Unbecoming of a woman, boundaries, and becoming of jen-horn.com
Just an honest account of emotions, roles and identities I'm working through (particularly as a woman), a failed website launch, an unraveling and re-weaving of the self.
Note: While the main thing I want to get into this letter is my new website over at jen-horn.com, this is gonna read like a bunch of thought snacks or rants first. I’m not an actual mother myself, but we can “mother” without having children. And I wrote this post all of Sunday and early Monday morning with whatever time I could find between the unpaid care work. Maybe you’ll find some resonance, and if you don’t, I hope you might empathize — if not with me, then maybe with another woman in your life (whether your mother, sister, friend) who might be raging through similar sentiments.
Hi there,
There’s been much that I’ve wanted to write about here since the start of the year: “unbecoming of a woman”, meditations on time, the wellbeing science and practice of nature connection and expressive arts, my laro-laro experiments with facilitation, handbuilt pottery, painting and fermentation. I’m glad I’m carving out time for a reflective post again. (The last time I wrote a reflective post was in January, while my posts in February and March were a repost + an announcement.)
There’s been a lot happening personally that’s made it difficult for me to sit down and write, with a lot of different medical concerns with the family since January, which I’ve been trying to help my mother carry. It feels like I’m just trying to catch up with life right now. I have a lot of female rage about what women are expected to carry vs. the boys, especially as the youngest of three siblings and the only daughter to a self-sacrificing mother (as most mothers are).
If you have a similar experience, let’s rage together. Should I make a support group for this? Lol. Let me know. 💡
Giving ourselves the gift of time
Last March 26, I ran a creative wellbeing workshop on holistic self-care for women leaders at the Sheroes Summit. I asked them what they deemed important for their overall wellbeing, and how much time they’ve managed to devote to it in the past couple of weeks and to plot that out in a circle. Just as a snapshot of our lives right now.
I forgot to say that your snapshot may not be ideal right now, because circumstances happen that throw us off kilter. We may have the best intentions and plans for ourselves but sometimes the universe throws us an improv prompt we weren’t expecting. But there are ways we can flow with what is given.
How might we give ourselves a little bit more compassion when that happens?
What support can open up time and space for our renewal?
What might we need to let go of to lighten our load?
This past week, I gave myself time. To cancel or reschedule things. To order out instead of cook. To rant to friends. To show up for a swim. To cook. To recalibrate plans. To tell family of the load being carried. To ask that people be better while accepting that they might not change. To write this post.
(More reflections on time in a future post.)
Unbecoming of a woman
In case you missed it, I shaved my head at the start of the year 2025.
I’ve carried a lot of anger and frustration (especially in the past year) about all the unpaid care work women are expected to do. While I can’t change history, I can change the future. While I can’t change everyone’s futures, I can start by changing my own. There are ways I can resist that norm without abdicating my responsibilities as a woman, daughter, sister etc. — with how I think, feel and show up in the world. Shaving my head felt like one quick win; an expression of that resistance.
My mother often put other people’s needs before her own. She’s not exactly the image of a doting or nurturing homemaker kind of mother — she’s a strong woman leader who had a successful corporate career, making her way up the ranks in spite of her insecurities and disadvantages as a promdi and as a woman. She’s tough and not outwardly emotional or affectionate, but I see how she puts the needs of others before her own — in the ways she knows best.
Sometimes, it is a kindness (to both the self and others) to let others figure things out on their own, to empower rather than unsustainably give. Sometimes, oftentimes, my mother shows selflessness and reliability to a fault, because she’s then burdened herself with carrying the weight that others should also be learning to carry for themselves.
Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.
- Prentis Hemphill
Author, What It Takes To Heal
When we operate from a place of guilt or not feeling like we’re doing enough, it can be hard to put up boundaries. But I truly believe that showing up for our own wellbeing, health and happiness also allows us to serve others better too.
Boundaries can be permeable — allowing us to stay connected to others while giving ourselves space for our own renewal. Boundaries can help us continue caring for others without ripping anyone’s heads off (including our own).
It can feel selfish to put up boundaries, and maybe make us feel hiya or guilt, especially as women, who (let’s face it) are somehow better equipped for crisis situations than men (boys). So while I take pride in women’s abilities to step up, I am also tired of that reliance or expectation — on my mother, myself, and all women.
I want to interrupt that pattern.
An interesting experiment: What would happen to the world if all the women went on strike? For paid and unpaid care work? 🤔🤔🤔
Becoming of jen-horn.com: A “failed” launch
On my birthday last year, I told myself I wanted to be more celebratory about birthdays moving forward — and not just because I was turning 40 on February 13, 2025.
While I believe life is a celebration, the thought of celebrating on your birthday specifically has a ritualistic appeal to it.
I had all these plans in my head late last year about doing something different, but as 2025 rolled in and as February approached, I realized I didn’t want to work hard to organize an event on my birthday. However, I wound up working still when I finally committed to launching my own website. 😆
It was technically work, but it also felt like a gift to myself. The gift of audaciousness and showing up and putting myself out there.
It felt like that the hard work of connecting with myself and making sense of my history while weaving into the fabric of my desired future was already done before. I had all the different pieces of content I needed for my website, from different things — my digital portfolio, Pagbubuo IG content, my coaching profile, my personal intro / bio in presentations I’ve given, etc. etc. I needed to put it out there.
As someone who’s not particularly techie or design-y, I know there’s a lot that could be improved in its look and usability. I built my website by making multiple pages on Canva (and struggled with mobile responsiveness). I activated the domain I bought a while back: jen-horn.com. I told people that I was launching something on my birthday.
My birthday came and went, and I did not launch. I encountered some technical errors that I couldn’t figure out, and felt quite dejected that I focused my energies on it that week, parking other things, only for me to not launch it. It took me a while to finally figure out the problem and fix it because the rest of life didn’t stop. How dare they not stop.
A little over a month later, I finally got it sorted. Here’s what it looks like. ☺️
Buo habang nagbubuo. I am whole while I am still becoming.
I’ve done the vulnerable thing of launching the website, and I’m continuing to do the vulnerable thing of talking about it.
It shows my work as a tagapagpadaloy, creator, coach and gatherer (still pending a page dedicated to my facilitation practice), and shows values I want to carry in my practice — creativity, community and connection with self and kapwa (the human and more-than-human alike).
It has a lot of what I have to offer. It is not everything yet — it’s still a work-in-progress, but it is enough. It is the living portfolio of my life, and I can continue to add to it as I grow and evolve.
We don’t need to wait to be that “full” version of ourselves before we show up, take space, and put ourselves out there.
I will probably stop writing now, and hope that the work I put into building my website will do the rest of the talking.
Let me know what you think? 😊
Buo habang nagbubuo,
Jen Horn | @pagbubuo
jen-horn.com