Your hyper-independence may be a trauma response.

Life as of late, for me — has been full of soft moments.

After a very busy year, between launching SEED SPACE, facilitating a range of different local Berlin events, participating in panel talks — community discussions, featuring as a guest on podcasts and other collaborations, while keeping my client roster healthy, AS WELL AS up-levelling in my corporate career —there’s barely been a moment to breathe.

The above reads like a lot, right? But the thing is — moving at this pace has kinda always been my norm.

For much of my life I’ve taken pride in being the girl that can do it all.

Hyper-responsible, organised, moving at lightening speed with bringing my ideas into reality — FAST (not just business wise, but life wise too), for the most part having my sh*t together, and being fiercely independent along the way — has been my baseline of operating.

That is, until a couple of years ago whereby my therapist mirrored to me that this ‘hyper-responsible’, ‘always doing to achieve’, ‘high performing’ way of being was likely just a trauma response.

A trauma response whereby I attach my worth and value to my output (thankyou, capitalism). A trauma response due to not feeling emotionally safe or supported during childhood and learning to be self sufficient and ‘do it all’ at an early age (thankyou immigrant parents).

Shifting away from this conditioned way of operating has been a big theme for me over the last months. Moving out of living life in my masculine, and learning to surrender into the feminine. The energy of doing less, receiving more, being supported, soft, and embracing slowness and rest.

After sharing about this on SEED SPACE’s Instagram recently and receiving an overwhelming amount of messages from many of you in the community that resonate — it seems like I’m not alone on this journey.

Particularly for those of you who, like me — are the eldest daughters of immigrant parents.

As 2023 slowly draws to a close, it’s a perfect opportunity for us to collectively prioritise actively resisting colonial, capitalist, patriarchal conditioning by

EMBRACING OUR INTERDEPENDENCE ERA

Gone are the days of girl bossing. There’s something deeply empowering about learning to ‘receive’, being able to surrender and feel supported, lean on community and simply 'not do it all'.

I have some exciting SEED SPACE updates to share with you soon — but before then, the only call to action to leave you with is the pondering of the following questions:

• Are there any practices or rituals that enhance your ability to soften?

• How can you invite more slowness, stillness and rest into your week ahead?

• Which areas of life can you allow yourself to be deeply supported?

Our great grandmothers, grandmothers, and some of our mothers didn't have the privilege to embrace softness, but we do.

If any of the above resonates and you feel called to share your own stories, I'd love to hear from you!