Coming off the knife's edge - Building an economy of care
Imagine yourself trying to balance on a knife’s edge while going through your daily tasks. Waking up, getting your kids ready for school, planning the meals, calling your parents, taking the dog for a walk, answering clients, showing up to work, doing the business accounts, all of that - on a knife’s edge. If you slip off, you land in the endless sea of overwhelm. You get used to living with shoes on because the edge is sharp. How strong one needs to be to manage all this, caring for themselves and all their loved ones- how skilful.
This metaphor came up in Her Circle this week, a support community I host for women in business who choose to lead with their hearts.
Living on a knife’s edge was an experience the women around the table intuitively knew. Each living on her own knife’s edge, alone. Our collective wish was to come off it. In a visualisation exercise, when looking around while imagining ourselves balancing on the knife, we saw many, many knives, on each of them, a woman balancing. A woman who, like us, really wants to get off.
But how do you get off? I saw a giant hand that lifted me and placed me safely on solid ground. Another took a leap of faith and jumped off, landing on soft yellow hills, being welcomed by others. Another saw how many gathered to support her coming off. Lightheartedness and humour helped her leave her knife.
The powerful thing about gathering and talking openly about our experience is that we see how an experience that is felt as if ours alone is actually shared. It comes from a belief system, a collective narrative and practice that says that’s the way things must be. And it has a complex system that enforces this reality, a system led by people who benefit from the way things run. Margaret Wheatley said, “I believe we can change the world if we start listening to one another again”. What I heard this morning is clear - There’s a life beyond the knife. We don’t have to live on a knife’s edge and we can choose to come off it.
What if we imagine life beyond the knife, what would we be capable of doing if we didn’t need to constantly calm our nervous system, balancing on a knife’s edge? What world will we choose to create if we could experience life as walking on a wide forest path instead? Or on a vast shore, or an open field?
I’m excited to open the imagination portal to this new world. I wish for a world that has care at its centre. And an economy that rewards caring with respect and money. A world that doesn’t keep people on a knife’s edge, but helps them stay safe and creative. A world where we can bring forward our gifts and help others to do the same.
Her Circle is my way of bringing this world to life in a small, quiet way. Women showing up to themselves and one another, daring to say things as they are, challenging all the shoulds and musts, willing to be challenged and leave old beliefs behind. And mostly, we dare to dream. Dream of living wholeheartedly and earning plenty of money. Of minding ourselves and growing our businesses, working two days a week, and being financially free.
Do you connect with my idea of the economy of care? Are you leading your business, your organisation or your life with your heart? If so, I’d love to know you, and if needed, help you get your voice heard, reaching the people who are waiting for you. God knows they’ve been waiting long enough.
