The Pause Between Chapters

I am late getting this posted because I did not prepare a blog for this week. Somewhere between the shopping for gifts, graduation preparations and celebrations, long drives to and from Baton Rouge, late-night conversations, and trying to hold space for my stepdaughter as she moves through some major changes in her life, time seemed to disappear. So did my focus for sitting down to write something educational or inspirational.

My personal and professional life has truly felt suspended lately.

It feels like I am somewhere between one season and the next. I have talked about it before. It is like knowing there is a shift happening but not understanding what is coming. My client work has completely slowed down. My hygiene license renewal has been caught in delays over a clerical issue. Plans that normally move forward with ease feel slower, quieter, and harder to grasp onto.

A younger version of me would have fought against this feeling of stagnation. She would have filled every empty space with work, productivity, overthinking, and worry. She would have taken the silence personally and panicked.

But this week did not feel scary. It almost felt empowering. I started the new homeopathy and Family Constellation coursework and group, “Receiving the Mother.” The New Moon on Saturday seemed to arrive with a call from the stars for space, expansion, and reflection. Almost like the planets were asking for stillness just long enough to feel what has been buried underneath all the external noise and mindless action.

I have found myself sitting with really big ideas and questions lately. Ideas about what I am being called to receive, and questions about where my work is going, what feels sustainable, what no longer fits, and how to support the people I love without trying to carry their journey for them.

Watching young adults, like my stepdaughter and her boyfriend, step into a life of uncertainty really has a way of exposing my own unfinished places too.

So, this week I decided not to force anything, not to manufacture inspiration just to stay consistent, and not to pretend I have clarity where I still have questions about my direction.

For the first time in a long time, the pause does not feel like failure to me. It feels like something is being given time to be recognized. Like life is simply asking me to stop gripping so tightly to timelines, outcomes, and certainty long enough to notice what is actually trying to emerge next.

Geaux Tigers!