Cycles of Self & Service
I’ve been on somewhat of a business building hiatus over the past six months, tending to life and family and health. It’s been an expansive rollercoaster of a journey—spanning continents, states, and seas—and as my foundations reset, I’ve been reflecting on the cycles we move through, both as people and as businesses. In that reflection, one theme keeps circling back: the cycle between self and service, and how often we ignore one in favour of the other.
I had someone tell me, many years ago, that ‘you can do it all, just not all at once’. It’s a simple message and one that rings true and loud for me often. This past cycle has reminded me of how important it is for us to listen to it - although, we rarely do.
For those of us working hard to make the world a better place, taking time from ‘service - or working for change - to tend to the self is something many (if not most) of us struggle with. There’s guilt for not doing enough, guilt for privilege, and an ever-present anxiety of the compounding crises we are immersed in daily.
Self-care is inextricably linked to collective care—and vice versa.
When we’re constantly surrounded by conversation about urgency, suffering and injustice, it’s easy to feel like tending to our personal lives can wait. At the same time, there’s an important conversation happening about the value and limitations of self-care. Understandably so—self-care has become synonymous with bio-optimisation, luxury retreats, and impenetrable boundaries insisting we must only give from an overflowing cup.
Like so many important, necessary concepts, 'self-care’ has been co-opted by a consumerist market, and weaved into a Western lens of hyper-individualism. It’s no wonder it becomes an uncomfortable concept for those working hard to reimagine and dismantle these constructs. There’s a creeping de-prioritisation of our own stability, joy and wellbeing under the guise of supporting the collective, and working for impact. While we are having the conversations and debates about self-care, the reality is many of our impact leaders, social entrepreneurs and purpose-driven peers are burning out and stalling in the impact they’re creating.
No single retreat, face mask or cold plunge will fix this for us. That type of self-care, while beneficial, can also be superficial and momentary. Yet condemning self-care as a mode of championing community and collective care is counterintuitive. We don’t need to abandon self care in order to reorient to collective and community care. But we do need to challenge and reimagine what we think of as self-care.
What we need now is a form of self-care that’s deeply interwoven with our understanding of ourselves as part of the whole.
We need a self-care that is understood and embraced within context of reciprocity. It’s a commitment to learning about our bodies, our beliefs, and how our capacity to contribute to change is affected by our own wellbeing, the systems of support we engage with, and the elements of our lives we’re prioritising.
There are times when stepping back from building and being in service to tend to our selves—our relationships, health, financial security, creativity, and joy—isn’t just helpful. It’s essential. Part of a natural and necessary cycle of reciprocity and renewal. Refocusing energy on nurturing our selves is all part of building and maintaining a full and connected life, and is a vital investment in our individual capacity to contribute to collective change in meaningful, regenerative ways.
Without our individual capacity to think creatively, navigate and adapt to change and relate to the world around us from a place of openness and receptivity, our services stall and stagnate. We end up forcing and pushing and becoming out-of-tune to the people around us — be it family, teams, friends, community.
A cycle of self and service for The Formative
For myself and The Formative, a cycle of self-fortification as a soul, a family member, a founder, a teacher, a creative and service provider was necessary. I felt the tingles of burnout in my body, and mis-alignment in my service, and let the cycle shift to create space for reflection, redirection and rest.
Was it deeply uncomfortable? Yes.
I felt the fear of what could happen to the business if I shifted focus from building externally to strengthening internally. But without internal strength, clarity and groundedness the business would not serve anyone, and my own systems of support would suffer.
We need these cycles of self and service to be in reciprocity and collective care. It’s not about filling from an overflowing cup. It’s about filling the cups that are less full than our own, and ensuring we are attuned to our own internal capacity to give and creating space to receive.
Being in conversation with a community of purpose-led people has shown me the need for collective rest and reciprocity of care is more needed than ever. As is a more gentle, holistic way of evolving our businesses and leadership.
So, what does this look like?
For The Formative, it’s been a reimagining of how we work with partners to integrate holistic support that goes beyond strategic development, and creating new spaces for purpose-led people to rest, reflect, connect and evolve.
A few ways this is coming to life:
For Organisations: we’re moving to an integrative model with our Evolution Partnerships to develop organisational impact and identity with deep support for teams.
For Community: Gather & Ground a pay-as-you-can online community practice for purpose-led people to tend to the self, together - starting Wednesday 30th April 2025.
For Purpose-driven Leaders: Embodied Impact™ Program 2025 - an online program to reconnect and realign self, service and systems through embodied learning, deep reflection, and values-driven practice. Join the expressions of interest to receive more information.
Wherever you find yourself in your own cycle right now, I hope there’s space for what you need—rest, reflection, reconnection, or renewal. If you’re feeling the shift toward service, we’d love to walk alongside you.