Here’s something nobody puts in those ‘how to stay calm in chaotic times’ articles...

Yolande Author

How to be held by life - 

When it feels like everything is falling apart.
(Spoiler: yes, we're still talking about the dishwasher.)

It's 6:47 PM. You just got home. Your coat is still on. 

Your keys are somewhere - you're not entirely sure where. 
The dishwasher is full of clean dishes that have been waiting to
be putaway for three days.

And you're standing in the kitchen thinking: I can't do this.

Not the dishwasher. Not the keys. This. All of it.

(And then someone walks in and hands you their plate. As if you're
the intake desk.)

I spent fourteen days working in a new environment. New country. New rules. New government structures I had to
figure out entirely on my own - because an onboarding period? Didn't exist. Colleagues? Always out in the field.
Hard to reach. And my team leader? She told me thursday morning, very calmly:"Please stop calling me with questions.
I have twenty-five colleagues to manage. You are not a priority."

[  "You are not a priority." ]

I froze. Tears in my eyes. Not just because of what she said. But because somewhere deep down, that sentence landed on
something much older than this job. A wound I thought had scarred over. Apparently not.

My nervous system didn't know the difference between a team leader in 2024 and whatever came before. It just knew:
you are not a priority. And it responded accordingly.

And then - that same thursday - a parent said to me: "I've never looked at my autistic son's career this way before. It's like
you lifted him and his career to a higher level."

Two things at once.
That's your life, isn't it?
Holding someone else up. While not even knowing where your own keys are.

The dishwasher isn't the problem. You know that. And yet there it stands. Full of clean dishes. Waiting. And you look at it
like it's some kind of verdict on who you are as a human being. That's what overload does to your brain. It makes small
things feel enormous. And big things - like the parent who really sees you -  disappear into the noise.

(Your nervous system doesn't keep a list of beautiful moments. It doesn't work that way. It registers threat.
And twenty-five colleagues + you are not a priority = threat.)

Being held doesn't mean someone puts away your dishes. It doesn't mean the chaos disappears. It doesn't mean your team leader suddenly picks up the phone.

It means this: that somewhere - inside you, around you, in a conversation, in a place, in a sentence - something says: you don't have to carry all of this alone. 

That's what that parent did. She held you for a moment, without knowing it. With one sentence.

[  Being held isn't always big. Sometimes it's a sentence. Sometime it's cup of tea someone makes without being asked. Sometimes it's knowing there's a place where you don't have to be the strongest person in the room. ]

The system that tells you 'you're not a priority', is the same system that expects you to be the priority
for everyone around you. Your team. Your clients. Your children. Your parents. The dishwasher.

That's not a coincidence. That's by design.

(And no - the answer is not "more self-care". Unless by self-care you mean: refusing a system that
structurally empties you out. That's what I mean.)

Not by fixing everything. Not by putting away the dishes. Not by stopping yourself from feeling what
you feel. But by finding one small thing that holds you today. A sentence that lands. A space that feels
safe. A moment of: I was seen.

The way that parent held you. The way you held her son - lifted him to a higher level, even on a day
when nobody was holding you.


That's it. That's how life holds you. Not in one big embrace. In small hands.

~ Yolande ~

Quiet Provocateur
'See the unseen, name the system, hold the space'.

🌱 If this feels familiar…

Your brain is always 'on'. Scanning. Preparing. Absorbing. Like you're quietly responsible for...everything.
(Not officially. But still.) That constant undercurrent.

That's exactly what this is about. Inside the collection 'Reducing restlessness and that rushed feeling', we help you interrupt that pattern. So you can:

🌷pause without guilt
🌷feel your own signal again - not everyone else's
🌷stop carrying what was never yours to begin with

Not perfectly. Just… earlier than you do now.
Explore the collection inside HELD →

Categories: : Hold Anchor