I Belonged to No Task

Most of my adult life, I have been self-employed. In other words, I worked all the time.

When I moved back to California after living in the Netherlands, I took a job running a small school on a biodynamic farm. I loved the work. I loved the people, the vision, and what we were trying to create. Nearly everything about the job resonated with me.

Too Self-Reliant

At the end of my second year, my boss gave me my annual review. The biggest area she wanted me to work on was that I was too self-reliant. Too self-reliant? I relied on myself too much? How was that even possible? As we talked, she helped me see something I had never recognized in myself. I believed I was simply doing my job well. What she saw was someone who struggled to delegate, ask for help, or fully use the resources around her. She was not questioning my ability. She was showing me how tightly my identity had become attached to being the capable one.

I felt exposed. Shame came quickly. Something I had considered a strength was being reflected back to me as a limitation. I could defend myself and explain why my way of working was necessary, or I could become curious about what she was seeing. I probably did a little of both.

Still, I trusted her. She was one of the first bosses I had deeply respected and one of the first I felt truly respected and seen by. Because of that, I was willing to ask harder questions. What was all this self-reliance protecting? Where else had it shaped my life?

Achievement Gave Me Agency

When I was young, doing well became my strategy for escaping the instability and dependency I saw around me. And the strategy worked. I went to college. I earned a master’s degree. I built a career. During the years I was a single mother, I earned an income and provided a home for my children. Achievement gave me agency. It allowed me to build a life that was different from the one I had inherited. I became the person who got things done. I solved problems. I made unlikely things happen. And I loved that part of myself.

But somewhere along the way, capability became more than something I possessed. It became the identity I believed I had to maintain. After returning to California and beginning this job, I started to notice how uncomfortable I felt when other people did something I knew I could do myself. Delegating felt risky. Resting felt questionable. I did not want anyone to think I was lazy. I did not want people to feel I was taking advantage of them. I did not want to be seen as someone who was not carrying her share. Being capable protected me, but it also made it difficult for people to know when I needed them. I had become so good at appearing fine that even the people closest to me could not always tell when I was struggling.

Choosing Rest Instead of Earning It

So I began to practice differently. Downtime and delegation became deliberate practices rather than concessions. Could I rest because I chose to, rather than because I had earned it? Could I ask someone else to carry something without first proving I could have carried it alone? These may sound like subtle differences, but they do not feel subtle inside me.

Choosing rest feels different from rewarding myself with rest. One comes from agency. The other still treats rest as something that must be purchased through effort. I am still learning the difference. Even now, I often find myself rationalizing a choice to slow down by listing everything I have already accomplished. I may be choosing rest, but some part of me still wants to prove that I deserve it.

Letting Someone Else Carry It

This past year gave me many opportunities to practice differently. Circumstances required me to rely more heavily on my colleagues. I had to let go of responsibilities and allow someone else to take them on. She did not always do things the way I would have done them. That was part of the work. I had to become more flexible and less controlling so she could bring the full force of her experience to the work. She did not need more direction from me. She needed me to step back and let her teach in the way only she could. As I watched her work in her own rhythm, I noticed how much discomfort came from no longer being necessary. I stayed with the discomfort instead of rushing to make myself useful again. Over time, I found space to develop new ideas, support the team differently, and give my attention to parts of the work I had previously been too busy to notice.

I had to change not only what I did, but how I worked with other people. Letting go also meant releasing my need to be recognized as the person who made everything happen. I had to ask whether people would still value me if I was not the one holding everything together.

Beneath my competence was a quieter fear that usefulness was what made me worthy of belonging.

I also began making intentional space for stillness in my day. I began arriving before I needed to. I would sit outside with my coffee while the farm was still quiet, before the children arrived and before anyone needed an answer from me. Some mornings the air smelled of damp soil and eucalyptus. I listened to the bees gathering around the lavender and watched the wind move through the trees.

For a few minutes, I belonged to no task.

The more I released that role, the freer I felt.

Something else happened too. My relationships with my colleagues became more meaningful. There was more trust, more connection, and more ease in the team. That is the strange truth of this work. I thought connection would come from doing more, proving more, and carrying more. Instead, it came when I made room for other people.

The strategy that once saved me gave me choices I would not otherwise have had, and I do not want to disown it. But I do not want capability to become another identity I am afraid to put down. I want to keep the agency achievement gave me.

I am learning that agency also includes the freedom to receive, to share the weight, and to rest before I have earned it.

Letting Myself Receive

As I write this, I am back in Amsterdam. My daughter met me at the airport, helped me with my bags, and took me to where I was staying. That evening, we gathered at my son’s home with his wife, who is eight months pregnant, and my daughter’s boyfriend. I was exhausted and lay on the couch while the four of them made dinner together. I watched them doing something so ordinary, and it was beautiful. I did not feel the need to get up, help, organize, or make myself useful. I let them care for me. I let myself receive.

And I did. It was glorious.