Red Kites & permission to slow down (woo-woo warning)

After a couple of intense full on months I started getting messages to slow down.

These last few months have been so wild and busy and all over the place, and I just haven’t stopped moving because of it. I find that when I get myself in such a momentum of doing it’s really hard (and scary) to slow down. You too?

Over the years I’ve learned about this pattern I have to attach my sense of worth to my level of productivity. Stillness and slowness can often be judged as laziness. It’s our go-go-go mentality, our cultural programming that glorifies business. It’s something I am working through.

I’m really good at taking little breaks and moments for self care, but longer stretches? I’ll admit, that’s more challenging for me.

For weeks, I heard the deep-down craving: 'you need a break.' But rather than trusting that, I kept pushing past it. I told myself stories like...

“Taking a break will hurt your business’' “You will lose your momentum”

Do you ever tell yourself stories that talk you out of trusting yourself?

I tried to brush it off by half listening - I took a couple of days off social media + my phone was on flight mode most of the time. I created a tiny bit of space by staying off the internet.

I thought, that should be enough!

(My intuition was like - Are you kidding me??)

The following week, two things happened that really grabbed my attention. I’ve been seeing Red Kites every-single-day, and few of them each time. I also kept bumping into the same lady who was walking her dogs in the park, we exchanged friendly Hi’s. On Thursday I bumped into her again. She was standing in the middle of the park and looking at the sky. I looked up and guess what I saw? Red Kites! Our eyes met and she said “here we are again, it must be a sign!” I didn’t know what to make of it (a sign for what exactly??) I kept walking and continued listening to the podcast I was listening to with Gabriel Bernstein. (this is where it gets woo...) Few minutes later Gabby shared that on her journey trying to conceive, one morning she saw two Turkeys in her garden. She decided to google their spiritual meaning and found out that they are a symbol for fertility. I thought it was interesting... so when I came back home I decided to google “Red kite spiritual meaning”. This is what I found: “She teaches the art of maneuverability and finesse to reach goals and feeding the spirit and your life with much needed nourishment... Red Kite provides the much needed balance for action and non-action as well as masculine and feminine energies.” The message was clear: balance, nourishment and honouring the feminine energy (aka my intuition & permission to slow down). So I took Friday - Monday off work, I read a book (City of Girls by Elisabeth Gilbert + reread parts of Do Less by Kate Northrop, cause it felt relevant) I cooked a lovely dish (hearty mushroom and beet bolognese) I worked in the garden, I sat in the sun, I napped... and it was just the medicine I needed. If you really pay attention today to what your body - mind - heart needs, what is the medicine you are craving? (hit reply & let me know!) Love, Naama