Some tiredness doesn't go away with sleep. You carried the pregnancy, the nights, the school runs, the birthdays, the moods of everyone in the house. You did it out of love and you would do it again. Somewhere along the way a quieter feeling started to grow next to the love: nobody really sees how much this costs me.
That feeling often turns into resentment, and resentment is uncomfortable to admit, because it seems to say something bad about you. Usually it means something simpler: you have been giving for a long time without much coming back, and part of you has noticed.
Putting yourself first, or pulling away?
When that part of you finally speaks up, a question follows. If I start choosing myself, am I growing, or am I just shutting the door on the people I love?
From the outside the two can look alike, because in both cases you give less. Inside they feel very different. Pulling away comes from hurt. You stop giving so that nobody can take any more from you, and you go quiet and cold. Putting yourself first comes from knowing what you are worth. You keep loving, you keep showing up, and you stop paying for that love with your health and your own plans.
One way to tell them apart is to ask what you are protecting: an old hurt, or a life you want to build.
The beliefs underneath
Most of these feelings rest on beliefs that nobody ever said out loud. We picked them up by watching the women before us. Read the list below slowly and see which ones land:
- I have to choose between success and being a good wife and mother.
- I have to work very hard to deserve love.
- If I make my own money, I might lose my relationship.
- I have to carry everything, or it all falls apart.
- Women like me can't have everything.
Many of these come from someone who loved us. A mother who gave up her own plans so her children could have more did something real and generous. You can be grateful for that and still choose a different life, without repeating her sacrifice.
Writing the new ones
A belief changes when you replace it with a sentence you can start to live by. Here are some that answer the old ones:
- I can be successful without suffering.
- I am worthy of love before I do anything for it.
- My growth adds to my family. It takes nothing from them.
- I am allowed to ask for help and to receive it.
- I get to have both.
They will probably feel false the first time you read them, which is normal. A new belief feels like a lie until your days start giving it proof, so pick one and look for a small way to act on it this week.
Two letters
One exercise helps a lot here. Write two letters. The first goes to the woman you were when you became a mother, or when you first started carrying everything. Tell her what she did, what it cost her, and what you understand now that she couldn't see then.
The second letter is written to you, by the woman you want to become in a year. Let her tell you how her days look, how she earns, how she rests, how she loves the people at home. Let her tell you which old belief she dropped first.
Then, if you like, write down what that woman does in four parts of her life over the next twelve months: her money, her work, her relationships and her time for herself. Think of it as growing into more of yourself, without trying to make up for the years you gave.
Where the Tzolkin comes in
The Tzolkin is a count of 260 days that comes from the Maya. In the Dreamspell, the version YourKodex uses, its first seal is the Red Dragon, the seal of birth and nurture, the mother energy that feeds and protects new life.
The Dragon's shadow is a familiar one. It pours so freely that it forgets it is also allowed to be held. The reading of the Red Dragon on YourKodex ends with an invitation: to let someone hold you the way you hold everyone else, and to discover that receiving is the other half of who you are. That invitation fits anyone who gives too much, whatever their Kin.
Your own Kin can help in a practical way too. It shows your Light Side, what you naturally bring, and your Shadow Side, where you tend to lose yourself. Sometimes the belief you inherited is sitting right there in your Shadow Side, with a name on it.
When the pattern is older than you
Some of these beliefs go back to childhood: pleasing everyone to stay safe, feeling guilty about ambition, learning that money only comes with suffering, or that love has to be earned with sacrifice. Patterns like these are worth taking to a therapist. A good one can help you see where they started and what keeps them going. A calendar or a blog post can't do that work for you.
One question for tomorrow
Imagine you knew for certain that building the life you want would not cost you the people you love. What would you do differently tomorrow morning? Write the answer down, and do the smallest part of it.
If you want to see your own Light Side and Shadow Side, type your birthday on the home page. Finding your Kin is free and takes a few seconds.