When Our Commitments Outpace Our Capacity

This is surprisingly hard for me to say: I made a commitment two and a half years ago that I’m ready to renegotiate.

When I launched this Substack in February 2024, I promised to publish something new here every single Tuesday. And I haven’t missed a week!

I’m proud of that consistency, and of the 140 stories, reflections & resources that have grown from it. I’ve loved connecting with this community, now with readers in all 50 U.S. states and 83 countries. Wild! It’s such an honor to be in so many inboxes around the world.

The way this space has grown tells me how many of us are hungry for resources and community to help us build nourishing, sustainable non-monogamous ecosystems. Hearing directly from so many of you about your challenges, questions, longings, experiments, and wins has been one of the great joys of this work. Recognizing that need has made me want to keep giving, and I’ve hustled to maintain my weekly publishing rhythm.

But somewhere along the way, my own capacity changed.

As we enter another autumn and the trees around me in the mountains of Northern California begin dropping their leaves, I’m noticing that the schedule I created back then when I launched hasn’t left much room for my own natural cycles of creativity.

Growth is only one part of the cycle; the natural world also has seasons of dormancy, gestation, hibernation and letting go.

I want sustainable relationships everywhere, not only with my humans, kin and environment around me, but with my work and output, too.

So, in the spirit of Libra season, it’s time to rebalance the scales a little—to make more room for receiving, pleasure, and replenishing after a long season of giving.

✨ a moment of golden stillness & creekside dreaming on the autumn equinox

I carved out this mini self-partnership sabbatical to have space to grieve and to work on my book. And I’m noticing how quickly a part of me wants to keep turning that spaciousness into another container for more productivity.

So, after 140 Tuesdays together, I’m giving myself permission to take a break from the weekly long-form essay.

I love creating for you and with you, and I’m not going anywhere.

Last week, I wrote about making room for our feelings and desires before rushing toward an agreement. Maybe this is the feelings part of the conversation. I don’t know yet what I can commit to moving forward on the other side of this pause, I just know that the publishing rhythm I have been maintaining is currently exceeding my capacity and I’m feeling a need to slow down.

Staying in a balanced relationship with myself means letting an old commitment change with the season. I believe deeply in honoring my commitments. I’m also learning to check whether the commitments I made in one season, many moons ago, still fit the season I’m in now.

Maybe there’s something you’re relating to that could use the same kind of check-in:

• Does this commitment I made back then still fit the capacity I have now?

• Where in my relational ecosystem might I need to rebalance what I’m giving and what I’m receiving?

And while I take a little time to rest and dream about what comes next and what I want to offer and create from a resourced place,

There’s an enormous library here for you to explore, including more than 50 free resources alongside many more for paid subscribers. You can browse the archive or search by keyword for whatever you’re navigating right now:

And if there’s something you’ve been looking for that you haven’t found here yet, I’d genuinely love to hear from you. What are you wanting from this space? What has been most helpful so far? What would you love more of? Let me know in the comments:

You can also wander through the Fieldwork for the Heart experiments people in this community shared over the past few weeks. That experiment has now come to a close, but the chat is still there if you’d like some inspiration for an experiment of your own.

Join us in the chat

I’m going to go be with the trees and the creek for a bit. I’ll be back after a nap. 🧡

✨ a little wisdom I found scribbled on a step beside the Yuba River: “all flourishing is mutual” — Robin Wall Kimmerer

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