First off:

First off, just a quick note to say the five Snowflake Fidget pens are available in the shop. The Snowflake Bebes are in progress. There are three Retrogrades with their caps on lathe, too. (The Retrograde in Chaos Magic sold before I managed to open the word processor, so I didn’t write for that one.)
 
These pens are hand-painted with multiple layers of holographic glitter and metal snowflakes and so. many. coats of cyanoacrylate to top coats that I finally gave up counting how many layers I painted on and then sanded smooth for each pen. (It was… a lot. In a 40 degree workshop, with wet hands because it sands better wet.)
 
And off we go.
 
I practice mindfulness and compassion – actively, and have for decades. It’s one that I’ve been teaching to my kids, too, because it has been a very real blessing being able to pause and hold space, acknowledge, and personally honor my reaction to something before I choose how I will respond. It gives me time to feel what I am going to feel, and then still have the freedom of choice in how I want to respond to the situation or event so that I remain true to who I want to be, not who trauma and manipulation could have pushed me to be in that moment.
 
This month, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to practice holding space for anxiety around my self-worth, particularly as it’s tied to productivity and not disappointing people. I’ve been “behind” where I wanted to be, people have been excitedly asking when things are going to be ready – and I haven’t had an answer. I mentally know that people are just excited and trying to be supportive, but old history as my nervous system and anxiety on high alert for the moment when the excited people decide they aren’t excited because I didn’t go fast enough and now they’re just disappointed that I’m (slow, stupid, disorganized, unreliable, lazy, etc.) 
 
So, I sit with the feelings, knowing they aren’t accurate to this moment’s experience, before I hurt relationships and feelings of the people trying to support me.
 
But it’s been a challenge. I’ve been struggling with it, and I’ve been sitting with the frustration of knowing that I need to expend extra time and energy holding space for these old responses that are no longer accurate in this moment when I already felt behind and short on everything from time to energy to emotional bandwidth.
 
I don’t have a neat answer for what to do about it, because that’s the thing – I don’t really think there is one. Healing, growth, it’s not going to ever be a one and done answer. It’s an ongoing process of figuring out how to be there for yourself when things get hard without hurting yourself more. It’s a Shrek process: it’s peeling onions, and yeah, it’ll probably make you cry a bit. 

– A. Markov