Dear Rose # 39 - Life’s Practice: Measuring Growth Under the Surface

Rose is an amalgam of us - women in their 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond who are looking for somewhere they are seen, heard and listened to.

Dear Rose,

It’s been three months since I started writing you letters. Do you think I’ve changed and grown in that time? A big part of me says no, I haven’t. I still think I’m not exercising enough and I'm eating too much crap. My Bali retreat hasn’t sold out and my health is fragile. There are still some things at work that make me quite anxious, and I’ve still got a lot to learn about fish-keeping.

The journal on the left is the one I’ve written 3 months of letters to you in, the one on the right is if the next 3 months.

But under the surface, in ways you’d never see, I am growing. I don’t beat myself up as easily. I grant myself more ease. I allow myself more rest, and I forgive myself faster when those things don’t or can’t happen.

This is the stuff I’ve been working on for the past ten years. This is the stuff I’ll be working on for the rest of my life. And I think the biggest change I’ve made in the last three months is realising that this stuff is my life‘s practice—and I’m okay with that.

Love, Em xx