There are times when I feel out of kilter. My body is tired, my motivation is lacking, my joy seems to have disappeared. Of creativity there is zilch.

In those times I sit on the sofa, netflixing Line of Duty for hours and hours. It might look like a lazy peaceful afternoon but inside there is restlessness, listlessness, apathy and general irritation with the world. This is fatigue, not gardening-tired.

I’m out of balance.

I’ve been burning the candle at both ends.

The doing and the thinking ends.

The masculine and the feminine ends.

The going out and staying home ends.

The form-filing and the chaos of the kids ends.

Lighting one end of the candle and then the other.

There has to be a middle way. I suspect that is where peace lies.

“Seven courses, Nic, seven courses”, the only words my husband said when I slammed out the back door with the dog, no capacity to listen to any of my family speak unless what they had to say to me was something quick and preferably fewer than five words at any one time.

I stood on the patio. The grass of the garden was sparkling with white frost, my newly-purchased Hellebores still in their pots, sitting on the bare borders, waiting to be planted. The air felt cold and sharp on my cheeks and I could smell the smoke from the early morning fire inside lit by my husband. My jeans were tucked into my boots, my cream scarf warm around my neck, my hands in my pocket and the dog lead looped over my wrist. Said dog looked at me expectantly. A small red rubber band lay half-tucked under a flower pot.

“Come on, let’s get out of here”, I said, and we left.

That’s a red flag to me.

My conscious sun is in Gate 13 - that of the listener. It’s a big part of what I’m here to do. And when I’m completely incapable of doing the thing I came here to do, and when it’s pretty much the only thing asked of me by the people I love, I KNOW I’m off.

Listening also means listening to myself. Having discernment.

Impossible when there’s an internal tantrum or sulk going on.

My husband’s words settled into my head as the muddy puddles of the common were stomped through and the red mist faded.

The weeble started to right itself.

I knew what had to happen.

One conundrum in my Human Design chart is the dance between patience and speed. Another is that because I CAN do all the things, I DO do all the things. Including seven courses at a time.

The huge amounts of power and energy in my chart have their way with me until I am exhausted, spent and starfishing on my bed. And not in a sexy way.

I quit three of those seven courses this week; unsubscribed from a whole heap of emails challenging me to take action on this or that and stopped complaining that everything was overwhelming me, realised that the only one signing myself up for all the things was me.

The echoes of the chaos are still reverberating, they will take a little while to disappear from my nervous system.

But already I am able to listen to my children again,