The Quiet Revolution

On becoming a relaxed women (eventually)

I searched my camera roll for a ‘relaxed’ shot of myself….I couldn’t find one but I did find this.

Elizabeth Gilbert

says the most subversive thing a woman can be is relaxed.

Relaxed.

When I first heard that, I almost laughed. Me? Relaxed? I’m a mother of three, a home educator, a keeper of rhythms, snacks, and feelings. I live in the thick of it: the noise, the questions, the beautiful chaos of a life built around children and curiosity. Relaxed isn’t exactly the word I’d use to describe myself on any given Tuesday.

And yet, it calls to me.

Not as an aesthetic or a momentary escape, but as a way of being. It's something I’m striving toward, messily and slowly. Something I want my children to see and feel in me. Not because I’ve perfected it, but because I believe it matters.

I realise, looking back, that I’ve never really seen relaxed women in my childhood or even in my life now. The women around me were always doing, always in motion, always responding to the demands of family, work, and the world. This life we’ve chosen is an attempt to be unhurried, wholehearted, and always evolving. Parenting and home educating while living and working intentionally asks everything of me.

It requires my time and my presence. It asks me to sit in the unknown and stay.

It demands patience when no one wants to brush their teeth but everyone wants to unpick the lifecycle of a frog.

It requires trust, not just in my children, but in myself. Especially when the world keeps whispering, Are you sure this is enough?

This is not a soft or simple version of motherhood. It is not the easy road.

There is no bell that rings at 3 p.m. to tell me I’m off duty. No set-in-stone plan to fall back on when I doubt myself.

There is only us. Our questions. Our stories. Our rhythms. Our messy but sacred days.

That’s exactly why I need to find a way to relax within it. Not outside of it. Not when the children are grown. Not once everything is tidy. But now, inside the mess and the magic of this life I’ve chosen.

I don’t mean bubble baths or five minutes of deep breathing, although those help. I mean the kind of relaxation that comes from deep trust. The kind that stays steady when plans fall apart or when the day goes sideways. The kind that knows we are learning, growing, and becoming, even when it doesn’t look like it.

It is the kind of relaxation that lives in the bones. In the long exhale.

I’m not there yet. But I’m getting closer. Every time I pause instead of push. Every time I let the day unfold instead of trying to control it. Every time I listen to the season and slow down. Every time I choose presence over performance.

And maybe that is the quiet revolution I am part of.

Maybe that is the gift I offer my family.

Not a perfect mother, but a woman who is slowly, bravely, becoming more relaxed in the life she is building.

Even in the hard parts. Especially in the hard parts.

If my children grow up knowing what it feels like to be in the presence of a woman who trusts herself, who listens to the rhythms of her home and her heart, who rests even when there is more to do, then maybe that is enough.

Maybe that is more than enough.

Until next time,