featuring an in-home session with Alixandra, Jared, and their beautiful baby boy

It’s so easy to feel like falling behind in life. Behind on chores, behind on goals, behind on the most current happenings, trends, etc. – always running, always catching up. (I am tempted to bring up laundry instead of social media as an example.) Endless ‘to-do lists’ keeping you up at night, checking off one thing and immediately adding three more. Accomplishments are easily overlooked, they never count enough to make up for the mountain that is expected of us to conquer on a daily basis.

For the past couple of weeks, I have felt very much like running up an ever-stretching hill. Doing schoolwork, driving kids to activities, therapy, to and from Co-Op. Keeping track of events, ordering gifts for birthday parties. Housework. Squeezing in the training for Ellie. I have been very conservative when it comes to scheduling photo sessions this season. To be at my best, to preserve my inspiration.

Still, I can feel the pressure.

Thing is, you can’t keep up by speeding up your own life. It’s like a hamster wheel. The faster you run, the faster this world will spin. The more unstable you become.

This can so quickly spiral into the feeling of never being good enough, jealousy, and comparison.

As so often in my life, I have found clarity by turning inward. Looking within for the answer, taking responsibility, and finding the power in that. Slowing down in order to slow down life. Creating more time by taking more time. Instead of all the things I could be missing out on, I bring back the focus on my little corner of the world. Expanding it by drawing in close.

It allows me to see details that are easily overlooked. A micro-universe with my family at the core. Not in a sense of blocking everything else out, but more so in re-centering myself to gain a better perspective. To be anchored in this secure place of familiarity. To rest and feel whole again.

I am more conscious now regarding what I put on my schedule. How I fill my days. To try to be more present in the moment, without my mind always rushing to the next thing on the agenda.

I’ve read somewhere that time is the most precious thing you can gift to someone. That true attention is worth more than any monetary offering.

Now, as much as I love to romanticize life, I know that reality might make it challenging to implement these values. I know there will be times of fast-paced routines and last-minute tasks that need to get done.

But as I sit here, listening to my Autumn playlist, typing these words, I feel calm and good about these changes. I try to no longer expect perfection from myself, just true effort. Shifting my sense of worth away from pleasing others toward the understanding of self-acceptance.