The Mowed Paddock
This morning I was mowing the paddock.
It’s not something that would register as significant to most people but as I went back and forth, I realised just how much meaning this small, ordinary task actually held.
For years, this paddock felt completely out of reach, the grass became so long, tussocks grew and I was embarrassed about what my neighbours might be thinking! This didn’t happen because I didn’t care, or didn’t try, but because my life simply didn’t have the capacity to maintain it. And today, as the year ends and I took the time to mow, it struck me: this is what forward movement can look like.
Quiet. Unremarkable. Earned.
As the year ends, there’s often this collective feeling of ‘I can’t wait for the back of this year’, the hope that once the calendar turns, life will somehow feel lighter, easier, better.
And while I can certainly look back on this year and say, gosh, what a year, I decided this morning that I don’t want to write it off as something to escape from. I want to acknowledge what has actually shifted. What no longer feels so overwhelming.
Because progress doesn’t always announce itself loudly.
Nearly six years ago now, I separated from a 20-year relationship. At the time, I was raising three children, had completed only a small portion of my Bachelor of Health Science (Naturopathy), and was living in our family home, a very large house set on 2.5 acres, with a big garden and endless maintenance.
My focus was clear and unwavering: finish my degree, build my own business, and create a life that felt aligned one that allowed me to support my family as a single mum, with no local family support to lean on. I had to stand on my own two feet.
The years that followed blurred together.
There was constant travel to Sydney for classes. Shuffling kids between two households. Assignments stacked on assignments. Learning how to be the sole income provider for my family while parenting teenagers and holding it all together.
The garden slipped into chaos. The house reflected the overwhelm. Life became a cycle of just getting through the next thing that had made it to the top of the list.
And of course, as if that wasn’t enough, COVID.
What I didn’t fully appreciate at the time was that survival mode has a shelf life.
It took a few years for all of that to catch up with my nervous system but last year, it did. Loudly and unmistakably. And I realised something had to change.
Not everything.
Me.
This year, I approached life differently. I worked more with my capacity instead of constantly pushing past it. And while part of me could still say, I hope next year is easier, another part of me wanted to pause and recognise what had come back online.
I watched my children turn 15, 17 and 19.
I finally had someone come in to slash the paddock making it manageable, so Callum and I could mow it ourselves and keep it looking cared for (and give the brown snakes less cover).
My sister and I navigated incredibly tough terrain with our parents, including transitioning our mum into a nursing home when her health made it impossible for her to remain on the farm with Dad.
I grew spiritually, deepening my connection to that part of my life, both personally and within my work.
I started meditating regularly.
I recognised that I needed adequate times of solitude so regain my energy and I gave myself that.
I continued doing deeper personal work with an incredible local therapist.
I navigated dating apps, and a relationship that turned out to be shorter than I had hoped but still offered learning and clarity.
I had my sewerage tanks emptied (a very unglamorous but very real win).
I finally got the garden to a place I’m proud of with only one stubborn patch of blackberries left, growing from within my teucrium hedge, so proving to be very difficult to eradicate.
My business grew, and I became more grounded in how I practise. Through business courses and mindset work, I learned that small business moves in seasons and that staying with it requires trust, patience, and a willingness to tolerate uncertainty. That shifted how I relate to growth, momentum, and the quieter periods in between.
I also found my voice. I began sending newsletters and writing blogs, and those forms of communication feel genuinely aligned with how I want to show up in my work.
I won a scholarship to add a new modality to my practice called Spinal Flow.
I de-cluttered and ran my home in a far more organised way creating less stress for my children and I both.
I made peace with the fact that I cannot work seven days a week on and in my business and be a present single parent and manage a property and be there for the ever-increasing support required by my parents. I now understand that choosing sustainability is not failure, but wisdom.
I started a small book club with like-minded women, where we come together to read and reflect on books that enrich our lives as women and mothers.
We lost our beautiful dog, Merlo, the grief was deeply painful and still present with me.
I made myself a skirt.
After years of constantly creating for myself and others, that part of me had shut down. It felt like too much to even think about following a pattern or sitting at the machine. But in the last month, I did and I made myself a skirt. Something I haven’t felt I had the space, energy, or internal permission to do for years. That, too, felt significant.
The paddock didn’t become manageable because I suddenly had more time, more motivation, or more energy.
It became manageable because, gradually, over nearly six years, I learned some tough lessons. I persevered. I chipped away. I gave myself permission to rest, and also time to work physically hard outside when I had the capacity for it. I learned to trust my intuition when deciding what needed attention in my business.
I stopped expecting everything to be perfect. Instead, I chose one thing, got it done, and then moved on to the next, and the next. I stopped trying to do everything at once and started working with my capacity, rather than constantly pushing against it.
This is something I see again and again, both personally and in my work.
Healing doesn’t happen in one appointment with a practitioner, or by taking a single bottle of herbs or even multiple supplements. It happens by choosing to show up, consistently, and chipping away over time. Year after year.
If you’re moving through a major life transition, separation, grief, burnout, illness, or simply a season of profound change, it’s important to know that it can take years for life to reorganise itself. For your nervous system to settle. For your body to feel safe enough to exhale.
Healing isn’t about fixing everything at once.
It’s about restoring enough support, safety, and regulation that the small things no longer feel impossible. And you build from here. Well that’s how it happened for me.
And often, those small things, a mowed paddock, a calmer home, a skirt sewn at the kitchen table, are the foundations for health.
Mowing the paddock this morning felt like integration of years of lived experience, stress, growth, grief, and effort, something deeper again shifted.
As this year closes, I’m not rushing to leave it behind.
I’m acknowledging what it took to get here.
And honouring the ground that’s finally been cleared.