Self care Sunday

This weekend after my meet up at the park with a copule of amazing ladies, I sat down to write a couple of posts about boundaries and grief. I planned something with a clear takeaway, maybe a list of the kind of thing I’m good at giving you. Nothing was coming so instead I turned off the IPad and did something different, I did my meal planning then tackled the pile of house stuff I’d been avoiding for weeks. I didn’t do any deep social media posts. And I let myself just be, instead of being productive about my grief.

Here’s the thing nobody tells you about boundaries when you’re grieving: sometimes the boundary isn’t a sentence you say to someone else. Sometimes it’s the thing you don’t do. The post you don’t write. The story you don’t tel and not because you don’t have one, but because telling it isn’t what you need right now.

I’ve spent so much time talking about grief, trauma and teaching boundaries as something you set with other people. Protect your time. Protect your energy. Say no to what drains you. All this is true, but this weekend I was reminded that some of the hardest boundaries are the ones you set with yourself. You know that the boundaries that allow the version of you that thinks she should always be showing up, always be turning her pain into something useful for someone else.

My grief has changed what care looks like for me. It used to mean pushing through because if I didn’t do it then who is going to get the thing done. Now, more and more often, it means asking what I actually need before I ask what I should be doing. And sometimes what I need is laundry and a grocery list and quiet.

So if you’re in a season where your boundary looks like rest instead of action or taking care of yourself means not showing up the way you think you’re supposed to I want you to hear this from someone who almost missed her own lesson: that counts. That’s not falling behind. That’s the work.

I’ll be back to sharing tools and strategies soon. Today, I just wanted to tell you the truth instead.