I grew up with the phrase 'pride comes before a fall'. It would come back to me if I felt too pleased with myself and made me cautious to celebrate achievement. What if I came across as boastful? What if I was too proud? Would the fall be bigger if I was REALLY proud? This time five years ago, I was overwhelmed with this life of mine, and headed into burnout. I had a toxic workplace and felt unable to keep up with the demands at home, I was stressed and overloaded. This time one year ago I was unemployed, and the state had decided it had supported me long enough. I was unsure of where my future led, heading into trying to make coaching work at the same time as keeping Madame Papillon, a project I had been working on since 2020 and which became an official association in 2022, developing and moving forward. I was much more sure of who I was and what I wanted but I was not settled or sure of the path forward. Now, at the end of 2024, I am coming to the end of a tempo...
It took me four years to consider going back to an office job. Building up an association had been new, meaningful, and something I could do at my own pace, surrounded by friends and supporters. Once my fried brain had rebuilt itself, once my fragile nervous systems had regained some resilience, once my exercise and wellbeing routines had been established, and (let's face it) when my last savings had gone and the Belgian state was no longer willing to support me, that's when I went back. I was worried though. That final, decisive driving factor had been financial. Taking the development of the association at my own pace had meant slow but steady growth of the membership - their fees were enough to cover costs, but my work was voluntary. And it was work, not 'work'. I'd learned so much over those four years, about myself, about burnout, about Brussels beyond the bubble. I'd learned about my values and behaviour patterns, not least through my coaching training, a...
In a few weeks, when the dust has settled, remind me to tell you about the time I almost burned down the flat by leaving a pan of pasta on the hob while I went to a routine hospital appointment. For a few hours. And then ask about the insurance refusing to cover the repairs to the door the firemen broke down. If I'm a bit hazy on details, you can ground it in the week that one of the guys working on the house almost cut through his arm and had to be operated on for five hours, and how the ambulance guys, since they heard it was done with a knife, turned up with police cars in tow, to find out the full extent of this knife fight. At least Marek now knows where the police station in is our new neighbourhood. Remind me how relieved I was about having hired people here legally and covered by insurance. Once I've told you that story, you can ask about the time a couple of weeks later when we had three sets of house guests, and we moved house. By then, I'll be sitting back in our...
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