Return to Center

September has a way of arriving with a clipboard.

Suddenly, there are schedules again.

Meetings. School calendars.  Events. Commitments. Things that were going to “wait until after summer” are apparently no longer waiting.

Even if your life doesn't revolve around a school calendar, September still seems to carry that familiar feeling of back to it.

Back to routines.  Back to expectations.  Back to moving.

And sometimes, without even realizing it, we start moving at the pace of everything around us.

The calendar fills, so we speed up.
Someone needs something, so we respond.
A deadline appears, so we shift into action.

Before long, we can be several steps into September without ever stopping to ask ourselves one simple question:

How am I doing in the middle of all of this?

That question matters.

Because staying grounded doesn't mean nothing around you is moving.

It means you don't have to lose yourself just because it is.

Coming Back to Yourself

Being grounded isn't about creating a perfectly calm life.  I'm not sure that life exists.  It's about noticing when you've moved away from your own center — and knowing how to come back.

Sometimes that means taking three slow breaths before answering the email.
Sometimes it means looking at the week's calendar and realizing that something needs to come off of it.
Sometimes it means eating lunch before 3:00.
Sometimes it means stepping outside for five minutes.

And sometimes it simply means saying:

Wait. What do I actually need right now?

That small pause can change what happens next.  Because when we don't pause, we tend to react to whatever is loudest.

When we return to center, we get to choose.
We can decide what deserves our attention.
What can wait.
What is ours to carry.
And what isn't.

The world may still be moving quickly when we finish that pause.

But we are different inside of it.

And that is the point.

One Intentional Step

Sometime today, before you automatically move on to the next thing, stop.

Put both feet on the floor.
Take one slow breath.

And ask yourself:

What would help me feel more grounded right now?

Don't look for the perfect answer.

Maybe it's water.
Maybe it's five quiet minutes.
Maybe it's finishing one thing instead of starting three.
Maybe it's calling someone.
Maybe it's saying no.

Maybe it's simply reminding yourself:

I don't have to figure everything out right now.

Listen for the answer.  Then take one small step toward it.

Community Reflection

As September begins and life starts finding its fall rhythm, I'd love to know:

What helps you return to center when life starts moving quickly?

Maybe it's a walk. Music. Prayer. Journaling. Time outside. A cup of tea. A conversation with someone you love. Or simply a few minutes with no one asking anything of you.

Share yours if you'd like.  Someone else may need the reminder.

Until next time...

Grant yourself a little grace.
Trust yourself a little more.
And take one intentional step.

Be well,
Mary-Anne

The Rhythm You Can Return To

I think sometimes we imagine that when we finally find a rhythm that works,

we're supposed to stay there.

As if once we've figured out what helps us feel grounded, calm, and a little more like ourselves, we shouldn't lose our footing again.

But of course we do.

I do.

We all do.

Life changes. Schedules change. People need things from us. Something unexpected happens. We get tired. We overcommit. We fall back into an old habit. We react instead of respond.

And suddenly, the rhythm we thought we had figured out feels like it's gone.

Earlier this month, I wrote about the difference between a routine and a rhythm.

A routine often depends on things going according to plan.

A rhythm has a little more room in it.

And after spending this month thinking about rhythms — and, quite honestly, having some of my own disrupted — I think there may be another piece to this.

Maybe the goal isn't to stay perfectly in rhythm.

Maybe the goal is to know how to return to ourselves when we lose it.

That's a very different expectation.

Because if staying calm, grounded, and intentional requires us to get everything right, we're going to fail at it constantly.

But if the practice is simply noticing...

I'm a little off.
I'm reacting more than I'd like.
I'm filling every available space again.
I'm saying yes too quickly.
I'm moving faster than I need to.

...then we have somewhere to begin.

We don't need to fix everything.
We don't need to start over Monday morning.
We don't need a new planner, a new routine, or a promise that this time we're really going to get it together.

We just need a way back.

For me, that often starts with the simplest part of the Intentional Calm Method™:

Calm first. Then move forward.

Not because calm makes everything disappear.

But because it's much easier to hear ourselves when we're not trying to make our next decision from the middle of the noise.

And maybe that's what a sustainable rhythm really is.

Not something we maintain perfectly.
Something we learn how to return to.

Again and again.

One Intentional Step

This week, ask yourself:

What brings me back?

Not what your ideal morning routine looks like.
Not what you should be doing.

What actually helps you return to yourself when you notice you're a little off course?

For me, one of those places has always been the beach.

There's something about walking barefoot along the water — the sound of the waves, the feel of the sand, the horizon stretching out in front of me — that helps quiet the noise and brings me back to myself.

It doesn't solve anything.

It just helps me hear myself again.

Maybe it's three slow breaths before you answer.
Maybe it's stepping outside.
Maybe it's writing for five minutes.
Maybe it's turning off the noise.
Maybe it's calling someone who grounds you.
Maybe it's simply putting your hand on your heart and asking:

What do I need right now?

Choose one.

Let that be your return point.

And don't wait until everything feels completely out of control to use it.

Practice returning when you're only a little off course.

Community Reflection

I'd love to hear yours:

What's one thing that helps you come back to yourself?

You never know — what works for you might be exactly what someone else in this community needs to hear.

Until next time...

Grant yourself a little grace.
Trust yourself a little more.
And take one intentional step.

Be well,
Mary-Anne

Is This Still Working for You?

I caught myself thinking something the other day:

Why am I still doing this this way?

There wasn't anything particularly wrong.

Nothing had fallen apart. There wasn't some dramatic moment that forced me to reconsider everything. It was much less exciting than that.

I was simply doing something the way I had always done it.

And for whatever reason, this time I noticed.

I think we all have things like this in our lives.

The routines we don't really think about anymore. The commitments that somehow became permanent. The way we structure our mornings, our weekends, our workdays. The things we say yes to because we've always said yes to them.

Even the expectations we carry about who we're supposed to be and what we're supposed to handle.

At one point, many of these things probably made sense.

Maybe they worked beautifully.
Maybe they helped us through a particular season.
Maybe they were exactly what we needed then.

But then isn't necessarily now.

And sometimes we continue living according to an old rhythm simply because we haven't stopped long enough to notice that we've changed.

Creating Margin Isn't Always About Doing Less

We've been talking this month about creating more margin in our lives.

More breathing room.  More space to actually experience our days instead of racing through them.

And when we hear create margin, it's easy to think we need to start eliminating things.

Clear the calendar.
Say no more often.
Get rid of something.

Sometimes that's exactly what we need.

But I think there's another place to begin.

Notice.

Before changing anything, notice what you're doing automatically.

What takes your time?
What takes your energy?
What have you decided is simply the way things are?

And then ask one surprisingly powerful question:

Is this still working for me?

Not:

Is this bad?

Not:

Should I be doing something better?

Not even:

How do I fix this?

Just...

Is this still working for me?

Because something doesn't have to be terrible for you to decide it no longer fits.

We Outgrow Things

We expect to outgrow clothes.
We expect children to outgrow toys and bedrooms and routines.
We understand that businesses change, families change, relationships change and seasons change.

But sometimes we forget that we change, too.

What worked five years ago may not work today.  What you once had the energy for may require more from you now.  Something that once brought you joy may have quietly become an obligation.  A routine that once created stability may now feel restrictive.  And something you once believed you had to do may turn out to be something you've simply continued doing.

There's nothing wrong with that.

We create rhythms because rhythms make life easier. We don't want to renegotiate every decision every day.  But every once in a while, it's worth checking in.

Because a rhythm can have served you well and still be ready to change.

That doesn't make the old rhythm wrong.

It simply means you're paying attention to the life you're living now.

One Intentional Step

This week, don't overhaul anything.  Don't reorganize your calendar.  Don't make a giant list of everything you need to change.

Just notice one thing you do automatically — a routine, commitment, expectation, habit or even a way of thinking.

And ask:

Is this still working for me?

You don't even have to have the answer yet.  The noticing is enough.  Because sometimes creating margin doesn't begin by clearing everything away.  Sometimes it begins by realizing that you have a choice.

Community Reflection

Is there something in your life you've continued doing simply because you've always done it that way?  

And if you gave yourself permission to reconsider it, what might you do differently?

I'd love to hear what comes up for you.
You don't have to overhaul your life this week.
You don't have to find a better system or suddenly become someone different.

You can simply pay attention.

Because sometimes a little more breathing room begins with one quiet realization:

I don't have to keep doing this the same way just because I always have.

Maybe that's where a new rhythm begins.

Until next time...

Grant yourself a little grace.
Trust yourself a little more.
And take one intentional step.

Be well,
Mary-Anne

When Did We Start Filling Every Empty Space?

I caught myself doing this the other day.

I had a few minutes. Nothing urgent needed my attention. I wasn't late. I wasn't waiting for anyone to call me back. There was simply a small opening in the day.

And almost immediately, I reached for my phone.

Not because there was something I needed to see. It was more automatic than that. A few empty minutes appeared, and apparently my first instinct was to make sure they didn't stay empty for long.

I started thinking about how often we do this.

We sit in a waiting room and scroll. We stand in line and check email. We have ten minutes before we need to leave, and suddenly ten minutes feels like enough time to answer something, straighten something, look something up, or cross one more thing off the list.

Even an open Saturday can begin to feel suspiciously unfinished.

What are we going to do with it?

Should we make plans? Run errands? Get ahead on something? Clean out that closet? Catch up on the things we didn't get to during the week?

Somewhere along the way, empty space began to look a little too much like wasted space.

And I wonder when that happened.

There was a time when waiting was just...waiting. You could sit somewhere and watch people come and go. You could stand outside for a few minutes and notice the weather. You could drive somewhere without filling every mile with a podcast, a phone call, or something you were trying to learn.

I'm not suggesting those things are bad. I enjoy many of them. Sometimes that ten-minute window really is the perfect time to return an email.

But I have been wondering about the reflex behind it all.

That almost immediate feeling that an opening should be used.

Maybe it is because we have become so accustomed to having something available to us at every moment. Something to read. Something to watch. Something to answer. Something to organize. Something productive we could be doing.

There is always another thing waiting.

And when there is always another thing waiting, an unclaimed moment can begin to feel strangely uncomfortable.

I think that's the part that interests me most.

Not whether we should spend less time on our phones or schedule fewer things. Those are different conversations.

This one is about what happens inside us when nothing is asking for our attention.

Do we even know what to do with that anymore?

This weekend reminded me what that can feel like.

Every year, our family gathers at my sister’s house in Vermont for what we call our “Annual Country Croquet Tournament”. There isn’t much of an agenda beyond visiting, catching up, laughing, eating, drinking, and seeing who can make it through the course with some dignity intact.  Truthfully, none of us.  ;)

We stayed a little longer this year so we could wander through a local farmers market with my sister, where my nephew happened to be performing. He is a wonderfully talented singer-songwriter, and there was something about being there listening to him that felt especially sweet.

We parked the van along the back of the gazebo, rolled out the awning, grabbed our chairs, and settled in. Coffee and chai tea lattes from their local cafe in hand, we sat and listened.

No rushing. No wondering what was next.

Even Riley seemed to understand the assignment, settling into the easy Sunday rhythm right along with us.

It was simple. And maybe that was the point.

None of it had been packed tightly into the weekend. We weren’t rushing from one thing to the next or trying to make every hour count.

There was room for it.

Room to sit a little longer. Room to talk about nothing important and somehow leave feeling more connected. Room to decide what came next without having already decided it the night before.

And maybe that is part of what we lose when every opening is already spoken for.

Sometimes the best moments aren’t the ones we planned. They are the ones there was enough space to notice.

Maybe some spaces are not gaps waiting to be filled. Maybe they are simply part of the natural rhythm of a life—small pauses between one thing and the next.

A few minutes in the car before walking inside.

The quiet after dinner.

An hour that unexpectedly opens up.

A Saturday afternoon with nowhere we have to be.

What if we didn't immediately assign those moments a job?

I'm beginning to think there is something important about having parts of our lives that haven't already been spoken for.

Not because we need to use that space to meditate, reflect, plan, recharge, or become better versions of ourselves.

Even that would be filling it.

Perhaps the invitation is much simpler.

Leave a little room.

Room for your mind to wander somewhere unexpected. Room to notice what you didn't realize you were thinking about. Room to decide at 2:00 what you feel like doing at 2:05.

Or room for absolutely nothing to happen at all.

There is something almost luxurious about that now, isn't there?

A little corner of the day that doesn't need to produce anything.

And perhaps that is why this conversation feels worth having.

We spend so much of our lives creating schedules, routines, plans, and systems that help everything work. They matter. They hold a life together.

But maybe a good rhythm isn't made only from the things we put into it.

Maybe it also needs a few spaces where nothing has been placed yet.

---

One Intentional Step

Sometime this week, when a small pocket of time opens up, see if you can resist filling it immediately.

Not for an hour. Maybe just five or ten minutes.

Leave it unclaimed and notice what happens.

No agenda. No expectation.

Just a little space that gets to remain...  well... space.

---

Continue the Conversation

I'm curious about this one.

When you suddenly have a few unplanned minutes, what do you usually do with them?

And how does it feel to imagine leaving some of them completely unfilled?

---

Until next time…

Grant yourself a little grace.
Trust yourself a little more.
And take one intentional step.

Be well,
Mary-Anne

When the World Gets Quiet

This week, life asked me to slow down.

Not because I had finished everything on my to-do list.

Not because I had finally decided it was time to rest.

Simply because, for a little while, my body needed something my calendar hadn't planned for.

I'll admit... slowing down isn't something that comes naturally to me.

Like many of us, I'm used to moving from one responsibility to the next, always thinking about the next conversation, the next project, or the next thing that needs my attention.

This week, I didn't have much choice.

And somewhere between moving a little more slowly and letting others help with things I usually do myself, I noticed something.

The world hadn't become quieter.

I had.

That made me wonder...

Have you ever noticed how different life feels when your usual rhythm is interrupted?

Not because anything around you has changed.

The refrigerator still hums. The coffee still brews. Morning light still finds its way through the windows.

And yet somehow... everything feels different.

Maybe you're recovering from something. 
Maybe plans changed.
Maybe someone you love suddenly needs more of your time.
Maybe you're simply in one of those seasons where life has quietly asked you to move at a different pace than you expected.

Or maybe, for the first time in a long time, nothing is demanding your immediate attention.

At first, that kind of quiet can feel unsettling.

We become so accustomed to moving from one responsibility to the next that stillness almost feels unfamiliar. We tell ourselves we'll enjoy the slower pace someday, but when it finally arrives, we often discover we've forgotten how to simply be there.

It's funny how quickly our minds try to fill the silence.

"What should I be catching up on?"
"What am I forgetting?"
"What could I be doing instead?"

As if every quiet moment needs to justify itself.

I've had a little more time to notice things this week than I normally do.  It's amazing what rises to the surface when life doesn't allow you to rush past it.

Not because the answers suddenly appear.
But because the noise finally begins to settle.

We're remarkably good at being productive.

Many of us have spent years becoming experts at solving problems, managing schedules, helping other people, and carrying responsibilities that no one else even notices.

But receiving a slower rhythm?  That takes practice too.

I wonder if that's because our worth quietly becomes tangled up with our usefulness.

If we're always doing, we know who we are.
If we're temporarily unable to do as much...

Who are we then?

Maybe that's why interruptions can feel so uncomfortable.
They don't just interrupt our schedule.  They interrupt the story we've been telling ourselves about who we need to be.  And sometimes, without realizing it, they gently invite us to write a kinder one.

I've started noticing that life has rhythms much like breathing.

There are seasons for building.
Seasons for giving.
Seasons for celebrating.

And there are seasons for restoring.

We rarely question the inhale.
We never apologize for the exhale.

Yet somehow we expect ourselves to live as if we're only supposed to breathe in.

Always producing.
Always pushing.
Always moving.

Perhaps that's why we become exhausted without fully understanding why.

The healthiest rhythms were never meant to move in only one direction.

They expand.
They soften.
They pause.

Then they begin again.

Maybe that's true for us too.

What if this quieter season isn't asking you to become someone different?
What if it's simply reminding you of someone you've been too busy to notice?

The version of you who enjoys lingering over a cup of chai.

Who notices the breeze instead of rushing past it.
Who laughs without checking the time.
Who rests without earning it first.

That person has always been there.

Sometimes life just has to get a little quieter before we can hear them again.

And maybe that's one of the gentlest gifts an interrupted rhythm can offer.

Not perfection.
Not productivity.

Just the quiet reminder that your value has never depended on how full your calendar is.

It has always been found in the simple fact that you are here.

Breathing.
Living.
Becoming.

Exactly one ordinary day at a time.

One Intentional Step

This week, instead of asking yourself, "What should I be doing?"...

Pause long enough to ask a different question:

"What is this season asking of me?"

Maybe the answer is to keep moving forward.
Maybe it's to ask for help.
Maybe it's simply to rest without feeling guilty.

Whatever the answer is, trust that honoring the rhythm you're in today is not falling behind.

It may be exactly how you find your way forward.

---

I'd love to know...

What season is life inviting you into right now?

Wherever you find yourself, I hope you meet it with a little more grace than yesterday.

Until next time...

Grant yourself a little grace.
Trust yourself a little more.
And take one intentional step.

Be well,
Mary-Anne

When Life Has Other Plans

Interruptions Reveal Our Rhythm

Have you ever noticed how quickly we write the story of our day?

We know where we're going.
We know what's supposed to happen.  
We have a picture in our minds of how the day—or the evening—is going to unfold.

And then...

Life has other plans.  I think we've all been there.

A meeting runs late.
A flight gets delayed.
The phone rings with unexpected news.
The plans we've been looking forward to suddenly change.

It's a reminder that while we can make plans, we can't always control what happens next.

That happened to us this weekend.

We had spent the evening prior seeing our Aussie friends, the Hindley Street Country Club, in Beverly, followed by a wonderful day exploring Rockport with friends.  As we were driving home, tired in the best possible way, replaying their music, laughing about our adventure, looking forward to sleeping in our own bed...

...our van decided it wasn't quite ready to head home.

Instead of pulling into our driveway, we found ourselves on the side of the MA Pike waiting for a tow truck. When it finally arrived, we learned it wasn't equipped to tow our van. We'd have to wait all over again for a larger tow truck.

Definitely not the ending we had planned.

After a few post updates, and an image of us sitting inside the coach watching television while we waited for the second tow truck, a friend wrote,

"That's true calmness right there."

That comment made me pause.

Not because I thought I had handled everything perfectly.  Believe me, I would have much preferred to be home.  But she made me realize something I hadn't thought about until that moment.  Years ago, I'm not sure that's what people would have seen.

Not because I was a different person.  But because I had practiced a different rhythm.  That realization followed me home.  Maybe interruptions don't create our rhythm.

Maybe they reveal it.

When life catches us off guard, we rarely become someone new in that moment.  We simply return to what we've been practicing.

If we've practiced rushing, we rush.
If we've practiced worrying, we worry.
If we've practiced assuming the worst, that's often where our minds go first.

But if we've practiced pausing... 
Breathing... 
Accepting what we cannot change before deciding what to do next...

That rhythm has a way of showing up, too.

As we begin a new month, I've been thinking about the word rhythm.

Not routines.  Rhythms.  Because I think there's a difference.

A routine depends on everything happening according to plan.  A rhythm is something you can return to, even when the plan falls apart.  The goal has never been to create a life without interruptions.

That's impossible.

Plans change.
Vehicles break down.
People disappoint us.
Unexpected phone calls come.
Life will always have other plans.

The question isn't whether interruptions will happen.

The question is: What rhythm will they reveal?

There's one moment from that evening I keep coming back to.  We couldn't change the situation.  The van wasn't suddenly going to fix itself because we were frustrated.  The tow truck wasn't going to arrive any faster because we were impatient.

But we could choose the atmosphere inside the coach.

We could choose whether those hours were filled with frustration or conversation.  Whether we focused on what had gone wrong... or simply accepted what was true and made the best of it.  That didn't mean pretending everything was wonderful.  It didn't mean we weren't disappointed.  It simply meant we weren't going to let the interruption decide the atmosphere inside the coach while we waited.

Isn't that true in so many areas of life? 

We may not be able to choose every circumstance we face.  But we can often choose the atmosphere we create within it.

Sometimes, that changes everything.  So this week, if life has other plans...

If your carefully organized schedule suddenly changes...  If an unexpected interruption catches you by surprise...

Before asking,

"How do I get everything back on track?"

Pause long enough to ask a different question.

"What rhythm am I practicing right now?"

Because interruptions don't create our rhythm.  They reveal the rhythm we've been practicing all along.  And every ordinary day gives us another opportunity to practice the kind of rhythm we hope will show up when life has other plans.

Until next time...

Grant yourself a little grace.
Trust yourself a little more.
And take one intentional step.

Be well,
Mary-Anne

Don't Rush Past This Moment

A few evenings ago, I stood beside the cover of a book that, for years, existed only in my imagination.

It was a beautiful evening.

Friends, family, colleagues, and people who have encouraged me throughout this journey gathered to celebrate. There was laughter, conversation, hugs, and more kindness than I could have imagined. I found myself looking around the room more than once, quietly taking it all in.

For those few hours, I wasn't thinking about deadlines or the next step. I was simply grateful to be there.

It wasn't until a day or two later that I found myself reflecting on the evening again.

Not the presentation.

Not the photos.

Not even the book itself.

What stayed with me was something much simpler.

It was the realization that some moments deserve more than our participation.

They deserve our presence.

That thought has stayed with me all week because I don't think it's only true of special occasions.

I think it's true of everyday life.

How often are we physically somewhere while our minds are already somewhere else?  We're enjoying dinner with our family while thinking about tomorrow's meeting.  We're walking the dog while mentally answering emails.  We're talking with a friend while planning everything we need to do when we get home.  We're so practiced at moving on to the next thing that we sometimes leave the moment before it's actually over.

It's not because we're ungrateful.

It's because we've become accustomed to living one step ahead of ourselves.  Somewhere along the way, we learned that productivity means always thinking about what's next.

But life doesn't always ask us to do that.

Sometimes life quietly asks us to stay.

To notice.

To receive what's happening before we rush toward what comes next.

As I thought back on the cover reveal, I realized the evening wasn't important because it marked the end of something.  In many ways, it marked another beginning.  There is still plenty of work ahead, and I'm genuinely excited about what's next.  But I'm equally grateful that, for one evening, I allowed myself to simply experience the moment instead of trying to get through it.

It made me wonder how many ordinary moments in our own lives ask the same thing of us.

A conversation with someone we love.

Coffee on the porch before the day begins.

Watching a sunset instead of photographing it.

Listening to laughter coming from another room.

Sitting beside someone without feeling the need to fill every silence.

Most of the moments that shape our lives don't announce themselves as important.

They simply arrive.

Quietly.

And then they're gone.

Perhaps that's why they deserve our attention while they're here.  Not because every moment is extraordinary.  But because ordinary moments are what a meaningful life is made of.

One Intentional Step

This week, choose one ordinary moment and make a quiet promise to yourself.

Leave your phone where it is.

Set aside your mental checklist.

Resist the urge to think about what comes next.

Whether it's your morning coffee, a walk outside, dinner with your family, or a conversation with a friend, give yourself permission to be fully there.

You don't need to make the moment bigger.

You simply need to be present enough to receive it.

Until next time...

Grant yourself a little grace.
Trust yourself a little more.
And take one intentional step.

Be well,
Mary-Anne