Hello beautiful soul
You are a precious gift.
Not just to me (but that too!), to the humans you interact with and to the world.
And given we are now aligned that that is what you are, let's talk about gifts in general.
Not the kind that comes in a box. Not the kind with a ribbon on it.
The kind that actually costs something. The kind that requires you to look honestly at what you need, what the people you love need, and what the world needs from you — and then decide to give it anyway.
I was doing this exercise with one of the groups I belong to recently (side note: don't get it twisted, I am ALWAYS working on me in some way). It was so simple, and yet so profound. There are three levels of gifting.
Level one. What can you give yourself?
This one sounds easy. It is not.
Because womaning — actual womaning — means we are constantly changing. And I do not just mean emotionally. I mean physiologically. Hormonally. Cyclically. The woman I am in my follicular phase is not the woman I am when the Alchemist shows up.
(side note: I turn our cycle into archetypes that we get to play with in my programs - The Explorer, The Creator, The Alchemist and The Visionary, click here to see which one is leading for you right now)
And this month when my luteal phase hit — when my Alchemist arrived, as I like to call her — I felt hella scattered. Like my brain had seventeen tabs open and the wifi was down.
She brings an energy of WTF!? And also, absolute discernment. So she rode into town questioning everything from my outfit choices to why I chose that hot chocolate that gave me the ick (I am a cacao girlie: nutmeg and salt is my ish, my nieces think it is gross haha).
Aaaaaaaaand I had a workshop to deliver.
But my work isn't ever FML work, it's actually a gift in and of itself.
Now the old, corporate warrior, version of me would have white-knuckled it. Pushed through. Performed wellness while feeling like absolute chaos on the inside.
Instead I stopped everything that I was doing. I sat back from my desk. I let my feelings come online, and I let myself have a good cry. Let the emotion move through me rather than sitting on it.
Then I danced myself back into my body — properly, fully, music up loud. Singing at the top of my lungs. And then I dressed up. Put on something that made me feel like myself. And, my darling, I delivered that workshop feeling like a million dollars.
That was my gift to myself. Not a face mask. Not a bath. Tending to what I actually needed in that moment so I could show up as the fullest version of me.
Level two. What can you give to someone you love?
Mine was simple. An act of service for my mum. Nothing grand. Just presence and care offered to someone who matters to me deeply, and who has lived her life in service of her family.
That is it. That is the whole gift.
We complicate this so much. We think love has to be big to count. It does not. It just has to be intentional.
Level three. What can you give the world?
This is where it gets me every time.
Because for level three I shared my heart with the world that very same day. In the workshop I shared what I think is essential for women to understand about the world we are in, and how that drives our collective exhaustion.
I talked about burnout, and about the life of servitude that so many of us are living — quietly, competently, without ever really being asked if it is what we wanted.
Because you see, if I can help even a handful of women understand what is actually happening for them — in their bodies, in their careers, in the slow erosion of their own needs — then I have done something that matters in this life.
That workshop I mentioned? The one I delivered after the cry and the dance and the getting dressed up? You can ALSO watch the replay. It is called The exhaustion beneath the exhaustion. And it is yours to watch and work with for the next week and a half.
Set yourself free from the burnout cycle. Go watch it here.
Now here is where I want to land.
One of the greatest gifts I have ever given myself is learning, and especially when I do that in community with other women.
Not credentials. Not qualifications to make myself feel legitimate — we have talked about that one. But real learning. The kind that changes how you see yourself. The kind that gives you language for the things you have been feeling but could not name. The kind that happens in a room full of women who are done pretending everything is fine and ready to do something about it.
The June group is forming now. If something in this landed for you today — if you recognised yourself in any of the three levels — I would love to talk to you about it.
Set up a call with me here and let's see if it is the right fit.
You were never the problem sweet one.
Rooting for you always
Ruth x
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