Escaping the Matrix

Today is January 3rd, and for many people life is slowly beginning to regain its routines after the excitement of the Christmas/ holiday season.

For many that looks like getting into the daily mad rush of things; whether it's going back to work, getting school uniforms ready, cleaning the house, or something else.

For many years that’s what it looked like in our house. My ex-husband worked in London- it was a rat race. On a bad day the commute from Essex to Battersea took over 2 hours each way, leaving me alone from 7:30am until long after 8pm with 3 young children.

I remember the chaos, the rush, the ironing of school uniforms, arriving at the school gates late EVERY single day because my children did not want to go. I remember the teachers prizing them off of my legs with them HOWLING every morning. I remember secretly being glad we were late so I didn’t have to see the disapproving looks from all the other parents who’s children walked in, smiling and neat-looking.

Back in my traveling days as a teen/early 20s I remembered promising myself that I would never subscribe to a life like this, my family would be different, I thought. I had spent time staying with families in the USA where kids woke up early, dashed off to school , did a different club after school every day, then back to do homework. When they got older off to their evening job, then doing their homework into the wee hours of the morning. I knew I didn’t want that.

On the other hand, I had stayed with people in Thailand whose children played with a ball on the beach all day, ate fruit from the trees and even engaged in games of dominoes with foreigners like me. This seemed like an impossible life to me. A far away dream. But it taught me about abundance: the "rich western families" with their abundance of rushing around, doing things and the “poor families” with their abundance of home-grown fruit, freshly caught fish from the ocean, space to play that wasn’t owned by anyone.

Now, I don’t have the answers for raising children, generating an income, organising a home and everything else, and I certainly don’t believe it is “easy”. But what I have learnt over the years is that we can change our approach. It might be just a little thing at first. Allowing our child a “rest day” from school if they seem burnt out, even if they don’t fit into the category of “ILL” . Allowing ourselves the same. Modelling self-care as a priority and addressing our own addictions to “being busy”. When our approach changes we often find our perception of things closely follows.

I wonder what that looks like for you? What changes can you make this year to free yourself up, or to loosen the stronghold of the rat race or the matrix that we live in?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Loadsa Luv.

Rach x