During my kid’s school holidays, I took a break from my usual podcast diet of current-affairs, interviews with very interesting people and mindset discourse. Instead I did a deep dive on true crime, partly because the only thing that is more likely to tip me over the edge in the summer holidays than juggling work and children is adding self-improvement or personal-goal-building to that list.

So I listened to West Cork, which I now recommend to anyone who will listen. Honestly, I felt so close to my husband as we analysed the psychopath at the heart of the investigation. Years ago, it was shows like The Wire (“the drug trade in Chicago is a nightmare!”) or Friday Night Lights (“clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!”) that would give us “box-sex”, a term that refers to the intimacy you feel with a partner when you’re both caught up in the same show. 

Anyway, with the kids back at school and a renewed focus on work and balance and making stuff happen, I decided to dive back into my regular line-up. The episode that caught my eye was ‘How to come home to yourself with Martha Beck’ on the We Can Do Hard Things podcast. I love Glennon Doyle. Her show on how to approach holidays without all the pressures to make everything magical for everyone was hugely helpful. I love Martha Beck - her writing on being grounded and tapping into your internal compass is excellent. She’s basically the best life coach in the entire world. And “coming home to myself” after basically “hitting pause on myself” since December sounded great.

Still, I’d had a break. And this show was a doozy for my re-entry into “living your best life.” Partly because while I want to listen to people who make me question and think and consider new ways to see things, there can be a lot of doubt and unease that comes with this kind of improvement. And judgement made to feel like a warm feminist hug. In the episode, Martha talks about how we shouldn’t “live by coming to consensus, instead we need to live with our senses.” Fine. Sounds like a good idea. She talks about how, as women, we bend our lives around the social construct. We often can’t even see it, we’re so caught up in societal pressures. And this is where I come a little undone. I don’t feel like a victim of a larger system, forcing my triangle shape into a round hole… but there is that little voice: Are you sure? 

They went on to discuss Martha’s life-changing advice to Glennon when she fell in love with her now-wife Abby and came out to her family. “Go towards what feels warm,” she told them, and they both say it saved their lives. Martha talked about how she blew up her own life (which she doesn’t recommend, although at the same time she makes it sound kind of crucial to enlightenment) and also started going towards warm. Her life came together. 

For me, what feels warm is staying in bed and reading a book. All. Day. Long.

Sometimes I wonder if coming home to myself and finding my knowing might be for other people, without jobs that won’t stop and kids that need lunchboxes and mortgages (and partners, for that matter) that need regular servicing. Maybe it’s for people who are able to stop… and then write bestselling books about it. I know it sounds cynical, but when I think about the balance of my life in these terms, and start to ask those hard questions, I feel my veneer of satisfaction start to crack. Because of course the relentless weight of running a household and raising kids and paying for it all isn’t something that always feels satisfying… or that makes me feel seen or heard or appreciated or deeply purposeful. It can feel like a noose as often as it does a blessing. And the other times it feels like nothing at all.

When you’re living a life that is so much about doing ALL THE THINGS, rather than reflecting, starting to peel back the layers and ask how much purpose you feel and whether you have found your higher calling… feels unsafe. Like, what if the answer is no. It’s not that I don’t think I can find tools out in the world to sort it out… it’s that I don’t want to tug the thread, only to find myself completely unraveled. Perhaps I’m not that brave. 

To be fair, not everything Martha Beck said was triggering. I actually walked away from the episode with a “coming home to myself” hack that I tried this week. Write a list of what you need to do. Write a list of what you actually want to do. And then swap one from the latter to the former. Seems simple. But she says allowing yourself to do a little more of what you want can slowly reorient your life in a much bigger way. Begrudgingly, I must admit, it works.