“The best work is done with the heart breaking, or overflowing.”–M. McLaughlin

There are days, and well, sadly, sometimes weeks when there just simply isn’t enough energy, resources or time to take care of the relationships and people you should be loving the most. Careers and work goals, children and social commitments, inner work and incomplete personal transitions…on any given day, we work towards balance between all of these competing agendas and the loving relationships in life that can provide a bit of respite. But sometimes it just isn’t there.

How do we sustain ourselves at the times we cannot get our own basic needs met? This is the question for the exhausted mother with a baby that will not sleep, or for the partner who is left continuously for a traveling job, or for young families who have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet while raising small kids… the scenarios are endless where we are forced to find that little bit extra when nothing is going into the tank.

I think it must feel like training for a marathon or a triathlon. Where does the energy come from when muscles are aching for oxygen? I think it comes from the heart- courage that you don’t know you have until you are pushed. It is not a sustainable lifestyle and yet the ability to pull through and be counted on is at the heart of making a relationship last.

Rest, wait to judge, breathe, sleep. It will pass.