Relaxing with unfinishedness
We moved house recently.
At the moment, there are still half-opened boxes in the corners and floors with no carpets and paint tins piled against the walls. Some evenings, I stand in the middle of it all – the mess, the decisions, the unfinishedness of it – and feel strangely tender toward this new beginning.
A few years ago, I think I would have spent this whole season waiting to relax until everything was finished. But I’ve learned that ‘finished’ is a moving target. And if you wait to relax until everything is finished – your to-do list is done, your inbox is empty, your work is complete, your home is perfect – you’ll spend your whole life waiting.
Most of the meaningful things in life – nurturing relationships, mothering children, doing work we care about, creating a home – are never truly finished. There is always another email to answer, another meal to cook, another conversation to have, another thing to be organised.
Many of us have learned to treat relaxation as a reward waiting on the other side of completion. But what happens when the things that matter most can never really be completed?
Lately, I’ve been feeling that a huge part of nervous system healing and living a calmer, softer life is learning to relax with the unfinishedness. Because otherwise we will keep postponing our rest, our recovery, our joy, until some imagined future moment when everything is finally under control.
And living in a half-renovated house with a wild and messy toddler has been a beautiful opportunity to practise relaxing with the unfinishedness, to create a relaxation-friendly environment amidst the chaos and the crumbs and the peeling paint and crumbling floorboards.
Our nervous system doesn’t need perfection in order to relax. A relaxation-friendly environment is simply one that offers your nervous system cues of safety and ease amidst the everyday unfinishedness of life.
It needs moments. Moments of beauty, moments of comfort, moments where nothing is being demanded of you, moments that show your nervous system it’s safe to relax.
It needs small invitations to relax with the chaos: a cosy blanket draped over the sofa, fresh flowers on the table, your favourite mug waiting by the kettle, a photo you love stuck to the fridge, a chair by the window to remind you to sit down and daydream for a few minutes – small reminders that you are allowed to relax now, not after everything is complete.
I don’t think we realise how much our surroundings shape us, how our nervous system is always scanning our environment for pressure and responsibility, comfort and safety.
And this is part of why so many women struggle to fully relax. Not because we are bad at resting but because our environments rarely show our nervous systems,
You are safe to relax.
This is why creating a relaxation-friendly environment became one of the four gentle foundations inside Becoming The Relaxed Woman. Not because I believe women need better homes but because I believe women need more opportunities to experience ease, more moments where our nervous systems receive the message:
Nothing needs fixing right now. Nothing needs proving right now. You are allowed to rest now.
Inside the course, we explore simple ways to reduce the tiny pressures and demands that keep our nervous system on high alert and increase cues of comfort, safety and enoughness woven throughout everyday life.
Because relaxation is not something that we are only allowed once everything is complete. It is something we can allow ourselves amongst the laundry, the to-do lists, the unanswered emails, the beautiful unfinishedness of life.
If this is something you're longing for, you can explore Becoming The Relaxed Woman here.