When I Couldn’t Keep Up
Last month I wrote What If Safety Isn’t What You Think It Is? and shared two paintings about facing my fears.
I was beginning to see that the places I feel afraid are often the places I get stuck…
and that I have never NOT been supported.
That maybe safety isn’t something I create by controlling everything around me…
but something I experience when I trust that I am held.
Little did I know that lesson was about to become very real in April during the Great Mother March.
If you didn’t see it on Facebook, the Great Mother March was a 32-day, 500-mile pilgrimage from Asheville to Washington, D.C. Not a protest, but a walking prayer: an invitation to move toward healing, compassion, and connection, one step at a time.
When I felt called to join, I thought I knew what my role would be.
I would prepare, gather my people, and walk the final stretch into D.C.
So that’s what I did.
For months, I helped organize, promote, and plan. I trained my body. I made sure everything (and everyone) was ready.
And then on the very first day of walking… reality set in.
Brenna, Nancy, me, and Lara (and Stephen in the back) on the first day of walking on the Great Mother March, April 12, 2026
I couldn’t keep up.
Because of the police escort, my pace didn’t just affect me. It affected the safety of the entire group. So I made the call to step off the road and into the support vehicle.
It was the right decision.
And it broke my heart.
Because suddenly, all the preparation in the world couldn’t change one simple truth:
I couldn’t participate the way I thought I would.
And that led to a deeper question I didn’t expect:
If I can’t show up the way I planned… do I still belong?
I could feel myself reaching for an old life raft: withdrawal.
Turning inward.
Not saying what I was feeling.
Acting like I was fine.
This is the place I’ve gone before. The place where I abandon myself while trying to hold it all together.
But this time, I chose something different.
I told the truth.
I let myself be seen in the disappointment, the vulnerability, the not-being-okay.
And instead of being pushed out…
I was met with care.
Real care, from those precious people you see in the picture above.
And in that moment, something shifted for me:
“Circle of Care” by Lori Poff Kellogg, April 2026
Support isn’t something I earn by being capable.
It’s something I experience when I allow myself to belong.
And that’s when the Circle of Care (painting above) came into focus.
Not as an idea… but as something I was standing inside of.
In meditation, I saw an image of a cowgirl with a lasso, trying to pull joy and fulfillment toward herself from somewhere “out there.”
But no matter how hard she tried, the lasso came back empty.
Until she widened the circle…
and included herself.
And the message was clear:
You get to be included in your circle of care.
Your circle of care includes your joy.
I realized how often I’ve lived just outside that circle: caring for others, holding space, showing up… while quietly leaving myself out of the care I was offering.
But what I’m learning now is this:
Joy, care, and fulfillment aren’t something we chase.
They begin the moment we step inside our own circle.
This painting became my reminder:
I am allowed to choose joy.
I am allowed to care for myself.
I am allowed to be included among those I care for.