It’s the season of rebirth and celebration. If you observe Easter, I hope you had a joyous day.

I remember when Easter holidays were exhausting for me.
Even though they were enjoyable for a while, for a long time I didn’t understand why I was so tired.

Easter was one of the holidays we hosted. We had a large yard and the kids (and adults) could get good exercise hunting for Easter eggs and then chasing each other to break them. Although for the first few years we hosted, the kids were too little, and it was mostly the adults chasing each other.

The event usually required several weeks of worrying. . .
would everything go as planned.
How much food would we need,
what time should we begin,
would the weather cooperate,
how many hours would house cleaning take.

As the years passed, I fretted more and more
And got less and less enjoyment.

The less enjoyment I experienced, the more guilt I felt
at not enjoying the event.

The more guilt I felt, the more painful the event became
and the more stress and unease I experienced for weeks leading to the day.

It wasn’t until years later that I understood
why the holiday had turned sour for me.

***

As wives and mothers, our culture expects us to put the needs of the family first. If we don’t, we are made to feel lacking and unfit.

Oftentimes, women don’t start taking care of themselves until they are seriously ill. Many cultures, including our own, exalt the self-sacrificing mother.

Most women take on those beliefs, of putting others first, without knowing they are. They are so normal that it takes tremendous courage to even be able to interrogate the belief.

One spiritual principle that asks us to rethink the belief is this:

My  one true responsibility is to the development of my soul.

If we start focusing on ourselves, does that mean we will become selfish and solely intent on meeting our own needs?

When I first asked myself this question, I was both fascinated AND horrified by it.

Was I capable of becoming so selfish that I would abandon the needs of my children?

I have to admit that there was a part of me that fantasized about being able to focus only on myself. But the fantasy of release quickly deteriorated to a vision of life riddled with guilt and depression.

This dual way of thinking, of all or nothing, is also something our culture encourages.

It keeps us from seeing a different way in which BOTH the needs of our children and our own needs can be met. Neither needs to be sacrificed.

I wanted to care for myself but not at the expense of the well-being of my children. Doing both honors my soul in different ways.

***

By the time I heard the spiritual principle above, I was already working with clients to help them understand the energy their soul was here to express.

I learned that if a person does not live from and honor their soul energy, they start feeling a sense of unease that slowly becomes heavier and more painful.

For parents, the pain comes because of a fundamental misunderstanding. It is NOT our soul purpose to be parents.

We CAN express our soul energy through parenthood or any other endeavor. Ultimately, our responsibility is to express the divine within us.

Expressing ourselves authentically means remaining faithful to our own soul in anything we do.

Which means we have to give ourselves permission to take the information life gives us, such as feeling bad, as a sign that we are deviating from our true soul expression.

When we are expressing our unique soul energy, we feel happy and excited about the future.

Being able to take “feeling bad” only as information, without judging it, is transformative on its own. Feeling bad is NOT a sign that we are deficient or unfit.

Instead, the feeling is pointing us in another direction for the answer.

***

Based on my understanding of my own soul energy, I now know there was nothing wrong with my lack of enthusiasm for the holiday.

Now that I understand my own energy, I know that the large family gatherings were not honoring my unique soul energy.

First, I feel more fulfilled by smaller intimate celebrations and my soul thrives with having a variety of experiences.

Neither of these facets of my self were being honored by having the same, large family event every year.

***

Expressing our unique soul energy and meeting our own needs is a good lesson for our children to learn. They must be able to honor their true desires.

The sooner we are able to, we can start looking at negative feelings as clues that we must follow. They help us to express our own needs and make moves to meet them.

The sooner our children, especially our daughters, learn this spiritual principle–
of taking full responsibility for their own soul expression–
is not just acceptable but necessary for their own well-being and that of the family,
the sooner they can start learning how to notice their negative feelings as information guiding them towards their authentic soul expression.

We can model this pattern for them.

***
I want you to consider.

Maybe that exhaustion you’ve been feeling is because some of your needs are not being met.

This may include your physical need for rest and relaxation.

But also consider this…
your healing will require that soul-level energy that is yearning to be expressed.