The Peace I Didn't Have to Earn
Learning to trust the natural rhythm of rest...and let it be enough
This is my third summer as a coach. And for the first time, I’m not panicking.
In both of the past 2 summer, I found myself riding a wave of anxiety as June arrived and the calendar softened. Client sessions slowed down. New inquiries stalled. My brain started spinning: Am I doing enough? Am I doing something wrong? Is this it? Is the business drying up?
I didn’t yet understand the rhythm. I didn’t know that the summer slowdown was part of the cycle. That people go on holiday, take time with their families, shift their focus inward (or outward) but away from coaching. I didn’t know that by late August, things would stir again. That by September, it would pick up. That the end-of-year surge would roll in like clockwork. So instead of resting with the season, I fought it. I pushed harder. I scrambled to fill the silence.
And it was exhausting.
But this year, I recognized the rhythm before the fear set in. I felt the slowness coming and, instead of trying to outrun it, I decided to let it catch me.
I’m still working, of course. Still showing up for my clients and my business. But I’m also giving myself a bit of breathing room, and there’s something incredibly peaceful about that. I’m going to bed a bit later and sleeping a bit later as well. I’m letting my mornings start slowly, with gentleness instead of a rush of urgency. I’m going out more in the evenings, saying yes to dinners and walks and conversations that nourish me. I’m taking classes that I want to take, not the ones I think I should. I’m writing. I'm dreaming. I’m paying attention
What I’m learning is this: peace doesn’t come when everything is done. It comes when I stop believing I have to earn it.
So much of my life has been built around a reward system…work first, rest later. And not just any work, but hard work. Visible work. Work that proves something. And the rest? That’s the carrot at the end. Except the carrot kept moving. And I never really got to enjoy the peace because I was always sprinting toward the next thing.
It’s taken time to unlearn that.
Now I’m starting to see peace as a practice, not a prize. A kind of quiet trust in the ebb and flow. A belief that I don’t have to grind when the world around me is resting. That maybe, just maybe, I’m allowed to pause too.
And here’s the wild thing, when I do pause, when I stop chasing and just be for a while I actually start to feel more like myself. Not less motivated or less ambitious, but more clear. More creative. More grounded. More ready.
What’s the rhythm of this season in your life and are you letting yourself follow it?
If you’re in a season of slow, maybe it’s not a problem to solve. Maybe it’s a rhythm to recognize. Maybe peace is already here, waiting for you to stop running long enough to feel it.
🫶🏽L