Understanding What Working Less Could Mean for You

Imagine a woman mentioning over lunch that she is thinking about working fewer hours.

In this fictional conversation, a friend asks, “What would you do with yourself all day?”

She had been imagining a little more room in her week. Now she finds herself trying to account for how she would use it. She begins listing things she could do, although she had not been looking for a new schedule.

The question may have been asked with simple curiosity. Yet her response gives her something to explore. What happened between imagining more time and feeling that she needed to explain how she would fill it?

Earlier this week, we considered what appeals to us about working less, what concerns us, when the wish appears and what we expect would change. We can take that exploration further by looking closely at a moment like this one.

The Damselfly Path organizes carefully selected questions around different perspectives on an experience. A question about a feeling brings something different into view from a question about an assumption or a value. Looking at these together can help us understand what we are responding to.

Notice what the question brings up

Our fictional woman might begin by asking herself, “What did I notice in myself when my friend asked that?”

Perhaps she felt uncertain because she genuinely does not know how she would spend the time. Perhaps she felt irritated that an open possibility had become something she needed to justify. She might also have felt interested: she had imagined fewer working hours without picturing an ordinary day.

Those responses would lead to different questions. If you recognize this situation, your own response matters. You do not have to select one of these possibilities or decide what your friend intended.

A question about feelings gives you a starting point for understanding your experience. It leaves room to ask what else is involved.

Look at the expectation behind your response

Suppose the woman notices that she felt a need to justify the time. She could ask, “What am I assuming I would need to do with those hours?”

She might find an expectation that free time should be filled with something useful. In that case, listing hobbies would leave another question unexplored: what counts as a worthwhile use of time to her? Reading, walking, seeing a friend or having an afternoon without plans might each carry a different meaning.

Another woman might discover a different expectation: “If I work less, the extra time will be mine to use.” Looking at her current days off could add context. Perhaps appointments and family responsibilities already occupy much of that space. Fewer working hours could change her availability while leaving those demands in place.

This is how two perspectives can work together within the Path. Noticing what happens on existing days off brings a pattern into view. Considering what you expect from a shorter working week lets you examine an assumption alongside that experience.

An expectation may be well founded, partly true or still uncertain. Examining it helps you distinguish what you anticipate from what you already know.

Consider what makes the time matter to you

Once an expectation becomes visible, a question about values can deepen the exploration: “What matters to me about having this time?”

For one woman, an unscheduled morning might mean being able to move through the day at her own pace. For another, it might mean having enough attention left for a relationship or an interest. Someone else may realize that the companionship and contribution she finds at work are important parts of what she wants to retain.

These distinctions give “more time” a more personal meaning. You can begin to describe the experience you hope for, including what you appreciate about your life as it is.

Your circumstances belong in this exploration too. Questions about what you value can sit alongside questions about money, health, responsibilities and available support. Some answers require practical information, such as whether fewer hours are available in your role. Reflection can help you identify that unknown; the workplace details still need checking.

A book to continue the exploration

If you would like to read further, consider Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman. He examines our limited time and the pressure to keep doing more, questioning the idea that we can eventually fit everything in through greater efficiency.

This perspective connects with the assumptions and values we are exploring here. It offers something to consider when we find ourselves treating every available hour as something that must be accounted for. A question we might bring to our own situation is, “How do I decide whether I have spent my time well?”

Read about Four Thousand Weeks on Oliver Burkeman’s website

Let your understanding become more specific

The Path brings different kinds of questions together so you can consider an experience from more than one perspective. In this example, noticing a feeling led to an expectation, which opened a question about what mattered. Your exploration may begin elsewhere and follow a different direction.

Our fictional woman may still be undecided about working less when she next meets her friends. But she might now be able to say, “I have noticed that I keep trying to justify wanting more time. I want to understand what would make that time meaningful to me.”

That gives her something more specific to explore. If this situation speaks to you, you might return to one moment in a recent conversation and ask: “What did that exchange bring up that I would like to understand better?”

Joanne 💗

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When Everyone Has Advice About Working Less

 

Imagine a woman mentioning, over lunch, that she has been thinking about working a little less. This is a fictional example, but the conversation may sound familiar.

One friend tells her that retirement was the best decision she ever made. Another suggests staying as long as she can: the income matters, and so does having somewhere to go. Someone asks what she would do with herself all day.

She had said she was considering fewer hours. Somehow, the conversation has arrived at the rest of her life.

She appreciates their interest. There may be something useful in each response. Yet she leaves with more suggestions and no clearer way to explain what she was trying to say.

Perhaps you have had a conversation like that. You mention a possibility while you are still trying to understand it, and people begin helping you decide. Meanwhile, you are wondering what, exactly, you want to be different.

What is the advice responding to

The friend who loves retirement is speaking from her own experience. The person who emphasizes income is raising a practical concern. The question about filling the day introduces another possibility: that work provides structure or companionship worth considering.

Each response brings a different part of the situation into view. You can listen for what is useful while asking which part relates to your own experience.

You may enjoy your colleagues and want more time outside work. You may take pride in what you do and feel less willing to devote so much of your week to it. You may welcome the thought of an unscheduled morning while feeling uneasy about a smaller paycheque.

Those responses deserve more attention than a quick vote for staying or leaving. What do you want less of? What would you want to retain? What are you hoping might become possible?

What research can help us notice

A June 2023 Statistics Canada survey supplement asked Canadians aged 55 to 80 about retirement. Among those who were not completely retired but planned to retire, 55.1% said they would work longer if part-time work were available. Read Statistics Canada’s findings.

That finding describes reported preferences in that surveyed group, which included women and men. It does not tell us whether reducing hours improved anyone’s life or whether a particular employer could offer the arrangement.

For our fictional woman, it opens a useful distinction to consider: how does she feel about the work itself, and how does she feel about the amount of time it occupies? She may discover that her question concerns the shape of her working week. Or she may find that something else matters more.

Research gives us something to consider. Its usefulness here lies in the question it helps us examine in our own circumstances.

Finding information that fits your question

Once you begin separating the questions, you can see more clearly what kind of information each one needs.

“Would fewer hours be available in my role?” calls for information about your actual workplace. “What would that mean for my income, benefits or pension?” requires details about your own arrangements. A friend’s experience may suggest what to ask, but those details still need checking.

For Canadian readers thinking about retirement, the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada’s Planning and saving for retirement guide offers a starting point for comparing current and expected spending and links to a retirement income calculator. It can help you identify financial questions to explore; details about reducing hours may also need checking with your employer or pension administrator.

Alongside those practical questions, there may be a more personal one: “What am I hoping that extra time would make room for?” You might be thinking about rest, a relationship, an interest you keep postponing, or simply a week with fewer commitments. The answer may still be taking shape.

Practical information and personal understanding can develop alongside each other. You might learn that an arrangement is unavailable, or that it carries a cost you had not considered. That information becomes part of understanding the possibility. It does not make your wish for something different unworthy of attention.

A little more language for your experience

Returning to our fictional woman, she might eventually find words closer to what she meant at lunch: “I still enjoy my work. I want to understand why I am wishing it took up less of my week, and what a different arrangement would involve.”

That leaves several things open. She has not chosen a retirement date. She may still have questions about money, connection and how she wants to spend her time. But she has a more precise starting point for considering the information and suggestions available.

This is the kind of examination I am developing through The Damselfly Path: looking at one meaningful experience from different perspectives, with useful knowledge and the circumstances of a woman’s life kept in view. The understanding remains hers.

If this situation speaks to you, you might privately consider one question:

What am I trying to understand that the advice I have received has not yet addressed?

Continue

Being the One Everyone Can Count On

“I told them you’d help.”

Perhaps you know the feeling that follows that sentence. You might have been happy to help. You might even have offered. But someone has already made the decision, and you find yourself wondering when your time became theirs to arrange.

There can be real pleasure in being someone others rely on. You enjoy making a meal, listening to a friend, or helping a colleague work something out. It feels good to contribute. That part of you is sincere.

And sometimes, you are tired of being the obvious person to ask. Or the person no one quite remembers to ask.

In a family, perhaps you enjoy bringing everyone together, but the planning and cleaning have gradually become your permanent assignment. Among friends, you may love a good conversation and still feel worn out when every phone call becomes an hour of listening, with little room for how you are doing. At work, being capable and helpful can mean another task lands on your desk before anyone checks what is already there.

Apparently, being good at something can come with a lifetime appointment. The paperwork is surprisingly informal.

Then one day, a request that would usually feel manageable irritates you. You don’t want to host. You don’t want to sort it out. You would like someone else to notice what needs doing and take it from there.

And almost immediately, you begin questioning yourself. Why am I being like this? I thought I liked helping. Have I become selfish?

I think this is where we can make an already complicated experience harder. We take one feeling, on one day, and ask it to explain our entire character.

Enjoying helping and feeling frustrated can both be true. The frustration doesn’t erase the warmth you bring to your relationships. It gives you something else to understand about what is happening within them.

Perhaps you need rest. Perhaps the work has become unevenly shared. Perhaps you would feel quite differently if someone asked, gave you notice, or accepted that this time you might say no. And sometimes you simply don’t want to do that particular thing. You don’t have to reach exhaustion before that preference deserves a place in the conversation.

Melody Beattie makes a related point in her short reflection “Being Nurturing”: caring for others can coexist with limits on what we give. She includes caring for ourselves in that understanding of what it means to nurture.

That leaves us with a more useful question than whether we are still a nice person: what, exactly, is becoming difficult here?

You might notice that you enjoy helping when you have chosen it, but feel tense when it is assumed. Or that you are comfortable doing your share, yet increasingly frustrated by being responsible for remembering everyone else’s. You may be happy to listen to a friend and also wish she would occasionally ask how you are, and stay long enough to hear the answer.

These differences matter. They help us understand why the same act of helping can feel satisfying in one situation and heavy in another. We can look at what keeps happening, when our response differs, and what we still cannot quite explain.

There may be something about being dependable that we are reluctant to loosen our hold on, too. If you have spent years being appreciated for being easygoing and helpful, disappointing someone can feel surprisingly uncomfortable. You may worry about who you will be in the relationship if you are less available.

Being honest about that doesn’t make your generosity less real. It helps you see how much can be involved in a seemingly simple yes.

Brené Brown explores the value of honest conversations in “Clear Is Kind. Unclear Is Unkind.”, an excerpt from Dare to Lead. She describes how avoiding difficult conversations leaves expectations unclear. Although the article begins with leadership, I find that question of clarity useful in everyday relationships, too.

With family, that might sound like, “I enjoy having everyone over. This time, I need us to share the food and cleanup.” With a friend, it could be, “I want to hear about this, but I haven’t got the energy for a long conversation tonight.” At work, you might ask, “If I take this on, which of my current tasks should move?”

Sometimes the most useful sentence is simply, “Please check with me before making plans that include my help.”

Those conversations can take practice. Someone may be surprised, or disappointed, especially if they have become used to your availability. You may feel guilty even when you have spoken with care. We can acknowledge those feelings while allowing the conversation to continue.

There are also situations where responsibilities cannot easily be reduced. Caring for someone who depends on you, or working with little control over your workload, can leave very limited options. The tension deserves attention there, too. Sometimes the next conversation concerns what support is missing and who else could share the responsibility.

This week on The Damselfly Path, we are exploring the experiences that resist an either/or explanation. Loving your people does not settle every question about what you can offer them. Enjoying your work does not give you endless energy. We keep learning how to live with both the care and the limits, sometimes awkwardly, one conversation at a time.

If you would like to explore further, Brené Brown’s The Gifts of Imperfection considers authenticity and worthiness. It may be a useful companion if being helpful has become closely tied to how you see your value. Her Gifts Hub also offers related conversations and resources.

For shorter readings, Melody Beattie’s The Language of Letting Go offers daily meditations drawn from her work on recovery and caring for ourselves. You can also begin with the brief reflection linked earlier, and see whether her approach speaks to you.

You can remain a woman who enjoys helping and be a woman who sometimes says, “I can’t this time.” Both belong in an honest account of who you are.

Where in your life would being asked, rather than assumed available, make a difference?

Joanne 💗

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When Gratitude and Restlessness Coexist

 

When I was in my late twenties and early thirties, I often had the feeling that something wasn’t quite right. I couldn’t always explain it. There was a restlessness, a sense that something was off, even though I could look around my life and see plenty to be grateful for.

That was part of what made it so confusing. If I had so much, what exactly was my problem?

There is a story I have shared before that stayed with me for years. In Russell Conwell’s Acres of Diamonds, a man sells his farm and goes searching for diamonds. The person who buys the property later discovers diamonds on the land the man has left behind. Read the story.

The story haunted me. I wondered whether I was doing the same thing: looking for something elsewhere when everything I needed was already right in front of me. Perhaps my restlessness meant that I simply didn’t appreciate what I had.

I had somehow managed to turn a story about diamonds into another reason to question myself.

There is value in noticing what is already good in our lives. I still believe that. But the conclusion I drew about myself made it difficult to consider anything else. Once I decided I might be ungrateful, the feeling became something I needed to correct before I had really understood it.

Looking back, I can see how much I was asking gratitude to explain. It could help me recognize what I valued. It couldn’t tell me why something continued to feel unsettled.

What eventually helped was allowing the restlessness to be there and continuing to explore it, even when I questioned whether I should. I experimented. I tried things. I began asking whether there was something I wanted to do, or whether some of what I was feeling had to do with boundaries. There were several things to understand, and they became clearer over time.

I wish I could tell you that I worked it all out promptly. It took me a while.

There were still times when I wondered whether I was being ungrateful. But as I kept exploring, I came to recognize that my restlessness had reasons. Appreciating my life and wanting to understand what felt off could exist together.

Sue Monk Kidd describes a related experience in When the Heart Waits. Writing about a period of spiritual discontent in midlife, she recalls becoming aware of parts of herself that had not found expression. Her account offers a way to consider the questions that can arise within a familiar life, before we know what they will mean. Read Kidd’s excerpt.

For me, that distinction matters. A feeling can deserve attention while its meaning is still unclear. We can take it seriously without assuming we already know what it is asking of us.

Perhaps you recognize something of this in your own life. You love your family and want more time that belongs to you. You value the work you do and wonder about an interest you have barely explored. You appreciate being someone others rely on and feel uncomfortable with how readily your availability is assumed.

The gratitude is real. So is the question that keeps returning.

Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart offers another useful companion to this conversation. Brown emphasizes how finding more accurate words for our emotions and experiences can help us understand and communicate them. Explore the book’s reading resources.

That gives me a useful question to bring to restlessness: what am I actually feeling? “Something is off” may be the best description available at first. With time, we might recognize longing, frustration, uncertainty, or a mixture that changes with the circumstances. “I’m ungrateful” can close that exploration before it has much chance to begin.

My own experience taught me to be more curious about the feelings that seemed to contradict the life I thought I should be satisfied with. Sometimes I discovered something I wanted to explore. Sometimes I had questions about how I was living or relating to others. Understanding one part did not immediately explain everything else.

This week on The Damselfly Path, we’re exploring tension and contradiction: the parts of an experience that don’t fit easily together. Gratitude and restlessness are one example. We can appreciate what is here and still acknowledge what feels missing, difficult, or unfinished.

If this feels familiar, perhaps there is a question worth spending a little time with:

What have I been dismissing as ingratitude that I haven’t yet given myself room to understand?

Joanne 💗

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Reflection or Rumination? When Thinking More Doesn’t Widen the View

 

Our first understanding may be honest—and still not be the whole story.

Most of us have had an experience that followed us around long after the actual moment had passed.

Perhaps it was a conversation that ended strangely, a decision we began to question, or a message from someone whose tone felt different. We replayed what happened, considered what we should have said, and tried to work out what it all meant.

We may have called this reflection. Sometimes it was. At other times, we were circling the same information from the same position and hoping that one more trip around the loop would finally produce clarity.

Reflection and rumination can look remarkably similar from the outside. Both involve returning to an experience. Both may include strong feelings, repeated questions, and the desire to understand.

The difference is not simply how much time we spend thinking. A more useful question may be:

Is my understanding becoming broader, or am I continuing to view the experience from the same position?

A familiar kind of loop

Consider this composite example, created from an experience many women may recognize.

A woman receives a short message from a close friend:

I can’t talk about this right now. I’ll get back to you.

She immediately feels uneasy. The message seems unusually abrupt, and she begins to wonder whether her friend is upset with her.

She rereads their previous conversation and looks for something she might have said wrong. She remembers another occasion when the friend became distant after a disagreement. Before long, one interpretation begins to dominate:

She is pulling away from me.

The woman replays the situation throughout the day. She thinks about what she could say, imagines the friendship ending, and considers sending another message to explain herself.

She asks someone else for advice and is told, “Don’t worry about it. She’s probably just busy.”

It is a reasonable possibility, but it doesn’t settle anything. The advice comes from another person’s experience of relationships, communication, and uncertainty. It cannot tell this woman what the message means or what she should feel about it.

Now she has two competing interpretations:

My friend is rejecting me.

My friend is simply busy.

Neither one feels complete, and the thinking continues.

When one interpretation becomes the whole story

The woman’s original response is not foolish or wrong. The message affected her, and her concern may connect with something real in the relationship.

Her first interpretation may contain important information. But when it becomes the only position from which she examines the experience, every detail can begin to support the same conclusion.

This is one way rumination can keep us caught. We may be working very hard to understand, but we continue to organize the experience around one central meaning.

Even advice may leave us in the same loop. It can give us a different conclusion without helping us explore how we formed our own.

What broader reflection might make room for

Broader reflection does not require the woman to dismiss her original response or replace it with a more positive interpretation. Instead, it allows her to notice more of what belongs to the experience.

She might begin by acknowledging:

• The message felt abrupt to her.

• She is afraid of losing an important friendship.

• A previous experience of distance is shaping how she reads this moment.

• She does not yet know what is happening for her friend.

• Her friend’s circumstances may be relevant, even though she does not have that information.

• She may want reassurance, clarity, or an opportunity to talk.

• More than one interpretation remains possible.

None of these observations tells her what the message ultimately means. They do something different: they widen the field of understanding.

Her fear is still present, but it no longer has to carry the entire story. Her friend’s circumstances become part of the inquiry. So do the history of the relationship, the limits of what she knows, and her own need for clarity.

She may eventually decide to wait. She may choose to send a simple, caring response. She may recognize a recurring pattern in the friendship that deserves attention. Broader inquiry does not determine which response she should choose.

It helps her understand more of what she is responding to.

Reflection does not always produce certainty

We sometimes approach reflection as though its purpose is to find the correct explanation. But some experiences contain ambiguity that cannot be resolved immediately.

A broader understanding may include conflicting truths:

I care about this relationship, and I feel unsettled by what happened.

My reaction matters, and I do not yet know the other person’s reality.

Something from my past may be influencing me, and something in the present may also need attention.

Holding these truths together can feel less satisfying than arriving at one confident answer. Yet it may offer a more faithful understanding of the experience as it currently exists.

A different relationship with understanding

The Damselfly Path does not ask us to distrust our first interpretation. It invites us to remain curious about what that interpretation reveals—and what it may not yet include.

When we notice ourselves circling, we can gently ask:

What do I already understand?

From what position am I viewing this?

What else may belong to the experience?

What remains unknown or uncertain?

These questions do not guarantee a tidy answer. They create room for a broader one.

Our first understanding may be honest. It may carry emotion, history, intuition, and meaningful information. It simply may not be the whole story.

If this speaks to you, the path is here.

Joanne 💗

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When One Viewpoint Becomes the Whole Story

 

“I keep thinking about this, but I am not understanding it any differently.”

Many of us know this experience.

Something happens—a difficult conversation, a disappointment, a recurring conflict, a decision we cannot make—and we begin thinking about it. We replay what was said. We revisit the details. We try to understand what happened and what it means.

Then we think about it some more.

Despite all that effort, we continue arriving at the same conclusion:

“She doesn’t respect me.”

“I always make the wrong decision.”

“I should be able to handle this.”

“Nothing I do will make a difference.”

“This is just the way things are.”

The conclusion may contain something real and important. It may name a hurt that has not been acknowledged, a limitation we genuinely face, or something we have finally become willing to recognize.

The difficulty begins when that conclusion becomes the only position from which we can see the experience.

Looking Through the Same Window

When we look through one window, we see what that window allows us to see.

Certain details become very clear. Others remain outside our field of vision. Over time, we may begin to experience what we see through that window as the entire landscape.

This can happen when one emotion becomes the centre of the experience. It can happen when an assumption about ourselves or another person begins organizing every detail. It can also happen when a familiar explanation feels so convincing that other relevant information no longer seems available to us.

We may continue thinking, analyzing, explaining, and searching for certainty. But if we remain in the same position, our thinking often returns us to the same place.

We are thinking harder, but we are not necessarily seeing more broadly.

The First Understanding May Still Matter

Looking more broadly does not require us to reject our first understanding.

If we feel hurt, broader inquiry does not ask us to pretend that we are not hurt. If we recognize that someone’s behaviour has affected us, it does not require us to excuse that behaviour. If we face a real limitation, it does not ask us to cover it with a more positive interpretation.

The first answer may be honest and still incomplete.

There may also be an immediate emotional response, a familiar pattern, an assumption we are treating as established, something important that we value, a responsibility we have been carrying, or a condition affecting what is presently possible.

These parts of the experience do not automatically cancel one another out. They may simply belong to the same larger picture.

Why Advice May Not Open the View

When we feel caught inside one understanding, we often seek another person’s perspective.

Sometimes that helps. At other times, the advice we receive feels strangely disconnected from our actual lives:

“Just let it go.”

“Stop overthinking it.”

“Set a boundary.”

“Be more positive.”

“Trust your instincts.”

Even sensible advice may begin with an answer before there has been enough room to understand the experience.

A broader view is not created by replacing our story with someone else’s story. It develops when we have enough space to notice more of what belongs to our own experience.

A Gentle Place to Begin

Recognizing that one viewpoint may have become the whole story is not an accusation. It does not mean we have misunderstood everything, failed to be objective, or cannot trust ourselves.

It is simply a moment of curiosity.

We might begin by noticing the conclusion to which we repeatedly return. We can acknowledge what it helps us name and what feels true about it. We can also leave room for the possibility that something relevant may remain outside the present view.

Nothing has to be discarded. Nothing has to be resolved immediately.

Sometimes the beginning of broader understanding is simply realizing that the view we have is part of the landscape—not necessarily all of it.

Over the coming week, I’ll continue exploring this experience: how one viewpoint can become dominant, how that affects what we notice, and why thinking harder from the same position is different from looking more broadly.

If this speaks to you, the path is here.

Joanne 

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The Unfolding Rose: On living in deeper relationship with the life that is yours

 

I keep thinking about the life of a rose.

It begins as a tightly closed bud. There is nothing wrong with the bud because it has not yet opened. It isn't an incomplete version of the flower it will eventually become. It is simply the rose as it exists at that particular moment in its life.

And then, gradually, it unfolds.

One petal loosens and then another. Its shape changes as it encounters sunlight, rain, temperature, soil, wind and time. No two roses will unfold in precisely the same way because no two roses encounter precisely the same conditions.

There is no single moment when the rose finally becomes what it was supposed to be. The opening is part of its life, but so is everything that came before it and everything that follows.

Eventually the flower opens fully. And then something happens that we don't usually include when we use flowers as metaphors for human growth.

The petals begin to fall.

We tend to love the language of blooming. We tell people to blossom, flourish and become everything they were meant to be. But we rarely speak about what comes afterward.

The falling petals are not evidence that the rose has failed. They are simply another part of its unfolding.

And this matters to me because human lives unfold in much the same way. We have a tendency to imagine personal growth as movement toward some better version of ourselves—as though eventually, with enough insight, healing or effort, we will arrive.

But perhaps there is nowhere to arrive.

Perhaps we are unfolding throughout our entire lives.

We are shaped by circumstances we did not choose and experiences we could never have anticipated. We encounter relationships, opportunities, limitations, losses, joys, disappointments and possibilities. We understand something differently at sixty than we did at thirty. Something that once mattered enormously may eventually loosen its hold. Something we barely noticed may become deeply meaningful.

And through all of this, we can enter into a deeper relationship with the life that is actually ours.

We can notice what is happening.

We can ask questions.

We can examine what has shaped us and what continues to shape us.

We can become curious about what matters now.

We can recognize both our possibilities and our limitations.

We can consider how we want to be in relationship with ourselves, with other people, and with what life is asking of us in this particular moment.

This is what unfolding means to me.

It is not becoming a perfected self. It is not arriving at some final state of authenticity. It is not becoming the fully opened rose and remaining there forever.

It is participating in the life cycle itself.

And then there is one more part of the rose that I find especially meaningful.

After the petals fall, the story isn't necessarily over. When a rose has been pollinated, the base of the flower can develop into a rose hip—the fruit that contains its seeds.

Something remains.

Perhaps human lives are like that too.

What remains because we were here may have very little to do with conventional ideas of legacy. It doesn't have to be a book, a career, an accomplishment, or something that carries our name.

It might be children we loved and influenced.

It might be something we created.

It might be a friendship.

A garden.

Something we taught someone.

A pattern we interrupted.

A moment of compassion another person remembers.

A way we made someone feel seen.

An idea we shared that continued to travel long after we forgot the conversation.

We may never know all the ways our lives have touched other lives.

And perhaps we don't need to.

The rose does not unfold in order to produce an impressive rose hip. It simply participates in its own life, within the conditions in which it finds itself.

Perhaps there is something deeply human in that.

We are not here to become identical versions of some ideal human being. We each encounter a particular life, shaped by an extraordinary combination of circumstances, influences, possibilities and limitations.

Our invitation is not to become the rose beside us.

It is to enter more deeply into relationship with the life that is ours.

To unfold within it.

To remain curious about it.

To participate in it as fully as our circumstances allow.

And eventually, when our own petals have fallen, perhaps something will remain simply because we were here.

Joanne 💗

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Why Wanting Validation Feels Wrong (and Why That Belief Might Be Hurting You)

When I shared this on social media, there was a reaction.

And I think it's because lot of us see ourselves in it.

Because underneath that little bit of humor is something real—something many of us live with without fully understanding it:

We want validation… and at the same time, we believe we shouldn’t.

That’s a strange place to live from.

It creates a kind of internal tension—almost like being pulled in two directions at once. On one hand, there’s a very human desire to feel seen, valued, recognized. On the other, there’s a belief—often quiet, but persistent—that needing those things somehow makes us weak, insecure, or not fully evolved.

So what do we do?

We downplay it.
We dismiss it.
We tell ourselves we shouldn’t need it.

But here’s the part that often goes unnoticed:

When a need is denied, it doesn’t disappear. It just goes underground.

And when something goes underground, it doesn’t stop influencing us—it just becomes harder to see.

This is where things get interesting.

Because when we’re not consciously acknowledging our need for validation, we don’t get to consciously choose how it’s met. Instead, it tends to show up in subtle, indirect ways.

We might:

• feel drawn to people who offer praise that feels good but slightly off

• stay longer than we should in relationships where validation comes with strings attached

• question or minimize genuine recognition when it’s given freely

• feel a quiet pull toward being seen, while telling ourselves we shouldn’t care

And without realizing it, we become more vulnerable—not because we want validation, but because we don’t fully understand our relationship to it.

The issue isn’t the need.

The issue is the conflict around the need.

At its core, validation is deeply human. It’s connected to something fundamental:

• the desire to belong

• the need to feel seen and understood

• the experience of knowing that who we are—and how we show up—matters to someone

That’s not ego.

That’s connection.

And when that need is met in a healthy way, it doesn’t inflate us—it grounds us.

But not all validation is the same.

Some forms of validation connect.
Others entangle.

The difference isn’t always obvious at first.

Validation that entangles often feels good quickly—but it carries a subtle shift. There can be a sense of being pulled slightly off-center, of being placed into a role, of becoming important to someone in a way that feels… a little too fast, or a little too dependent.

It may come with:

• a need from the other person

• an unspoken expectation

• a dynamic where your value is tied to what you provide

It’s not always overt. In fact, it’s often quite subtle.

But over time, it doesn’t leave you feeling more like yourself—it leaves you feeling slightly… managed, or positioned, or responsible for maintaining something.

Validation that connects feels different.

It’s quieter.
More specific.
More grounded.

It doesn’t exaggerate.
It doesn’t rush.
It doesn’t pull you in.

It simply reflects something back.

And instead of taking you away from yourself, it brings you back.

The more aware you become of your own internal tension around validation—the wanting it and judging yourself for wanting it—the more discerning you naturally become.

You start to notice:

• what feels clean versus what feels slightly off

• what grounds you versus what hooks you

• what reflects you versus what pulls you into something else

And from there, something shifts.

You don’t have to eliminate the need for validation.
You don’t have to pretend it isn’t there.

You just have to understand it.

Because when you understand it, you’re no longer at the mercy of it.

You can allow yourself to receive the kind of validation that supports connection, belonging, and growth…
while naturally stepping away from the kind that creates dependency, confusion, or imbalance.

So if you’ve ever found yourself thinking:

“I want to be seen… but I shouldn’t need that.”

You’re not alone.

And there’s nothing wrong with you.

There’s just something worth understanding.

And that understanding—more than anything—is what creates the shift.

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The Damselfly Path: A Practical Framework for Understanding Your Consciousness

There comes a point where you begin to notice that it’s not just what is happening in your life that matters…

It’s how you are relating to it.

The Damselfly Path emerged from this simple but powerful realization:

👉 Growth happens through how we relate to our experiences.

Not by controlling life.
Not by fixing ourselves.
But by becoming more aware, more self-led, and more compassionate over time.

🌼 How This Framework Was Developed

This framework didn’t come from theory.

It developed through:

• my own lived experiences

• years of reflection

• and working closely with women navigating real-life challenges

Over time, I began to see a pattern:

People weren’t stuck because of what was happening to them…

They were stuck in how they were relating to what was happening.

And as that relationship changed, something shifted.

Not instantly.
But gradually.

The Damselfly Path gives structure to that shift.

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🌿 What This Framework Is (and Isn’t)

This is not a rigid system.
It’s not something you complete or achieve.

It’s a map of consciousness in relationship to your experiences.

Each stage reflects:
👉 how you are seeing
👉 how you are responding
👉 and how you are relating to your life

🌼 The States of Consciousness (Practical View)

Let’s walk through what this actually looks like in real life.

🔵 Reactive Consciousness

“I feel like life is happening to me.”
Damselfly Stage: Discovery / Early Awareness

This is where most of us begin.

You feel:

• overwhelmed

• reactive

• caught in patterns

Life feels external.
You are responding automatically.

👁️ Emerging Consciousness

“I can see myself in what is happening.”
Damselfly Stage: Deepening Awareness / Motivation

Here, something shifts.

You begin to:

• notice your reactions

• recognize patterns

• observe yourself in real time

This is the beginning of awareness.

🌀 Developing Consciousness

“I can choose how I respond.”
Damselfly Stage: Skills

Now there is space.

You start to:

• pause

• reflect

• experiment with new responses

This is where practical change begins.

🌸 Self-Led Consciousness

“I take responsibility for my inner world.”
Damselfly Stage: Empowerment / Liberation

This is a turning point.

You begin to:

• own your responses

• stop blaming circumstances

• lead yourself from within

This is where empowerment becomes real.

🍃 Aligned and Flowing Consciousness

“I move with life, not against it.”
Damselfly Stage: Flight

There is less resistance.

You begin to:

• trust yourself

• respond with greater ease

• move with life instead of fighting it

❤️ Integrated Consciousness

“I meet my experiences with compassion and clarity.”
Damselfly Stage: Love

Here, you soften.

You are able to:

• meet yourself with compassion

• hold your experiences without judgment

• respond with clarity

🌞 Embodied Consciousness

“I am fully myself.”
Damselfly Stage: You

This isn’t perfection.

It’s:

• integration

• authenticity

• presence

You are no longer trying to “do the work.”

You are living it.

🌿 Why This Matters (In Real Life)

This framework gives you a different way to understand yourself.

Instead of asking:
👉 “What’s wrong with me?”

You begin to ask:
👉 “How am I relating to this right now?”

That shift alone:

• reduces shame

• increases awareness

• creates space for change

🌼 How to Use This Practically

In any moment, you can pause and ask:

• Am I reacting?

• Am I observing myself?

• Am I choosing my response?

• Am I meeting this with compassion?

You don’t need to “move forward” perfectly.

You simply begin to notice.

🌿 How I’ll Be Exploring This With You

Over the coming weeks, I’ll be exploring each of these states of consciousness:

• through short Facebook videos

• through reflections and real-life examples

• through blog posts like this one

Each piece will focus on one stage—
in a way that connects to your everyday experiences.

🌼 An Invitation

You don’t need to be at any particular stage to begin.

You’re already somewhere on this path.

The invitation is simply to become more aware of where you are…
and how you’re relating to your life.

If this resonates, I invite you to follow along.

🌿 Closing

Consciousness reflects how you relate to your experiences.

And over time…
that relationship can change everything.

Joanne 💗

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Parenting a Conscious Being: Seeing Our Children Beyond What We Can Fully Know

There is no shortage of advice on parenting today.

Scroll through social media for a few minutes, and you’ll find countless voices telling you how to parent better—what to say, what not to say, what to do, what to avoid. Alongside that, there are deeper conversations emerging about parent-child dynamics, about healing, about the long-term impact of how we were raised.

All of it can be helpful.
All of it can also feel overwhelming.

So rather than adding another set of rules or strategies, I want to offer something different:

A lens.

A way of seeing your child that may shift how you relate to them—whether they are four years old, ten years old, or fully grown.

Your Child Is Not Just Developing a Mind—They Are Living Within a Conscious Experience

When we think about children, we often think in terms of development:

Their brains are developing.
Their skills are developing.
Their understanding of the world is developing.

All of this is true.

But something deeper is also true.

Your child is not just developing—they are experiencing.

From the very beginning, your child has a form of consciousness. At its simplest, we can think of this as:

An awareness of self in relation to an inner world and an outer world.

That awareness is not static—it evolves, expands, and becomes more complex over time.

But here is the part we rarely pause to consider:

We will never fully know what that awareness feels like from inside our child.

We can observe.
We can interpret.
We can empathize.

But we only ever understand a fraction of their lived experience.

And when we truly take that in, something shifts.

We move from certainty… to curiosity.
From control… to relationship.
From assumption… to humility.

Moving Beyond the “Vessel” Model of Parenting

Many of us were raised—explicitly or implicitly—with the idea that children are:

• vessels to be filled with knowledge
• beings to be shaped
• individuals to be guided toward competence and success

And while teaching and guiding are absolutely part of parenting, this model is incomplete.

Because every interaction we have with our child is not just instructional—it is relational and psychological.

We are not simply shaping behavior.

We are interacting with a consciousness that is forming an understanding of:

• who they are
• how safe the world is
• what it means to belong
• how they must adapt to be accepted

And this is where a deeper lens becomes helpful.

The Three Selves Within Every Child

In the work I’m developing, I often speak about three aspects of the self:

• The Given Self
• The Emergent Self
• The Adaptive Self

These are not stages.
They coexist.

And they are all present within your child.

The Given Self: Who They Already Are

The given self is what your child comes into the world with.

Their temperament.
Their sensitivities.
Their natural inclinations.
Their unique way of experiencing life.

Some children are naturally cautious.
Some are bold.
Some are deeply sensitive.
Some are more independent.

This is not something we create.

It is something we encounter.

To honor the given self is to recognize:

“This child is not a blank slate. There is already a ‘someone’ here.”

The Emergent Self: Who They Are Becoming

The emergent self is the unfolding.

It shows up in curiosity, expression, creativity, preferences, questions, and experimentation.

It’s the part of your child that reaches outward:

• “I want to try this.”
• “I like this.”
• “I don’t like that.”
• “This feels like me.”

The emergent self is alive, fluid, and constantly revealing new layers.

To support the emergent self is to allow space for becoming.

Not rushing it.
Not over-defining it.
Not shutting it down too quickly.

The Adaptive Self: Who They Learn to Be

The adaptive self develops in response to the environment.

It forms through subtle and not-so-subtle messages:

• What is accepted
• What is praised
• What is corrected
• What is ignored
• What feels safe
• What feels risky

This is where a child begins to learn:

“Who do I need to be in order to belong, to be loved, to be safe?”

Every child develops an adaptive self.

It is not a failure.
It is a survival intelligence.

But it is also the place where tension can begin—especially when adaptation pulls them away from their given and emergent selves.

Why This Matters for Parenting

When we see our child through these three lenses, something important happens:

We stop reacting to behavior alone.

And we begin to ask:

• Is this my child’s given nature expressing itself?
• Is this their emergent self trying to unfold?
• Or is this an adaptation to something in their environment—including me?

This doesn’t make parenting easier.

But it makes it more conscious.

It invites us to respond with greater awareness, rather than default patterns.

A Shift Toward Conscious Relationship

Parenting, through this lens, is not about getting it right all the time.

It’s about becoming more aware of the complexity of the human being in front of us.

A being we will never fully understand.
A being who is not ours to shape, but to support as they remain connected to who they are, while navigating who they are becoming.
A being who is, from the very beginning, living a life from the inside.

And perhaps the quiet invitation is this:

To meet our children not just as roles we are responsible for, but as consciousnesses we are in relationship with.

If this perspective speaks to you, I share reflections, practical tools, and a guiding framework on my Facebook page, to help you bring this way of parenting into everyday life.

Damselfly Transformations

Joanne 💗

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Creativity Isn’t a Talent—It’s a Way Back to Yourself

There’s a quiet belief many women carry—often without realizing it:

“I’m not creative.”

And yet…
the same woman might spend hours tending a garden, arranging a space until it feels just right, experimenting in the kitchen, choosing colors, textures, words, or ways of expressing care.

So maybe the question isn’t “Are we creative?”
Maybe the question is: Why have we defined creativity so narrowly that we no longer recognize ourselves in it?

🌿 Why Creativity Calls to Us

Creativity isn’t just about painting or writing or producing something “artistic.”

It’s about shaping something from within us into the world.

And for many women, that instinct shows up everywhere:

• in how we create spaces that feel safe or beautiful

• in how we care, nurture, and connect

• in how we express emotion, even quietly

Creativity, at its core, is a form of participation in life.

Not performance.
Not perfection.
Participation.

🏛️ A Philosophical Lens: Creativity as Something That Moves Through Us

In ancient Greece, creativity wasn’t seen as something we owned.

The philosopher Plato described artistic inspiration as a kind of divine madness—a state where something greater moves through the person creating.

Artists weren’t “special” because they were more talented.
They were open.

Centuries later, thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche saw creativity differently—but just as powerfully.

For Nietzsche, creating was not about receiving inspiration…
It was about becoming who you are.

To create was to shape your life, your meaning, your values.

So from one perspective, creativity flows through us.
From another, it is something we actively become.

And maybe both are true.

🧠 A Psychological Lens: Why Creativity Matters

From a psychological perspective, creativity plays a much deeper role than we often give it credit for.

Abraham Maslow placed creativity at the heart of what he called self-actualization—the process of becoming fully ourselves.

Not perfect.
Not finished.
But fully expressed.

Creativity also supports something many women are quietly navigating every day: emotional regulation.

When we create:

• we process feelings without needing to explain them

• we shift out of overthinking and into experience

• we give shape to what might otherwise stay stuck inside

That might look like painting.
But it might also look like rearranging a room, writing a few honest lines, cooking intuitively, or even choosing how we show up in a conversation.

Creativity gives us a way to move what we feel.

🌼 The Misunderstanding That Holds Us Back

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that creativity had rules.

That it needed to be:

• impressive

• beautiful

• productive

• or validated by others

And if it wasn’t… it didn’t count.

So we stopped.

Or we told ourselves it wasn’t “for us.”

But creativity was never meant to be something we perform.
It’s something we return to.

🎨 A Personal Reflection

For me, art became less about creating something “good”…
and more about creating something true.

There are moments when I paint and I can feel something shifting internally—not dramatically, not in a way I could explain… but in a way that feels like alignment.

Like I’m no longer trying to control or figure things out.

Just expressing.

And in those moments, creativity doesn’t feel like effort.

It feels like connection.

🌊 An Invitation

What if creativity isn’t something you either have or don’t have…

But something you allow?

Something you notice?
Something you make space for—without needing it to be anything more than what it is?

🦋 Continue the Exploration

If this idea resonates with you, I’ll be exploring creativity more deeply through the lens of the Damselfly Path on my Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/shankjoanne

We’ll move through it gently—one stage at a time—so you can explore what creativity means for you, in your own life, in your own way.

You’re invited to join whenever it feels right.

Joanne 💗

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