I planned to work a bit, complete some projects, and enjoy slow days with plenty of relaxation.
All of that certainly occurred, but beneath it all, something else began quietly inviting my attention.
I still worked, had sessions, responded to emails, taught my Via Sophia class, held conversations, and shared many a meal.
Spaciousness gave me room to notice the quiet invitations that are always there.
One morning I wandered down to the river, watching dolphins surface and disappear again. I sat in the shade with horses, praying for the world and what was possible. I cheered for the US in the World Cup game while the sunset painted the sky over the mangroves behind me.
A tiny resident lizard became part of my daily rhythm.
I read two novels until the Florida sun soothed me into a nap. Waking up flushed and uncomfortable led me to a cooling float in the pool. Eyes open, I glimpsed a manatee. Eyes closed, I listened to the song created by the breeze in the trees, birds holding melodic conversations, boat engines, and murmuring human voices.
None of it was extraordinary. And yet it felt deeply alive.
As the days unfolded, I began wondering how often I move through my own life waiting for some future arrangement before fully inhabiting the one already here.
I often hear women say they’ll relax when the project is finished, the children are grown, vacation finally arrives, retirement begins, or life settles down.
You know this dance. As though living can begin once everything else is complete.
But what if nothing has been waiting? What if life has simply been unfolding beside you all along, quietly offering itself in hundreds of ordinary ways.
A breeze across your face. Morning coffee. Birds outside the window. The sleepy dog hoping you’ll stop long enough for a gentle scratch. The conversation you almost rushed through. The tree you’ve driven past a hundred times, dancing in the wind whether anyone notices or not.
This is one of the quiet discoveries emerging in our Via Sophia circles.
Not another practice to master or another way to improve yourself. It is the simple remembering that life is already in relationship with you. How beauty is already arriving. Your body is already speaking.
You realize that you don’t have to manufacture a sacred life.
You learn to participate in the one already unfolding. Where wonder is already present.
This doesn’t require a vacation, a retreat, or the completion of every task on your life. While time away may certainly help create spaciousness, you might begin with something much smaller.
What if you gave yourself three hours?
What if your phone stayed inside?
What if there were nowhere you needed to be?
What if you wandered without deciding where you were going?
What if you let the day reveal itself instead of deciding in advance what it should become?
For some people, those questions sound heavenly. For others, they set off alarm bells.
If that’s you, begin even smaller. Perhaps only twenty minutes, a slow walk, or a cup of tea on the deck without your phone. Engage the natural beauty of a garden or sunset without photographing it.
Life rarely shouts. It usually whispers.
Maybe what you’re longing for isn’t somewhere else. Maybe it’s here. Hidden beneath the schedule, beneath the striving, beneath the endless doing.
Available and quietly inviting you into conversation.
If you decide to wander sometime this summer, I’d love to hear what you discover. Send me a note and tell me where the day led you. I’m curious what found you when you finally had room to notice. I’ll be sure to read it and respond after I savor one more slice of life newly discovered through different eyes than my own.
Ladies, perhaps spaciousness isn’t something you find someday. Perhaps it’s something you remember.
This October, a small circle of women will gather in Costa Rica to explore exactly that.
Together we’ll slow enough to hear life again, restore our relationship with ourselves and the natural world, and discover what begins to emerge when we stop managing life and start participating in it.
If that calls to you, I’d love to have you with us. Explore the Via Sophia Costa Rica Immersion here.
If you’re ready to live sacred – naturally and with ease – let’s have a conversation.
Peace be with you and with all. No exceptions.
In Frontiers in Neuroscience (2026), researcher M.J. Kim explored why helping others is so good for us. Rather than looking only at psychology, this study looked at what happens in the brain. They found that prosocial actions, even very small ones, are associated with less depression, less anxiety, less loneliness, and greater meaning in life. One of the conclusions is beautifully simple: our nervous systems appear to regulate more effectively when we are in healthy relationship with others.
Learn the one essential skill that allows you to face any challenge with confidence, sturdiness, and inner calm.
More than a technique. It’s a game changer.
Over the past several months, I have been immersed in conversation with women. In therapy sessions, Via Sophia circles, and at dinner tables. During walks, ceremonies, and quiet moments after gatherings have ended. I’ve been listening as stories unfold. Different women. Different lives, histories, and circumstances. Yet beneath the details, I keep hearing a remarkably similar story. Many women are tired.
Last week, I left the house a little earlier than usual.
Not because the day ahead was spacious. Quite the opposite. It was full. Appointments, responsibilities, errands to run, bags still to pack for my upcoming conference. One of those days where the hours already seem spoken for before they even begin.
And yet, before leaving, I found myself lingering in the garden.
The overgrown bushes had finally been removed, opening up an entire section of the bed I hadn’t really seen clearly in years. New flowers and shrubs had recently been planted, and I stood there for a few moments appreciating the fresh openness of it all. The morning light and the possibility of adding a few colorful blossoms. The beauty of something being tended and made new.
There comes a moment when something within you begins to shift.
Not because life is failing. Not because you have done something wrong. But because what once felt meaningful no longer feels like enough.
Many women arrive at this threshold quietly. Others experience it more viscerally, through exhaustion, change, loss, longing, or the growing realization that the life they have carefully built no longer fully reflects who they are becoming.
You may already feel this happening within you now.
A few months ago, when the world was cold and the snow came often, I left for work a little earlier than usual.
The roads had already been plowed, but I knew better than to assume they were clear. That kind of winter morning holds a particular deception. The pavement looks clean, almost dry, while a thin layer of ice waits invisibly beneath.
I was mostly alone on the road.
Some days don’t announce themselves as anything more than what they are.
My husband and I celebrated our wedding anniversary last weekend with a trip to New York City to see Every Brilliant Thing with Daniel Radcliffe.
You arrive in Venice the way you always arrive in places that have lived longer than memory can hold.
Not just by plane or train, but by stepping into a rhythm already in motion.
