When Hard Work Stops Working
Hard work can carry you forward, but only love carries you home.
I grew up believing that hard work would save me from suffering.
A lifetime lived between then and now has shown me how this false pretense planted seeds of unintended heartbreak, which bloomed into a deeper kind of suffering all its own.
No one taught me this out loud. What we see and live, what we read between the lines, travels with us as quietly as DNA. The undoing of what we never knew was done might be the greatest journey of our lives: the long walk back to the beginning.
It wasn’t working hard that freed me up. It was learning compassion for myself. I remember when my therapist first asked if I was familiar with the idea of self-compassion. My body flinched. It made me physically uncomfortable. A silent and visceral “ew” ran through every bone in my body. That discomfort was the first breadcrumb back to myself.
For most of my life, I turned toward effort the way a sunflower turns toward light. I was the straight A student, I was the volunteer, I was the go-the-extra-mile-girl. If something hurt, I worked more. If I was afraid, I planned more. If I felt unworthy, I added another task, another goal, another mile.
Hard work gave me gold stars, dreams slowly materializing, checks in the mail, a steadier hand on the wheel and sometimes even applause. It also gave me a quiet, efficient disconnection from myself, an armored way of moving through the world that kept me from being able to connect with anything inside me that didn’t feel safe.
Self-compassion asked me to do the opposite: to stop, to soften, to notice. At first, I hated it. It felt like quitting, like letting myself off the hook, like the god-forbid American no-no of :::gasp::: becoming lazy! “If I don’t push,” I thought, “won’t everything fall apart?” But when I started listening closely and slowing down, I heard an older truth. The pushing had already broken things. My peace. My presence. My joy. The hook I kept myself on was the suffering.
So I began small. I didn’t try to become a different person overnight. I practiced micro-acts of mercy:
Ten easy minutes of rest without having to earn them first.
Replacing “Get your shit together” with “I love you, I’m here, what do you need?”
Speaking to myself with the same understanding and unconditional love I give to my child.
I let the laundry remain in piles if the song needed me. I let the emails wait if my daughter needed me. I offered myself acceptance-with-a-lol when the house wasn’t as together as I’d like and my body or mind just needed a break.
I used to think the point of healing was to become unbreakable. Now I think it’s to become more break-open: less armored, less afraid of the breaks, more trusting in all stops along the journey. To let the light in where the cracks already are.
The longer I get to dance through life, the more I believe this: love is the work. Hard work can carry you forward, but only love carries you home. Compassion is love in motion. And on the days I forget, I follow the crumbs back to the beginning: the place where I am already worthy, where compassion is not a prize for a job well done but the ground I stand on while I live this ever changing, beautiful, tragic, wild life.
One reason I chose “Your Heart It Is The Ocean” as the first release from my upcoming album is because it carries this sentiment. Self-compassion is a gift I wish for every person on this planet. No prerequisites. Just a soft place to land and show up however you need.
You got this.
Much Love,
KD
PS. If this story resonates and you’re curious about being part of the album journey, I’d love for you to join us for the Impossible Things FAN CAMPAIGN. <3