How do you decide what you’re going to tackle on any given day?

(I’m asking because, let’s be real. I’m going to assume if you’re reading this that your life is in some ways like mine. For all the modern conveniences we have, there are a million demands on most of us at any given time and most days for every one I finish there are 10 that I don’t. Yeah?)

When you sit down to prioritize the shape of your day, what takes priority?

Is it your to-do list?

Or is it your body?

This is a hard truth I’ve been wrestling with as I dive deeper into the world of cyclical living. Honestly, it’s one of the areas that feels most challenging for me as I move into a world of more alignment, more ease, more flow. My brain has spent 39 years absorbing the message that “a good capitalist girl will always be producing” and it is very hard to shake that with the wave of a wand. Moreover, it’s so ingrained in me that even when I can start to plan my calendar in a way that’s more aligned with my cycle (and the moon – the blessing/curse of being a Pisces is that at any given time both can impact me, weee!), then my default is to lock that in “well, I’m in the follicular phase and it’s a full moon so I’d better plan out my next month and finish up some videos and get that sample event nailed down and send out some samples and reach out to all my customers and…” EVEN if what my body is really asking for is a nap or an extra-long meditation.

As I’ve been sitting and wrestling with this lately, I think some of what blocks me in this is my own fear that I’m not good enough on my own. That I only hold value with my output and if that falls away then who I am underneath simply isn’t enough. That I won’t get it all done, that it won’t be done in time, that it won’t be “good enough” (whatever the heck that means anyway).

The irony isn’t lost on me. Because actually, what I’ve learned in the last few months is that when I really tune in and listen to what my body needs, things do actually always get done. Things don’t not get done. My family gets fed, the house stays standing, work things do get done (and usually on time – although it’s not like I’ve ever have a perfect track record on “timeliness” anyway so maybe that’s not the lynchpin I imagine it to be…). Life marches on. BUT!

I think one of the most insidious lies that patriarchal capitalism has sold us is that our joy is irrelevant. That our productivity or the happiness/safety/comfort of others matters more than the way we feel from day to day in our bodies and in our lives.

I just want to break for a minute and recognize that I am incredibly privileged to be able to have this conversation, or even have the space to think about this. I recognize that a huge part of my lived experience as a cis, white, heterosexual, upper middle-class Canadian is one where I can afford to ask questions that center my own happiness, rather than just survival. Likely, if you’re reading and can identify with anything I’m talking about, you hold some of that privilege too. So I know this conversation is a privileged one, and I think it’s still important to talk about for everyone. Joy should be a basic right for everyone, regardless of who they are. And even more so, when we can look at our own need for joy, we can call out and recognize the system that benefits from the collective “us” abandoning our joy. Let’s remember that the dismantling of these systems will benefit everyone (and so those of us with more privilege can champion that).

So, our joy matters. And sometimes that joy looks like tuning in to my body and checking in what she can actually do today. Not yesterday, or tomorrow, or 20 years ago, or an imagined body that I’ve never had (that one is one of my favourites to pretend matters. “What would the perfect imaginary version of myself be able to do in perfect land?” I ask myself, and then beat myself up for failing from that. Because that’s reasonable.). But today, what am I actually capable of? Very often it doesn’t connect with my to-do list. Because my to-do list is never, ever done. There is always something new I’m forgetting, something fresh that needs my attention, or at the vey least a giant pile of old things that I “keep meaning to get to”.

And what I notice, is that when I’m constantly holding myself to a list that doesn’t work with who I am and what I am actually capable of, is that it doesn’t change my output. It just sucks my joy.

I have committed this year, in amongst all the turmoil and changes and my own stuff that just keeps coming and coming and coming up, that I will choose joy. And sometimes that means looking at my to-do list and pulling a few more things on to my list – it does! And often it means continuing the work of untangling my worth from my work and letting my actual lived experience dictate what I take on today.

School is almost out, which means as I slide into the summer that I’ll have a ton more time with my kiddo (the beauty and privilege of working in a way that allows me to set my own schedule), so I’m going to have plenty of chances to keep learning/unlearning these lessons over the next few months. It’s going to be messy and imperfect and slow. And none of those things change my worth or my value.