The dance between surrender and intention
I was burnt out. My husband and I worked corporate jobs, clocking hours that stole more from us than they gave. The bulk of parenting was outsourced in ways that left us hollow with guilt, further perpetuated by the deliriously blissful feeling of morning drop-off. Motherhood was a relentless tug-of-war between who I was and who I was trying to be. Some days, I felt as though I had completely unraveled, especially with a son who clings to me as if I’m the only thing holding his world together. He wanted all of me, and it felt like everyone else did too. I was suffocating - being pulled apart piece by piece with nothing left for myself.
Burnout wasn’t just an undercurrent—it was the tide I was drowning in. The type of burnout that seeps into your bones. It felt as though life was slipping through my fingers, measured not in moments of joy but in tasks accomplished and deadlines met. A busy life reaching unsustainable heights.
Burnout wasn’t just an undercurrent. It was the tide I was drowning in. The type of burnout that seeps into your bones. It felt as though life was slipping through my fingers, measured not in moments of joy but in tasks accomplished and deadlines met. A busy life reaching unsustainable heights.
It wasn’t a breakdown, not exactly. More like the quietest, impulsive rebellion. Sitting at the dinner table one night, I sat and thought, is this it? The idea of full time travel was floated. The seed was sowed with family and friends called upon to water it.
Shortly after we set off, I stumbled upon Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act. It felt serendipitous, as though the book had been waiting for me to create enough space in my life to truly hear it. I read it slowly. Deliberately. Words underlined and notes scrawled within the margins marking what resonated with me most. It is my companion. My compass, guiding me towards a new perspective on seeing and being in this new, untethered life.
Life, as Rick Rubin reveals, is not a rigid structure but an evolving dance between chaos and order, intuition and intention. Each sentence devoured drew me to his concept of the creative process being not merely an act of production but a way of being. Rubin suggests that we are both vessels and filters. Open to receiving the universe’s inspiration yet charged with the responsibility of curating what flows through us. This duality spoke to me in a way that I hadn’t expected. For much of my life, I believed I need to create, strive, achieve and produce to validate my worth. However, his words encouraged me to view life as art: a space not relinquish control, but to engage with, as both a recipient of beauty and shaper of meaning.
Still, motherhood feels like the hardest thing to embrace. Daycare was order, stability, the calm I can’t always muster. Now, they see more of my raw edges, my oversensitivities, my worst days on full display. I thought my constant presence would be the magic ingredient for their confidence and independence. But truthfully? Some days, I wonder if I made the right call. I wanted to give them more of me, but sometimes it feels like too much of me isn’t what they need.
Our days are now spent untethered and unbounded. Though space is finite, moments feel infinite. Most days are still imperfect. Loud, chaotic, and full of things we are learning as we go. But they are ours. Burnout had taught me what happens when I try to hold too much. But the vessel invites me to notice and the filter empowers me to choose.
