Still & Free
Fall is almost here. I can feel the transition in the mornings and evenings even though the middle of the day is still smoking hot. In some ways, it feels like my daily rhythms are mirroring the change in season. Easeful, slow start. Dynamic during the day. A wind down ritual that includes plenty of sleep. How have you noticed your rhythms change as we approach a new season?
If you’re looking for a more structured way to pause – your way – over an extended period of time, consider The Deaccelerator: A Clearing for Clarity. Four sessions, four rhythms all moving toward one direction: clarity.
Resting
An invitation to slow down long enough to hear what your mind, body, and heart are telling you.
One of the biggest upgrades to my rest practice has come unexpectedly. Getting my son to school by 7:20am has its advantages. Who knew?! I definitely didn’t.
But being up and at ‘em that early creates beautiful momentum for the rest of my day. I get back home, and tidy up (gotta be honest). And then, I curl up on the porch swing to do my devotional. There’s something about doing that while sipping my protein beverage that feels like I’m building myself up for the day.
I also love the parts of this practice that have become predictable: birds chirping, rustling in the shrubs, a husband and wife walking in silence, a pair of schoolmates chatting nonstop. Doing my thing while also witnessing them do theirs is a daily seal before being called into what the day has in store.
How can you slow down the next time to notice and appreciate what's already beautifully predictable in your day?
Remembering
An invitation to reconnect with your brilliance - the wisdom, creativity, and magic within and around you.
I’m supporting a leader’s Strategic Pause and as she explores the power of remembering, it’s taking me back to my younger self as well. Her most free and uninhibited self? The middle schooler. She described the seemingly never-ending days in the pool and multi-day sleepovers. That time stood out because she was fully herself, fully free from judgement.
This reflection on her middle school self is the opposite of what most people associate with this developmental stage. It’s usually more like: cranky, grouchy, pubescent, rebellious. I’m sure my middle school years included a bit of that, but on the whole, they were marked by pure freedom as well.
Instead of the pool, I was on the track. We ran until the sun nearly set and our week-long charter bus trips felt like a rowdy family road trip comedy. Sometimes remembering deserves a memento. Her artifact is a ticket stub. Mine would be a baton.
Which item represents your most free and powerful self? An invitation to you: find it or buy it and place it somewhere you’ll see often as a reminder that your most free self is still there.
Recasting/Realizing
An invitation to imagine the life you desire and pursue it with joy as your compass.
My daughter is in her unicorn era. It initially started with a request for a unicorn swimming towel. And now, she has graduated to claiming that she is a unicorn. Multi-colored horn and all. I love it!
And she’s right. She is a unicorn. Uniquely gifted. Vibrant. Beyond full comprehension. We all are. Now, whether we’re showing up with unicorn energy is a different story.
Her certainty about who she is — the horn too — is a perfect model for recasting who we have the capacity to be: our truest, wildest, most free, most creative selves. The magic that each of us possesses will make room for us.
What would you do differently this week if you showed up as your full unicorn self?
Seeing the familiar through a different lens is a power unto itself. There is magic in our every day, in who we once were, and what we have the potential to be.
The pause is a key that unlocks possibilities you haven't yet imagined. How will you find magic in the rested, former, and future versions of yourself? It can change a world well beyond you.
Joyfully,
Elandria
