She Who is Relaxed, is Free.

“Growing up, I never knew a relaxed woman. Successful women? Yes. Productive women? Plenty. Anxious and afraid and apologetic women? Heaps of them. But relaxed women? At-ease women? Women who don't dissect their days into half hour slots of productivity? Women who prioritize rest, pleasure, and play? Women who aren't afraid to take up space in the world? Women who give themselves unconditional permission to relax? Without guilt? Without apology? Without feeling like they need to earn it? I'm not sure I've ever met a woman like that. But I would like to become one.”

― Nicola Jane Hobbs

It’s 5:55 am, and I am awoken out of a labored sleep by the sounds of the radio jockey’s voice. I swing my arm wildly, feeling for the large, rectangular snooze button on my 1980’s Dream Machine clock radio I thrifted last year in an attempt to live a more analog life. I find it, and ten minutes later, Ed Sheeran is blaring out the tinny speaker and invading my dreams.

6:05. I sit up, and everyone needs something. I get up and brush my teeth, gripping the handle of the toothbrush as if my life depends on it. I hurry up and jump on the scale, and groan in frustration at the number that refuses to go down. I worry about all of the possibilities of what I could be doing wrong. But there’s no time to do that, not really.

6:20. I rush through a cup of coffee as I wait for the iron to heat up. I beat myself up for not doing this last night, for watching a movie instead. I finish the ironing and, what the hell, pour myself another cup.

I press my hand against my chest. Why is my heart beating as if I am trying to outrun a freight train?

As Nicola Jane Hobbs writes about in The Relaxed Woman, I, too, grew up with a variety of women in my life, none of whom I would consider relaxed. My primary caregiver was an anxious, high-strung woman, tasked with more than she could handle at too early a stage in her life. My grandmother was a child of the great depression, and she, understandably, carried scars from that experience all of her life. Even now, as an adult, I struggle to think of a fellow woman or friend that I would consider relaxed, and my heart breaks for us all. What is it about our society that prevents us from living calmly and authentically?

Women carry so much labor, but out in the open, and invisible. We are tasked with so many roles ~ mother, sister, nurse, organizer, boss, regulator, temptress, vixen, daughter ~ etc.

Paris Paloma has a line in her song Labour that I think of often when discussing these soul crushing expectations, it goes ~

“All day, every day, therapist, mother, maid. Nymph, then a virgin, nurse, then a servant.”

Women are holding up the world on our shoulders, all while trying to make sure those shoulders are as small as possible. So what happens when the bones that hold up those shoulders start to crack and break? What happens to society when women can sacrifice themselves at the altar of goodness no longer?

We are already starting to see this in conversations about emotional labour and equal responsibility in the home and workplace. In discussions about bucking the patriarchy and raising the next generations differently. In choosing daily to let go of the weight of guilt and shame that was instilled in us as children, as a way to control us.

Becoming a relaxed woman is our birthright. Living a fulfilling and authentic life is what every single woman deserves.

This goal, to truly become a relaxed and internally fulfilled woman, is a journey I am walking daily. My mornings have started to look different than the one I described at the beginning of this conversation. (but I definitely still slap that snooze button sometimes.) Thanks to the tools passed down from other women who have walked this journey, who have made this choice. It looks different for everyone. What works for me, what settles my nervous system and inspires the beating of my own, wild heart, may not do the same for you. But I encourage you to take the steps to find out what does.

You are enough, and you deserve it.

XO, Alys