Steady Doesn't Mean Still

Letters on self-abandonment, identity, and finding your way back.

It has been a really weird week.

It started much the same as always: kids getting ready for school, food shopping, and then a series of isolated events have left me feeling a bit bewildered and unsteady.

On Monday, I dropped my daughter off to nursery as usual. When we arrived, the gardener was trimming the hedges on the roundabout in the car park. As we walked by him and on closer inspection, he was cutting out the entire blackberry bush.

Over the past few weeks, my daughter and I have been enjoying picking a few blackberries before and after nursery. I have particularly loved that they are growing in abundance and that I don’t need to pay £3 for six of them in a supermarket. Heartwarmingly, she has just loved the idea that food grows on trees/bushes and we can eat them - and of course that her fingers turn pink and pink is her favourite colour.

We’ve had permission from the nursery manager to enjoy them, so I was really sad to see the gardener take them all away one morning. All the beautiful, plump, juicy, sour and sweet fruits of nature, all removed in one barbaric swoop.

This should have simply annoyed me a little, but instead, it stayed with me - right up until this letter.

You see, for me, if we’re going to try and hold on to some semblance of the beauty of our world, we all need to do a little bit to ensure it stays. And this tiny act shared with my daughter was one of those truly wholesome acts that showed her there was more to life than tech might have you believe; that the magnificent spoils of our world cannot be replicated through digital means.

Thankfully, though, there are blackberry bushes in most of the places we visit, from our walks in the woods to the car park in front of our building. I’ll still make it magical for her wherever we go.

Since the end of 2025, I’ve been working in a primary school near me. At first, I wasn’t sure where my skills might fit in the school; I was just being pulled toward working with children, so I thought I’d give it a go and see if I really liked children before I dared entertain the idea of working with them.

Note: It’s not that I don’t like children per se (I have two of my own, and I tend to enjoy them), but other people’s children? I wasn’t sure. The only way to truly know if I did was to put myself with over 400 of them during unstructured time and see how I felt.

Completely rational, yes?

Astonishingly, I have loved it. The job itself was lunchtime supervisor, which is depressing if I dare to think about it in terms of what I’ve been doing. But, for a career pivot and life in general, I lead with a ‘you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do’ attitude, and so far in my life, it has served me well.

I’m very excited about the work I can do with children. My clients used to say the work we did together was so good that they wish they’d teach it in schools. It stayed with me. When over half of your adult client base says this would have been helpful in school, you take notice.

However, schools are a bit slow on the uptake, and they’re not really built for new and innovative ideas. You have to be patient (which I’m not great at) and play their game a little. So I’ve been doing this through volunteering my skills with the children.

I’ve been working with the SENCO (the person who leads this type of work in school) and have been focused on a couple of children - some with additional needs - on their friendships. In a short time, there has been a lot of progress, and if I choose to continue, I’m confident there will be a significant impact on the children I’m working with.

What an amazing achievement! I need to say this and write it down because whilst sweeping a floor, it can feel a little confusing as to what I’m doing there and why. Thankfully, the evidence we’ve gathered so far is pointing in the best possible direction for everyone.

It’s exciting to know I can use my skills to support children, and I’m very much working towards a job that allows me to do just that.

However, I applied to four school jobs this week and was rejected by all of them.

On Monday, I shared a school job posting with a friend (who already had another offer on the table). She has been struggling with her current employer and the job offer she had, whilst great, still meant that her quality of life would be compromised - a lot. She was interviewed by the school on the day after her application and offered the job on the day of her interview.

So, in the early part of this week, I was a sad sack of depression. My friend has no experience working with children, and up until my sales pitch to her about the quality of life the role will bring, she would never have entertained the idea.

So what about me then?

I’ve been sweeping and mopping floors for the past six months and working for free in the hope that, at some point soon, I’ll get paid to do work that I love.

I have been jealous of her, unable to separate her success from my failures this week. That’s the cold, and shamefully honest truth.

After wallowing in self-pity for an evening, I dusted myself off and carried on. I have a mission in mind; being jealous of a role I wouldn’t have applied for is silly in the grand scheme of things.

Then I registered with a recruitment agency that places these pastoral roles. It would help to take the heat off the job search and rejection cycle for a bit.

In an interview with them, I asked the recruiter if she thought I had a chance of getting a job in this field. Her response was “are you mad?” to which I was like, “well I might be as the evidence looks like I might be, so can you explain what you mean by mad?”

She said my experience was excellent and that as I build more 1:1 and group experience through my volunteering, a school will snap me up.

No one has yet, but I remain hopeful.

On Thursday lunchtime, I was at the school I work in, walking around, surrounded by the children. A colleague mentioned over the radio that there was a fire in our local area. I hadn’t really processed what she said, but when I walked from the playground to the field I noticed large clouds of smoke growing high above us, in the air. The clouds were close but not necessarily close enough to affect us. Speculation decided the fire must have been happening near the train station.

When I got home after my shift, I showered and sat down to eat my lunch and enjoy an hour of time to myself. About half an hour into relaxing, I decided to check on a Facebook post to see how it was performing.

I logged on to the local Facebook group to check, and the first post quite simply read:

“xxxx school is on fire.”

I scrolled past looking for my post.

I then scrolled back up and read that post again.

Then the comments.

Then, I realised MY SON’S SCHOOL IS ON FIRE!!!

This whole engagement took about 30 seconds, but it felt like an hour had passed. My brain couldn’t compute. Why didn’t Dwayne phone me? Why didn’t the school let me know? Is this real? Is it fake news? Was the fire I saw at work my son on fire?!

A moment passed, and I checked my email and texts; nothing from school. I then looked at the stupid app we have to be signed up to (the app is stupid because they say that’s where they communicate and I get notifications for every point my son gets, every £1 tomorrow request, but no notification that my son could have been on fire), and yet, there it was - THE most haunting message I’ve ever received…

…There has been a fire at the school. All children have been evacuated and are safe at the neighbouring school. Please collect your child when you can…

I jumped up, left the house and drove to my son.

He is fine, they are all fine (despite what the media might have you believe). All staff and children are fine.

But perhaps traumatised.

And rightly so.

For the first time, for many of them, their bodies went into their true fight or flight response. All those fire drills became reality. They are tiny humans.

A scary afternoon for sure. Grateful for the outcome.

Later that day, out of nowhere, my Rest & Restore class that took place on Friday gained three bookings. A Facebook post in a local group last week performed really well and helped me to be seen by these wonderful ladies.

I was feeling hopeful again, although hopeful towards my business direction, not my career trajectory in schools.

Interestingly, I haven’t been pushing hard to fill these sessions. I wanted to try a different way, one where ease and flow bring the clients rather than trying to be a content queen and burning out.

Alongside the school plan, I’ve been developing plans for my business and its new direction. One of the plans is to partner with hotels in my local vicinity to share Rest & Restore Experiences with their guests. It’s marketing without having to make one single video you pray goes viral.

It’s a slow process, but the payoff is huge, so I’m choosing to be patient (who even am I?)

An hour before I was leaving for my R&R session, I was called by my contact at a hotel I’ve been schmoozing and offered a gig in September. It’s a brilliant opportunity —pretty much what I want to be doing at this time in my life and business. It’s a no-brainer.

What a result!

My R&R session was brilliant. The ladies who came were wonderful, their feedback was heartwarming, and I loved being there delivering this session for them. In particular, one noted:

“…you were so calming, and I feel like I’ve been on holiday…”

and another,

“…felt it was very relaxing. Hopefully I will sleep well tonight…”

Reading their messages, I felt warm, happy and steady again.

The wellbeing work has been proven and evidenced for over ten years now. I can enjoy how it feels when people say things like this.

I understand the school path needs me to be a little less attached and a little more trusting of the process.

Then, on Saturday morning, I received an email from another hotel that hasn’t actually met me yet, to ask if I’d be open to hosting a ‘retreat day’ for a corporate client that is spending a few days with them.

Another piece of evidence that perhaps my path is already unfolding.

Oh, and one more weird thing. I posted about my wellbeing work on my personal Facebook account, thinking nothing of it, and my notifications told me someone had looked at the story.

When I went to see who it was, I was a bit taken aback to learn that it was someone that I had worked with a long time ago in a hotel marketing role I had. He was very supportive of me and always said I’d do great things.

He passed away suddenly a few years ago.

Seeing that he had viewed my story stayed with me in the most wonderful, sad and happy way.

My mum had taken the kids on Friday afternoon so that I could attend my Rest & Restore session, and they were both excited for the weekend at nani’s.

I was super grateful too, as I had finally planned a much-needed whole 24 hours just for myself. That’s two sleeps without anyone waking me before I want to wake up.

Of course, circadian rhythm kicks in, and I’m up at 6 am on Saturday.

I start pottering about the house, doing some tidying and thinking about my wonderful day ahead. I then decide to write this article.

Thirty minutes into writing and savouring every uninterrupted sip of my delicious vat of coffee, my mum phones. It’s the usual check-in phone call with the kids before I go about my day and then speak to them again at bedtime.

I missed her call so I called back. I start engaging with the kids, and then she interrupts to say, “I called you. Not for them.”

Surprised (and worried, thinking the kids must have done something wrong - highly likely that my 2-year-old broke something), I braced myself.

My mum said that her eye was hurting; it was red, and she couldn’t see in the daylight; it was hurting too much. Could I come and get the kids?

My mum had cataract surgery almost 3 months ago now, but her healing process has been very slow unfortunately. She just finished the last round of antibiotics, and her eye has flared up.

She is scared, so I told her to swiftly call the hospital/ 111/ her G.P etc and then tell me what’s happening.

She needs to go to the hospital.

So, I got dressed, headed to hers, picked them up and will reschedule myself (not for the first time) on another day.

Disappointing, yes. I’ve spent a few months with AI trying to figure out how my life runs and where or how I can take meaningful time for myself without feeling the need to run away or escape my life. Today was supposed to be the first day of that.

But my mum’s health comes first, and they are my kids, so it is what it is.

Now to the point of sharing my mental week with you.

It’s fair to say that my week has been far from steady.

My emotions have been a (I want to say cluster f***) myriad of ups and downs around and arounds.

Is this normal?

Or,

Is this what being human feels like?

If you replace my stories with your own for a moment, take a look at your more challenging weeks. Do they feel similar?

It made me realise that perhaps being steady has very little to do with what is happening around us.

The jobs, the rejections, the opportunities, the praise, the disappointment—they will all continue to come and go. A steady life doesn’t really exist. What does exist is the relationship we have with ourselves as we move through it all.

This week, I lost my footing more than once. I compared. I questioned myself. I felt jealous. I celebrated. I hoped. I worried. None of that made me less steady. It simply made me human.

I wonder if perhaps steadiness isn’t the absence of emotion.

Perhaps it’s knowing that, whatever this week brings, you won’t abandon yourself in the process.

The blackberry bush may have gone, but there are always more blackberry bushes.

So, if this week has felt a little unsteady for you too, maybe don’t ask yourself how you can control what’s happening around you.

Ask yourself instead: How well am I staying with myself while it happens?

With love,

I'm Puja McClymont, a wellbeing educator, speaker, and author helping people build their lives around wellbeing because everything else depends on it.

Through speaking, restorative wellbeing sessions and 1:1 support, I help people reconnect with themselves to create lives that feel more fulfilling and sustainable.

You can find out more or work with me at pujamcclymont.com

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