The Feminine Flow The Feminine Flow

Our Environment -

The way that our space is portrayed, plays a role in how we are feeling. If there is clutter and disaster everywhere, it is more difficult for us to remain calm. When colours are darker or there is little done to express the home as a whole, we feel it.

Most often, without even realizing it.

But once you know, you know you are going to do everything in your power to work at de-cluttering and having it represent you.

I believe I mentioned recently that this was one of the first things I changed in the home when I took over. Well over the course of the past year, it has slowly taken a beating (literally). The space where our kids take out so much of their anger is starting to be felt. What once had shelves with some homey feels, now has some holes and were taking a break from being in the common area.

While it isn’t always so easy to fix up our spaces (we’re a busy field), we have been able to this time. We are starting to come together and be a place of calm again. Of representation. If anything, a home for the kids who need it.

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The Feminine Flow The Feminine Flow

The [food]

The world we grow up in has the processed/factory-made going for the best price at the grocery store. Not to mention the convenience in a world that would rather order their food at the door than cook something.

But we need to do better.

We need to allot the money provided to spend a bit extra on the good things. A healthy(ish) balance of fruit and veg, meats, snacks, and homemade goodness.

Because what we nourish/ fill our bodies with affects our entire well-being. When we do the convenient, box meals we have ourselves feeling sluggish, exhausted, and more reactive +all the things that are not good for us.

When we eat better, we feel better.

So when you work in a home with kids who are already full of traumas, have little to no nervous system regulations and have diagnoses’ that can make it even more difficult to navigate, you’re damn straight we are going to make changes where we can.

Food was one of the first things I changed in this home when I took over. We changed up the menus and began cooking from scratch over throwing a box in the oven.

side note: the whole food industry is a topic I will save for my personal page someday, it’s not a hole that I have dove too far down, yet. I just know enough to want to buy from local markets/ stores, and that farms for my meat are an intention.

I will budget my money here any day overtaking big trips over the Spring Break.

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The Feminine Flow The Feminine Flow

My Story —

I didn’t have any aspirations through high school regarding what I was going to do with my life. I knew I wanted to help in some way and ended up in the Social Work program, while I didn’t know it then … I was a wounded healer.

I know now that I chose the right route, this is the field that has kept calling me back regardless of wanting to be done and tired for too long.

The wanting to help came from a course in high school, likely also my understanding (while not fully understanding) that the world we live in is a disaster. I was paired with a girl who barely came to school in the beginning. By the end of the semester, she was attending more regularly and wrote me the most beautiful note as part of her exam that talked about my impact on her.

I was required to do a placement as part of my diploma and decided on group care. Something that I knew nothing about and chose only because somebody I knew worked there. & well, I never left.

Until my original company closed down that is.

I worked my way from being an overnight staff to floor to running my own homes and on to being a school coordinator by the end (but this one only solely for hours).

Throughout, I had goals of getting my Bachelor’s in Social Work and moving on to Child Welfare - I had worked with so many kids workers throughout my years that just didn’t understand “their” kids … I wanted to be that difference.

But I got comfortable and so I never left, despite it becoming harder and harder to live off of wage that is unfair for the work we have to do.

I finally started my degree in 2017, part-time while still doing all the things, including working full time in the homes and school. It was a lot. I was exhausted.

In Early 2021, eleven years into my career - the company that I had grown up in closed its doors. I was lucky in the sense that they put a good word in for me at another local home, not so lucky in the sense that there were no management positions that I could transition into.

I started from scratch, working too many hours, with limited break days in between and little to no motivation to want to even be there.

It was okay, I had made a plan to take a leap and quit full-time work to pursue the remainder of the degree I had been chipping away at. However, then a management position came up and I applied because this was the safe route.

I got turned down, luckily.

I was able to complete one semester of full-time studies before pandemic rules came into play and I was forced to quit school, despite being online, a whole province away.

The management position that I had applied for previously was open because the other candidate didn’t last too long and so I called and asked for it - it was given to me immediately.

&so began the next round of running homes - only this time I was going to differently.

August 2024: How things have transpired.

Differently indeed.

I am so proud of the changes I have made and the leader I have stepped into; knowing I always owned it, only now with a deeper connection to myself. In turn, presenting as a boss who modelled the deep self care — who openly talks about the system designed to fail while expressing that the ones in the front lines are who make the change. When we take care of ourselves, we take care of the world.

The power of the trickle affect.

Continuing to make moves that weren’t even in my repertoire, growing and leaning into self-sufficiency; no longer wanting to be reliant on systems and for it to be economically, fucking hard.

Continuing to evolve my own repetoire; joining community; trusting my gut and making scary moves; essential oils; learning; Breathwork.

What catupulted me into believing that I could do different; moving out of my needs to save people (my OG why) and into a version of myself who is working towards no longer being guided on somebody else’s time.

I spent a lot of time being angry at the systems that kicked me out of school because I chose to trust my body. Never wanting to go back.

Until a once upon a dream resurfaced (I buried it, not thinking I was worthy of it) and I started taking the next steps …

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