The body keeps the score - my 5 year long secret

In nature things are allowed to break down. Why aren't we?

Santiago, Chile. 2017. Random morning of the week.

“I’ll sleep in a bit longer and meet you at the office”, I tell my partner (and co-founder) that morning.

What I don’t tell him is that I can’t get out of bed. Yes, I already tried. Nope, legs won’t move. This is strange, very strange. I’m doing my best to fight my increasing heartbeat with slow deep breaths, keeping my voice as calm as possible until my partner finally leaves our cozy loft overlooking the snow-capped Andes mountains.

After what feels like hours my legs decide to grace me with their ability to move again and I even manage to get on my bicycle convinced I’m about to make the, frankly life-threatening, cycle across the Chilean capital to our co-working space.

I don’t get further than the corner cafe. I order a matcha (because a matcha is always a good idea) and I sit staring out the window at the busy humans crossing the street, not even questioning their leg’s ability to move. Places to go, people to see.

'In nature, things are allowed to break down and regenerate and build back up again. But as humans, it feels trickier. Life is busy. You can’t really schedule in a breakdown’. (Emma Gannon)

What amazes me the most looking back is me sipping my matcha completely guilt-stricken. Yes, guilt for not being in the office working on my start-up. Guilt when I should have felt worry instead.

Burnout? Not on my watch.

It never got as bad again as that random morning in Santiago de Chile, but it did get progressively worse. For 5 years I continued working, hard, fully tapping into my masculine qualities. Strong, purpose-driven. Never a good moment to step out. I'm not the type to get a burnout, or so I thought. So I hid it for the world and most of all for myself. My body’s little secret.

Today, I can finally say, more than a year after leaving Frank about tea, and nearly two years after deciding that something had to radically change, that I’m ‘burn-out’ free. Slowly but surely reclaiming my femininity. Letting myself regenerate, sometimes still breaking, but always rebuilding. Because the body really does keep the score.

Soft is the new strong ✌️

Love, Valerie 

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This Substack is a personal thought experiment shaped by my experience as a privileged white woman that grew up in Germany and Belgium, and now lives between the mountains and the sea in Portugal. Read more here. I acknowledge there are many other perspectives on living a soft(er) life, and I hope to invite diverse voices into this space as it grows.