I Am Learning to Enjoy the Stop Without Felling Like I Am Falling Behind

Maybe the point is not to have it all figured out. Maybe the point is to learn, live, and share what the journey teaches us.

Happy Soulful, Self-Love, Self-Light Sunday!

Before we carry last week’s pressure into a brand new one, I have a question:

Who told us we had to have it all figured out right now?

What if the true point of this life is not to arrive with every answer?

What if we are here to learn, live, love, and share what the journey teaches us along the way?

Now, believe me, I am asking this as a Type-A, oldest-daughter, Mom who has spent much of her life operating on schedules, autopilot, and the last-minute pressure that somehow pushes me to get ish done.

Baby, I like, need, and want a plan.

I want to know the when, where, how, why, what, who and anything else that might be hiding in between. I want the confirmation number, backup plan, emergency exit, and estimated arrival time.

But the older I get, the more my soul keeps asking me to stop.

Stop and touch the grass.

Stop and smell the flowers.

Stop and listen…really listen…to someone’s story.

Stop and read a new book without turning it into another task to complete.

Stop and sit in a moment without rushing to explain it, improve it, post it, monetize it, or move on from it.

Just stop.

But can the chaos of life and the stillness of the stop peacefully coexist?

Can I remain ambitious without allowing urgency to control me?

Can I keep building without overlooking the life already standing around me?

Maybe balance is not waiting for life to become calm enough for me to finally be present. Maybe it is learning how to create moments of stillness while the phone is ringing, the deadlines are approaching, my children need me, the businesses are moving, and life keeps doing what life does.

Maybe I do not have to choose between becoming and simply being.

Not because the things that once mattered no longer matter. They do.

I still have goals. I still have dreams big enough to keep me awake. I am still overly Type A, still building, still creating, and still reaching for everything God placed inside of me.

But lately, I have been asking myself:

Where has all this rushing taken me that slowing down could not have?

What did I miss because I thought stopping meant I was falling behind?

What might appreciating the journey have protected me from?

And if living a little more slowly had caused me to take a detour, would that really have been so terrible?

Maybe some detours would have led me somewhere my carefully written plans never could.

Loss became embedded in me early. When loss introduces itself before you have even had the chance to fully understand life, it can make you feel as though time cannot be trusted.

You begin to hurry.

Hurry to become somebody.

Hurry to accomplish something.

Hurry to build a life sturdy enough to withstand whatever might be taken next.

Then add being the Black sheep in more than one room, and I did not just want to succeed—I felt as though I needed my life to explain me.

I needed to prove that I was capable.

Prove that I was worthy.

Prove that I was more than whatever people assumed, misunderstood, or failed to see.

So, I graduated early.

Earned multiple degrees.

Worked to make sure my children had the best of everything I could provide.

Started businesses.

Wrote books.

Built this.

Created that.

Accomplished one thing and immediately asked myself, “Okay, what’s next?”

There is absolutely nothing wrong with those accomplishments. I deeply appreciate every one of them. I honor the version of me who survived, sacrificed, pushed, prayed, and kept going long enough to achieve them.

But I am also honest enough now to admit that some of my accomplishments were dreams…and some of them were armor.

Some came from purpose.

Others came from the fear of being overlooked, underestimated, left behind, or running out of time.

That realization will humble you.

Traveling has taught me lessons I did not know I needed.

In Costa Rica, I learned how flowing water could be harnessed to create electricity. There was something beautiful about witnessing the power already present in nature being recognized and used. I also noticed how deeply rooted many of the communities I visited seemed to be in one another.

In St. Lucia, I encountered people who appeared to move with a different relationship to time. In some places, businesses opened when they opened and closed when they closed. Then on Friday, people gathered as a community to eat, dance, laugh, and celebrate life…welcoming locals and travelers alike.

They were not waiting for another degree, promotion, launch, birthday, or milestone before giving themselves permission to experience joy.

Now, I am not pretending simple means easy, nor am I suggesting that a visit allowed me to understand the fullness of someone else’s life.

But I know what those experiences reflected back to me:

I had become so skilled at managing life that I was sometimes forgetting to experience it.

God has shown out in my life. Let me be clear about that.

I am thankful for all I have, all I have survived, and every place life has allowed me to reach.

But none of it came without bumps, bruises, scars, tears, heartbreak, loss, and more lessons than I would have willingly signed up for.

And perhaps that is why the simpler things are beginning to call my name now.

A slow morning at the farmers market.

An impromptu road trip with my children.

Taking a hike with no destination beyond seeing where the path leads.

Trying a home-cooked recipe I have never made before.

Helping my daughter complete baking orders for her business.

Jumping on the trampoline with my son, although my knees may have a separate opinion.

Talking to my dogs as if they contribute to the bills around here.

Trying new foods with my children.

Watching the clouds and finding pictures in them the way I did when I was little.

Spotting license plates from places we have never visited.

Naming the trees we pass on a walk as if they are old neighbors.

Watching a butterfly slowly spread its wings.

Listening to the rain fall without treating it as an inconvenience.

Noticing how the trees surrender to the rhythm of the wind.

Watching squirrels mischievously plot on my garbage because, apparently, that is not strictly raccoon business.

Paying attention to how my dog senses the slightest shift in my mood before anyone has said a word.

These are the things I once moved too quickly to hear, love, or fully live inside of.

I used to call them the little things.

I do not anymore.

These are the things life is actually made of.

Accomplishments may mark the major moments, but these seemingly ordinary experiences fill the space between them. What is the point of reaching every destination if I never look out the window during the ride?

This is not an argument against ambition.

It is not me shrinking my dreams.

It is me refusing to continue shrinking my life around them.

I still want more.

I still believe God placed purpose inside of me that must be fulfilled. I am still striving, building, learning, and becoming.

But I no longer want the pursuit of more to make me blind to what I once prayed for.

I do not want “more” to keep costing me “now.”

I do not want to spend my entire life preparing to live, only to reach the end with a résumé full of accomplishments and a soul starving for memories.

So, I am learning to smell the flowers a little longer.

To notice how far I have come before demanding that I go farther.

To appreciate the woman I am…not only because of what she produces, provides, fixes, or completes, but because of who she has become.

Perhaps peace does not require all the chaos to disappear.

Perhaps the stillness of the stop is not the absence of movement, responsibility, or ambition. Maybe it is the presence of awareness…the ability to remain connected to myself, to the people I love, and to God while life continues moving around me.

Maybe chaos and stillness can coexist peacefully when I stop allowing the chaos to have the final word.

Maybe we do not need to have everything figured out before the next week begins.

Maybe we simply need enough faith to take the next step, enough humility to remain teachable, and enough presence to recognize the beauty accompanying us along the way.

So, I want to ask YOU:

What have YOU started noticing that you once rushed past?

Which parts of life do YOU now recognize as sacred, even though a younger version of YOU may have been too busy surviving, proving, achieving, or rushing to notice them?

While striving for more…because that has not stopped for me either…have you learned to pause and appreciate YOU?

Not only what YOU have accomplished, but how far YOU have come?

And when was the last time YOU allowed yourself to enjoy the life unfolding around YOU before rushing toward whatever comes next?

Maybe the point was never to have it all figured out.

Maybe the point is to learn.

To live.

And then to share what the journey taught us.

I pray this week allows YOU to stop at least for a moment to reflect, relax, and reconnect with who YOU are becoming. 

May YOU continue reaching for what is next without overlooking what is sacred right now.