If there is one thing that happens when we become aware of the passage of time, it's that we are confronted with the fact that time is unrestrainable.
That's been my experience this summer - life, as full and rich as it is, is finite. I find myself asking, "am I making the most of it?"
I've been immersed in work, family and making the best of the summer moments and, yet, I still find myself yearning for more creative time. More space (mostly inside my busy mind) to be creative. I can feel it when I gift myself this spaciousness - it feels like oxygen comes rushing in and my cells wake up. The beauty that surrounds me everyday becomes....well.... more beautiful. Sensations that I use to experience my day-to-day world amplify and the smells, sights, sounds, touches and tastes (ohhhh, the tastes!!!) are amplified, voluminous and spiritual.
I recognize this feeling well and, yet, I don't feel it often enough.
I question why? If I truly know and have learned to perceive this embodied, grounded stillness within me, why is it so ethereal? Why is it so rare and fleeting?
Why don't I put the pieces in place to experience this level of life all the time?
The answer to these vital questions has been slowly taking shape as I pause, paddle and percolate.
I've been too busy.
Not just 'normal busy' and productively conducting the orchestra of personal and professional life around me but TOO busy. Aren't we all? Are you feeling too busy too?
Something has to change and, for me, that's uncomfortable. What's even more disconcerting is the uncertainty of what 'change' means in this context.
Life ebbs and flows; waxes and wanes.
Sometimes we are the surf, breaking toward the shore and other times we retreat to the calm depths of our soul’s ocean.
This season of life, for me, has taken on a rhythm of its own.
My husband continues the exhilarating and exhausting work of preparing for a historic moon mission. We count our blessings and we count the hours we can actually be together as he endures a crushing training and travel schedule.
While we have dreamed of his first space mission since his recruitment in 2009, it’s been a whirlwind of emotion a tornado of thoughts and a hurricane of media. Life has become a metaphor for Texas weather.
This summer has involved lakeside interviews and behind the scenes filming by biographers, documentary crews and CNN. Our family has been questioned, recorded, and under the microscope.
We have been mic’d up, lit up and attached to go-pros.
We have shared meals, wooded walks and campfires with film crews from as far away as the UK.
We have laughed and cried as trained journalists dig deep into our greatest fears.
We are being held to a new standard, rooting deep into authenticity, as we step into the role of “family support” for a man who will, undoubtedly, change history for Canadians.
Throughout this incredible time, there seems to be a global shift for women at work. My longing to share awareness, agency and aligned action with women who are stepping into their fullest expression has not wavered.
In fact it's solidified.
My reverence for women and their many roles and responsibilities has become embodied and deeply personal as I embrace (and brace for) my own unfurling.
The Empowered Women's Circle's burgeoning contracts to lean into Corporate work with organizations, professional women and physicians has become expansive, elevating and energizing for our entire team.
We are being compelled to integrate the very tools and resources we teach and share, but we are resolute that this work is our mission. Through our robust trainings, experiences and expertise, we find ourselves well positioned to impact even the most preeminent leaders of our time. These are unprecedented times for humans, for women and for EWC.
My heart is yearning for grounding and a way to stay connected to my core so that I’m not washed away by the waves of this incredible and blessed work and life.
Just as I have learned how to swim with a riptide (not against it), I know it will take all of my tools and resources and the support of our team and community to hold me steadfast as the swells come and go.
I'm learning a whole new level of acceptance, release and surrender. I'm learning to ask for help.
In real time, I’ve decided to lean on you, my support system, and share the trials, tribulations and triumphs of the moon mission and life as a busy physician, founder, speaker and mother including the ways I have cultivated to recenter, realign and recommit to my truth. The truth that I am 'enough' and that everything I need is already within and around me.
Thank you for being here with me during these tumultuous and triumphant times (and for reading this newsletter)!
Any messages you send my way will lift my spirits and fuel my fire. You are my tribe and I pray that I am worthy of being yours.
Over time, my hope is that, as we connect and gather, we find serenity in our sharing, calm in the chaos and support in our sisterhood.
This is a historic moon mission for humanity and my role as astronaut wife, mother, daughter and friend WILL be tested.
This season of life for me, and this season of Circle for EWC, is a chance for all of us to ground deep into the roots of our core values as a way to hold fast against whatever life brings.
Together, we will release any resistance to 'what is’ because 'what is' is bigger, farther and faster than we ever imagined possible.
We are, literally, leaving the planet for bold new horizons and the only way to ensure we don't get off course is to do whatever is necessary to create space for calm, close our eyes, and let faith fly this rocket ship.
As we touch our stillness we can receive, renew and reclaim this one precious life.
Join our community newsletter to follow our journey and invite anyone who would enjoy this ride of a lifetime with me and EWC.