same to-do list, the spark wasn’t there. So I stopped trying to force it. I stopped posting on social media, I stopped saying yes to everything. I went inward, I stayed at home, I read the books, I listened to other women, to other coaches, creatives. Mothers.  I connected with my kids, I learnt from them. Step by step I felt myself feeling better. More aligned. Clearer. 

This is what the Mama Rising principles call balancing the inner and outer authority — learning when to trust your own lived experience, your inner knowing, instead of chasing the noise of “shoulds” and external validation.

And now, slowly, I feel the shift.The energy is turning again — from retreat to rise.Because we’re not meant to live only in one way. The masculine and feminine complete each other; one builds direction and drive, the other brings flow and meaning. We need both.

After all, this isn’t about forgetting ambition or productivity — it’s about making sure that when you are being productive - its in alignment with who you are. 

Winter will always come — on the island, and in our lives. But it’s not an ending; it’s an invitation. A pause. A recalibration.

So if you, too, feel like you’ve lost your spark or your way, maybe it’s not that you’re broken or unmotivated. Maybe it’s just your feminine calling you back — asking you to stop, rest, breathe, and rebuild.

Because when we honour the pause, we don’t fall behind. We find our way back. And when we rise again, we do it with authenticity, not pressure.

If you would like to explore how this concept of feminine and masculine show up for you as a woman and as a mother, book in a 20min mama reset call with me to discover how matrescence coaching could just be that little puzzle piece you've been missing.