In 2023, I started a course I had wanted to do for a long time - one that would potentially help me personally and professionally. I was doing really well, passing every assessment, with one assessment to go...but a slew of family issues put all my supportive energies to other areas.
I contacted the college, and received an extension, but it wasn't enough. Not to make it work. It took me a couple of weeks of feeling guilty for not working on the course for me to realise that, so I contacted my tutor and starting the process of working it out.
Having made that choice, I judged myself. I told myself I was putting other peoples needs before my own, and I should still do the course. That I was quitting, and I should still do the course.
But I started to ask myself more about why I was beating myself up about making this decision, because it was the right decision. This decision, to quit, was a form of self-care.
The truth was although I still want to do that course at some point, and it will help me, that point is not right now...
My headspace isn’t right for that course, right now. Which isn’t to say I won’t do it in the future, or won’t do other courses/workshops, even at the same time as I'm not doing that one.
Postponing my course was acting in my own best interests...letting go, quitting, giving up, can sometimes be a very necessary form of self-love.