Mary Poppins Bag: Letting Go of Life's Unnecessary Burdens

Are you carrying around the equivalent of Mary Poppins' Bag? 

Chapters

• 0:00 The Gentle Rebellion and Camino Adventure
• 13:34 Packing for Two Weeks Journey
• 23:07 Letting Go of Unnecessary Baggage
• 33:26 Letting Go of Unnecessary Baggage

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Gentle Rebellion where overwhelm is optional. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to this week's episode. I've been thinking a lot about what we carry, and I'm thinking about a Mary Poppins bag. You know she has this bag where anything you need is in it and she just pulls it out. But the thing is, mary Poppins' bag doesn't weigh her down, or doesn't appear to, because she can just fly through the air and do lots of magical things. However, for us, if we're carrying lots of things, just in case it can overload us. So I've been thinking about this for a while and it's linked to an adventure I've had this year. But before we get into that, I'm sure some of you, if you've been hanging around with me on this podcast for a while, want to know where I've been and what I've been up to. So here's an update for you.

Speaker 1: 0:55

So I can't remember when I released my last episode I think it was kind of just before winter last year and what happened was I just woke up one morning and realised I had nothing that I wanted to share, which was really interesting, because previously I've always shown up to record regardless, regardless of how I felt. In most cases, I think I've missed one or two weeks in nearly three years, but this time it just felt like I think I'm done for a bit. So I did it out of curiosity. This is interesting, what's going on? I took the pressure off myself and I just listened to myself, to my body, to my heart and to my mind and what it was saying, and I just found that I needed to pause, that it was a good thing. And then we went into the busy period of Christmas and then I took my winter retreat. By that, I mean, I find winter a really good time to go within and draw my attention from the busyness of the outside world and think about what I'm up to in my life. What do I want more of, what do I want less of? And I tend to do that slowly with the turning of the year.

Speaker 1: 2:04

And what I also did, business wise, is took a really long look at what I've been up to over the past five years and eventually I pulled it all together into a framework called the Gentle Rebellion. So this took a lot of work. This took a lot of really deep questioning and going within and thinking what have I created? What's valuable about it? Is there an easier way to communicate it. Who is it for? How does it work? All of the questions and I pulled it together into a simple framework which is just a working document. I mean, I think it looks quite nice on my website but, you know, nothing's done. It's not perfect, it's just a way of pulling everything together. I'm still not sure about it, but I'm okay with that. But it was a good. It was a good process. If you want to check it out, you can just go to my website, wwwheidymarkcouk, and see what you think. I'm open to questions from it and I'm sure that on the podcast we're going to be exploring it, either just you and me, or you, me and a guest.

Speaker 1: 3:10

But that's what basically happened over the winter and while I was in that process, I didn't really want to be talking about it because I was exploring it differently, which is interesting because when I started the podcast, it was really a way of exploring my ideas and what happened to me and the work I was doing with clients out loud, because I find that really helpful and I wanted to give as well. This is what I found out Is this you, does this work for you? What works for you? And then what happened is, I went on a big adventure and I'm not sure if I shared this. I think I might have shared some of this last year, probably.

Speaker 1: 3:44

Anyway, I'd read this article. No, I'd first read a book about the Camino de Santiago and I really felt called to do it. But it was this interesting. I really want to do that, but I don't want to do that particular one. There was this weird, I don't know. It was almost like it was irritating me that the Camino was calling to me. It's like I just feels like a pressure, because the book that I read which is a wonderful book and I would recommend reading it but it just was really hard, like everything about it, was really, really hard and I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to do something that was bashy. I'd already done that by burning myself out previously. Why would I want to go and do a really really hard walk, pushing myself to the limit? I don't need to do that, I've done that enough.

Speaker 1: 4:34

But there was something about the Camino that was calling to me and I just watched it, let it settle. And then one day last year, I read an article in one of the papers about the Portuguese Camino and it had this picture of these boardwalks right next to the coast and that that called to me, that lifted my heart. So I was just paying attention to this and then I think it was probably last April, someone like that Last spring I was staying with a friend and I just mentioned this walk and she got this book out I think it's something like the Lonely Planet's Best Walks in the World, something like that and she just opened it and said this and there was the same picture. So we had a quick chat, decided we wanted to do it, but there were lots of things about it that scared me, the biggest one being I was not how was I going to do something which felt physically challenging and emotionally challenging and mentally challenging without pushing back into my old ways of doing things? So I wasn't prepared to do it the traditional way, like the traditional way we create success, which is to push on through and, you know, push ourselves to the limit. I wasn't prepared to do it that way. I wanted to do it a different way. So we had a lot of conversations about how many miles a day can you walk comfortably, how much do you think you can carry the attitude to doing it and we had a similar approach to it. So that's why we agreed to do it together and I wanted to do it for my birthday. Anyway, we made the decision and then just let it lie. And then a new, updated guidebook came out. So we got that, didn't read it. You know what it's like.

Speaker 1: 6:11

When I next went to stay with this friend, I took my guidebook. We still didn't really plan. It was quite funny. I'm not. I don't think I'm really a planner for these kinds of things, I think until I'm in it. It's a bit like my first pregnancy. I didn't read the books on labour until I was in labour and I couldn't go to the classes because I had severe morning sickness all day all the way through the pregnancy. So I was actually reading about labour during labour. So sometimes I'll read too much ahead, but other times I will leave things which actually reminds me about what we're, what we're going to talk about in this, partly in this episode anyway, back to the Camino.

Speaker 1: 6:49

So we planned to do this basically by agreeing to do it, talking about how we were going to do it which I would argue is the best thing to talk about and then booked flights and that was it. And then, just before we were going, we started to talk more seriously about what we were going to do, the kind of accommodation, you know, a bit more planning, but not masses, and I didn't want to do it in a rigid, planned way. That was very, very important to me. We arrive at the airport and I just have this attitude of when we get there. When we get there and my friend says to me but Heidi, we can't walk the whole way, I said, yeah, I know, theoretically we can't, but I just believe we will. Like we've got a magic carpet.

Speaker 1: 7:37

If you sat down and divided the 260 kilometers by the days we had available and how far we could comfortably walk when we started and bearing in mind we were unprepared to do it, the bashy way where you push on through and you, you know, you pop your blisters and you strap your legs up and you take painkillers and all the other things that seem to be the traditional stories around the Camino, it was impossible. Theoretically it was impossible, but we just went with the well we're going was impossible. Thoracically it was impossible, but we just went with the well. We're going to enjoy it Because, let's face it, it doesn't have to be hard. It doesn't have to be a hardship To take two weeks. We took just over two weeks out of our lives to just walk. Wow, that's pretty cool. Hey, why would I make that into a nightmare? Why, what's the point? Now, some people like doing it that way, and I have no judgment about that or anything. Everybody's Camino is different and that's really important to let go of the idea that there's one way of doing it. It's just that the stuff I'd read everybody it was just so hard. It just sounded miserable. A lot of it sounded miserable. It sounded like the purpose was to overcome the misery.

Speaker 1: 8:47

And yet here we were in Portugal in the middle of April, and it was beautiful. It was so sunny and coming out of grey, soggy England into this beautiful northern Portugal was just so beautiful. And our attitude was we're going to really, really enjoy it. So we had roughly two weeks. So we said, right, the first week we'll just thoroughly enjoy ourselves, and then, if we have to, we'll just get a bus or a train and then we'll walk the last bit where? Because you have to walk the last hundred kilometers to get your certificate. And we thought, well, we can do that, that's okay. So that was our attitude, and then we went into Porto to find the cathedral Couldn't find the cathedral anywhere, hilarious Got our pilgrim's passport and off we set, and then Within a couple of days we realized that we were actually walking quite long distances, and this is why.

Speaker 1: 9:43

So we just literally got up and we just pootled. We said, let's just get up and pootle, let's go and find coffee, let's just go and find a coffee. So we just pootled, beautiful morning, sun coming up. You know, just this is nice, we've made it. It really did feel like we'd made it because it took so much planning, and I obviously I didn't do lots of serious planning, but you know what I mean. It takes planning. I'd wrap my business up. There's all sorts of planning that goes into taking time out of your life to do something like this. So it kind of felt like it did actually feel like I'd arrived before I started, and particularly when we got to we reached the boardwalks because and saw that we were actually in the photo that I'd originally seen, and so I was just very happy already. I was just very, very relaxed.

Speaker 1: 10:28

So we pootled, we pootled to find coffee, and then we found coffee. And it's so delicious isn't it when you don't know where your coffee's coming from. And you find a coffee and and then we said, oh, should we just walk a little bit further and find some breakfast? So then we pootled and then eventually found a cafe and and had some breakfast. And for me the breakfast thing is quite a big deal because I can't eat gluten and both pets Spain and Portugal were very gluten-based, so that could be tricky. But we did really well at finding eggs or omelette or something protein healthy that that fueled us up for the day, and that worked really well. At finding eggs or omelette or something protein healthy that that fueled us up for the day, and that worked really well. And then we'd say you ready to go? Okay, let's just keep going, and I expect we'll find some lunch somewhere.

Speaker 1: 11:10

And then we just pootled, really looking around, taking it all in, just being really happy that we had this time out of our lives talking about. Well, obviously, the for the first few days was a lot of catching up with each other, because there always is when you haven't seen someone for a while, that's really nice and um, and then a lot of talking about how we were doing it and reflecting on how we were doing it, and we just had this attitude that we would pootle and enjoy ourselves, with this background thing of we can always get a pass. We can always get a pass, it's no big deal which worked really, really well, because what we did is remove the pressure, removed all of the pressure. So I'm not going to tell you the whole story of the Camino, because there's lots of lessons in it for me and hopefully for you, that I'm going to share over the next probably a few months. But that's one of the reasons that I wasn't podcasting, because I was very focused on, first of all, putting together the Gentle Rebellion framework and I didn't want to talk about it while I was doing it. And secondly, my business has grown, so I've been busier with clients and my community, which has been wonderful. And then, thirdly, I had this huge adventure for my 56th birthday. So that's where I've been and what I've been up to.

Speaker 1: 12:26

And now back to this week's episode. Oh yes, and before I get into the Mary Poppins bag, I just wanted to say this kind of feels like series two of the podcast. It's got a different feeling. The podcast has been kind of tapping me on the shoulder going. Come on, it's time for series two and I've just been curious to see what that would look and feel like and what would happen next. Because having you know things change all the time and having got the gentle frame gentle rebellion framework together and having that as an anchor point changes how I think about things. But it's also I just feel really relaxed about how I'm, how I'm podcasting, which is really important to me. So before I felt I felt the need to commit to a weekly episode, which is quite a lot of work, but it's fine, I enjoyed it and I just don't feel like that. Now I feel like there will probably be an episode every week and that's it and that's cool. I'm really happy with that and there very likely will be an episode every week Because once I get started I get very excited and have lots of ideas and also I've got lots of people I want to interview.

Speaker 1: 13:34

This time it's really exciting, but it feels like it's got a different feeling to it and it don't know, and I don't know exactly what it is, I can't describe it exactly. I'm really excited about it. I hope you're going to love it and come along for the ride. If you're new. Welcome if you've been here a while. It's lovely to be back here and thank you for being here.

Speaker 1: 13:54

Please do subscribe, leave a review, share it with people, because I really want the podcast to reach more people, because the people who listen to it that contact me and tell me how much it means to them. Obviously it's doing some good. So to get it to more people, that would be really cool, right? That would be brilliant. So please can you help me with that? I'd really appreciate it. If you go to apple podcast, you can leave a review and that really, really really helps. Otherwise, just tell people, send it to them, send them an episode or talk about it or I don't know. I'm not going to tell you what to do. Obviously, I'm not going to add to your overwhelm, but I'd appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 14:32

But anyway, back to it. Feels like a series two, but I'm not going to call it series two because if I call it series two, it's going to add to your overwhelm, because when I reference a particular episode and its number, if I have series two, then it's going to start at one again. It's going to screw up the. You know you could have series one, episode one, series two, episode one. So I'm not going to do that, but it feels like the second series has got that feeling to it and I'm really excited.

Speaker 1: 14:54

So back to Mary Poppins and her bag. So Mary Poppins has this bag and it seems to have the solution for everything in it, but it doesn't seem to weigh her down. Because, well, she's Mary Poppins and she can't be weighed down. She's just always happy and always useful and has this magical thing about her. But for us to have our magical stuff about us, I think we need to look at what we're carrying.

Speaker 1: 15:18

And one of the things that came out of the Camino, or at least the preparation for the Camino for me, was what am I prepared to carry for two weeks? Because I've had neck issues and back issues in the past and I don't particularly like carrying backpacks. I find they pull on on my, on my neck. Two weeks of carrying every day is very, very different than carrying a backpack for one day the whole. Can I walk that far?

Speaker 1: 15:44

There was anxieties to do with that. I wasn't prepared to push my body but at the same time you can accidentally do it and you can have an injury. And I didn't want to push myself to the point where I felt emotionally like I'm just having a meltdown. I didn't want to fall out with my friend. I didn't want to not enjoy it. I didn't want to. There was all sorts of stuff coming up for me in the preparation I'm 56. Am I fit enough to do this? All sorts of things and the carrying of the bag. I didn't want to add pressure to myself quite literally, because that pressure would be on my shoulders, pulling at my neck, hurting my back. I didn't want to suffer through this. This is supposed to be fun and joyful. So that meant that I really had to consider what I was prepared to carry for two weeks, both metaphorically and physically. So eventually I was just weighing everything, and that's really, really helpful, because any grams you can get rid of is really, really helpful.

Speaker 1: 16:39

And then there was the whole what does the backpack feel like? Because you don't tend to walk around with a backpack with everything you're going to need for two weeks. I did do it once, but only walked an hour and a half. It seemed quite comfortable. Then, at the last minute, I had a big panic over was my backpack. It seemed comfortable, but I'm not sure it would fit on one of the flights because the flight home had 10 centimeter less bag size and I went into it and I ordered all these backpacks off Amazon, then sent them all back and then went with this old backpack oh, my goodness, so much thought into will I be comfortable carrying everything I need for two weeks? I mean, it's a big decision, but it's also the how important are these things for me? So it's not just can I carry it, which raises lots of questions about health and looking after myself properly and treating myself and my body with respect, the capability of the weight, but also what am I prepared to carry? Because I'm still going to have to carry whatever I do.

Speaker 1: 17:45

I couldn't carry nothing and that's like, and I didn't want to pay for a baggage, so it's not that expensive to have your baggage transferred. That's not how I wanted to do. I wanted to do it where I was carrying everything. That's part of the challenge that I was excited about, and part of that challenge is and I quite enjoy this as a an exercise, a mental exercise why am I choosing to carry that? What, what is that about and why am I happy to not carry that? It's a really interesting thing.

Speaker 1: 18:10

It just the whole process went on for a few months, really just on and off. It wasn't like a full-time thought process. But every time people say what are you carrying every, you're carrying everything for two weeks. You know how are you going to do that. That's really hard and I looked at packing lists online and even those were too big for me. I'm not carrying all of that. Why would you carry all of that? I don't want to carry all of that. So if you're interested in what I carried, it is carried. It is pretty impressive.

Speaker 1: 18:40

So, basically, I wore a t-shirt and a coat and walking trousers and then I carried a very thin, lightweight, long sleeve top and very thin leggings to wear at night and to change into for the evening, and a luxury was a pair of soft, fluffy socks for bedtime in the evening, and then, apart from that, I had two pairs of pants and another pair of socks, and I think that was it. Oh, I did take swimmers, because we were by the coast. I did have a travel towel never used it. I did have a silk sleeping bag liner in case there were bugs never used it. Everything was clean. And I did have a.

Speaker 1: 19:30

Did I have a travel pillow? I did take a travel pillow, which I never used, which is good, and it's very small. I took my Kindle, my phone, the guidebook, a very, very small medical kit Earplugs, obviously. Face mask that was it. I think that was it. It was really small. Oh, toiletries, a shampoo bar, I think that was it. Oh, face, oh, my face wash.

Speaker 1: 20:06

I actually got the tiniest, tiniest bag, like really small, like two centimetres by two centimetres and squirted in one squirt a day. That was really lightweight and some moisturiser, was that it? I think that was it. It was really small amount of stuff, really small amount of stuff, because in the end I realised I wasn't walking in the wilderness and I could buy stuff. Right, you can always buy stuff, but you don't tend to want to leave your own stuff behind. That's what I realised in the end. So if I'm going to carry something, it had to be something that I would definitely use or would be difficult to find or could make a huge difference to me.

Speaker 1: 20:52

Like the travel pillow was interesting, I just assumed I might. It might make a big difference to comfort and sleep matters, but actually I didn't use it and looking back I think, well, maybe I probably should, if there were times when I should use it and, looking back, I think, well, maybe I probably should have. There were times when I should use it because there's some weird pillows like Spain just had these long, flat pillows how do they? That doesn't work, really uncomfortable, so we were folding those in half. So actually I could have had the travel pillow and then I wouldn't have had to do that, but I kind of just got used to not doing it. So the way it worked is I had waterproof stuff bags of different colours, and one was a daytime, one was a night time, one was like with my toothbrush in it, and then I just every night, every day, did exactly the same thing switched bags around, and the travel pillow was in the night time bag and I just never took it out. So it was habit more than anything. That's also interesting.

Speaker 1: 21:48

Very easily get used to not having things and being in the habit, so arrive somewhere, wash, wash, pants and socks, that's it. There's nothing else to do, literally nothing else to do. Maybe look at the next day's? Yeah, look at the next day's yeah, look at the next day's walk, think about where we might stay, find out where the nearest I? We always found out where the first coffee was, but there wasn't that much to do and it just everything became simpler. There's something really beautiful about that.

Speaker 1: 22:18

So that's what I liked about the process of thinking what am I prepared to carry? Instead of it being a hardship oh my goodness, how am I going to cope without all of these things it just literally became a joyful thing of. I'm really prepared to not carry much. I'm really prepared to or rather, positively, I'm really prepared to go without those things, and if I need them I'm prepared to buy them, but I'm not prepared to take. I would rather do that than take things and leave things that I like. I'd rather leave those things at home. Right to the point that I got so obsessed with weighing everything Because actually the final weight was five kilograms, including a full bottle of water. There's actually quite a lot to carry and I was concerned about it, especially carrying every single day.

Speaker 1: 23:07

So at the very last minute, even though I'd bought in a sale don't you love that kind of synchronicity? I think it was in February I just walked into the shop and they had Gore-Tex actual Gore-Tex for 200 quid off. Oh my goodness. But I didn't take that special jacket and I'm still wondering whether I should have taken it. So the idea was I had this lightweight fleece and a Gore-Tex jacket and that would cover all actualities with weather and the the. What I forgot was the fleece was something that I could wear in the evening, not as a coat, as a, you know, comfortable thing to relaxing. And then, the very last minute we'd both me and my partner, had walked into a shop. I love this kind of thing, don't you? You walk into a shop and there's something wonderful at a ridiculously cheap price.

Speaker 1: 23:55

We'd got a hundred pound coats for 30 quid and they were not waterproof, but water resistant, but windproof and wind. I hadn't thought about wind that much, but actually wind can make you really cold, so I don't know. Anyway, at the last minute I weighed the fleece and the Gore-Tex against the new coat and the new coat won by about 200 grams. So I took the new coat, which was fine, until the second week when the temperatures plummeted to below what was going on at home and it got wet and it was cold, and obviously my coat. The water went through to my t-shirt underneath and and then it was oh, should I have taken the Gore-Tex coat? That's how much I was not carrying things crazy, but that was fine, because I bought a fleece just to have a nice fleece to cuddle up in, you know, dry, to be dry in and warm in. When we arrived somewhere and had to dry our coats out, and I bought an emergency very cheap poncho which just about oh, it did get me through because I survived. Nothing terrible happened, okay, so I was pretty soggy, sat in that cathedral in Santiago, but it was all fine, nothing terrible happened.

Speaker 1: 25:11

So there is this thing, isn't there, of overloading bags with just-in-case items. I better take that just-in-case when actually we weren't in the middle of nowhere and you could buy anything. And I really liked that exercise because it's taught me and I'd already started doing this. I started doing practices like not taking a bottle of water. What is it about taking a bottle of water? We always seem to take bottles of water with us everywhere, just in case, just in case, what? Just in case I get thirsty? What would happen if you get thirsty? I don't know. There's just this. We didn't, we never took drinks with us as children and we never. Actually, all the way through my twenties and thirties, we didn't take bottles of water everywhere. I don't know what happened about, I don't know. When it was 10, 20 years ago, everybody started carrying bottles of water as if some terrible thing was going to happen.

Speaker 1: 26:03

And it's not that I never take water with me now. It's that I now consider do I need to take the water, as opposed to previously I've just been lugging water everywhere. Water's quite heavy, but it's not for me. It's not about that. It's the practice of dealing with the discomfort, the anxiety about, if I don't carry these things, what might happen. So that would also include a phone, wouldn't it? A phone and water, money, that kind of thing.

Speaker 1: 26:32

Just practicing, going out without those, just to see how I tolerate the slight discomfort of that and then noticing the freedom that has given me. That's been a practice for me and also linked to intermittent fasting, because intermittent fasting for me, I found was really good, for I feel hunger hunger, but nothing terrible happens and because it's controlled, I'm going to eat in two hours or one hour or four hours or whatever. It's tolerable. And there's something for me has been really rich in the toleration of that and and to the point where I'm comfortable with it, where it's, it's fine, I'm able to relax in that. And this is related to this preparing for the Camino, and what am I prepared to do without? And what was important for me was to remember I I can always buy it, I can always ask for help and also we can always get a bus was part of that.

Speaker 1: 27:32

So, having this release of pressure, the release of having everything under control, the release of knowing with certainty every eventuality Well, of course, because if you go, knowing every eventuality, where's the adventure, where's the freedom? So for me, these were the parameters I put in place. I chose to carry my own luggage. Could have paid somebody to carry it, that's fine. Also, we chose not to book accommodation, not to plan until the second week, we chose not to even work out how many miles a day we would have to do to get there if we were to walk the whole way. So it was an absence of planning, an absence of control, but very much in the packing. There was something very rich for me about what am I prepared to carry and what am I prepared to risk needing, but doing without and going as light as I could, knowing that that was safe. Of course it's safe. I was only going to Spain and Portugal. I wasn't going to some desert, somewhere there's shops, everything's okay.

Speaker 1: 28:44

That was a really rich experience for me and it's made me look at what else I'm carrying, which is something I've been doing for years, because the burnout for me was the complete overloading of things that I didn't realize I was carrying, plus the things I was carrying for other people, because I was being kinder to them than to myself, because I thought I could cope better with it, because I appeared to be coping better. So you know, choosing to take the load off other people in a working situation because they weren't coping, overloading myself Do you do that? It's very easy to become that person. Isn't it the go-to person to get things done, to ask for help, to get things sorted fast? And I loved that and I was really good at it. And then I burnt out unexpectedly. So it's made me look at what am I carrying, why? And there's lots of secret things we carry Like I ought to have read that book, I ought to have done that thing, I ought to have double checked.

Speaker 1: 29:43

There's all this weight of stuff. So another thing that happened with me is that I set the intention I was carrying five kilograms and I also set the intention to lose five kilograms of stuff and I can't tell you what that stuff was and I can't. I didn't have any clear feeling or there was no like thought. There were no actual thoughts describing the junk that I wanted to dump, but I felt very strongly that I wished to feel like I was dumping five kilograms of stuff, and by stuff I mean pressure, anxiety, past hurts and slights and pain. You know, just stuff, stuff. I don't know what it was and I still couldn't tell you, but I feel like I dumped it because I set the intention to it and I've noticed that intention matters more than anything.

Speaker 1: 30:42

Having the intention to walk without pressure, without injury, without bashing myself and judging myself and with the attitude of we'll just poot and we can always get a bus. Doing it that way, the gently, rebellious way, having that intention worked and we did walk the whole way with ease, without pressure, and it was amazing and I did carry all my stuff and everything was okay and I bought the things that I needed and everything was okay. So this has really made me think about what do we carry inadvertently and what can we let go of? So I'd leave that with you. What might you be carrying that you no longer need to carry, that you can let go of and it's usually old stuff and it doesn't. I don't believe it even needs to be named.

Speaker 1: 31:41

But the intention to release, particularly from the body. But the intention to release, particularly from the body, the intention to just let go, to just put down the weight of stuff that has accumulated over years and years and years, that could be your must-read list. That could be old projects unfinished from 10 years ago or longer. It could be old friendships that don't really work anymore, just the weight. I'm not talking about taking action, I'm talking about just having the intention to let go, to just say I'm not carrying the responsibility for that anymore or I'm just not carrying all this stuff anymore.

Speaker 1: 32:23

It's worth thinking about all of the carrying stuff just in case. Just this weight of stuff. What are you carrying that you could put down, even if you don't know what it is, because I don't think it matters. I really think the intention, the intention to travel lighter, the intention to choose freedom and ease over heaviness, and this huge weight of the responsibility, maybe for other people's happiness, which we can't actually be responsible for, but takes a while to learn that what's weighing you down, that you could just experiment with putting down and see what it feels like. You can always pick it up again, just putting it down, notice how you feel, pick it up again if you want it, this temporarily putting to one side the heavy weight of responsibility that you carry just to get curious about what it feels like. So that's my invitation for you this week.

Speaker 1: 33:26

I'm not sure if I've quite linked it to Mary Poppins bag, but if, like me, if you're like me, where I used to be before the gender rebellion, before burning out, I had a lot of stuff I was carrying just in case, a lot of thoughts and responsibilities and memories and stuff that I chose to carry, didn't realize was overloading me and actually wasn't particularly helpful. Not just for myself, because obviously I burnt out and it damaged me and it robbed me of joy on the way there, but also stuff I was holding that I thought was helpful for other people but actually wasn't Just stuff. What can you put down? A lot of it's just in case stuff, just in case, because I don't know, just because, because it's a habit, it's a learned habit.

Speaker 1: 34:19

Anyway, I'm going to leave you with that. There's a difference, isn't there, between being prudent and being stuck in survival mode, and only you know the difference between the two. Only you know what you need to carry and what you can now put down because you no longer need to be on standby for that emergency. Have a great week and I'll see you next week For more resources to help you gently rebel.