My Mother’s Day gift to you (and me)

For over a decade I coached thousands of men and women in career transition on how to create a strategic career plan, leverage their brilliance and come into greater alignment with their life purpose (I have since trained a wonderful team of career/life coaches to do this!).

Now, I’m in the midst of a professional transition (more on “how to honor” transitions next week).

And while I’m exploring new opportunities and partnerships–and am uncertain how best to allocate my energy in the coming years–I am very clear that while I could keep working “harder” to figure this all out, what I need to do is stop. Everything. And pause.

So my gift to myself this Mother’s Day is to take Monday the 13th off (in the midst of my busiest time of year). I plan to delegate, unplug completely and take a personal planning retreat (read more on how to do this). I want to get quiet so the answers can surface and emerge in their own sweet way and time. Not through working harder, but through doing less. To slow down and bask in stillness. 

It’s very easy to slip into a sleepy state of “busy-ness,” and think that because we’re active and working hard, we’re creating results. But just because we’re knocking things off our to-do list, doesn’t mean we’re focused on what matters most … or manifesting what we truly desire.

Pausing allows us to step back. To gain perspective (read more), to turn inward, reflect and ask: Is our life force–our precious energy–being harnessed and utilized in the highest and best way possible?

My gift to you this Mother’s Day is permission to *P.A.U.S.E.*  And to know that giving yourself a day to gain clarity and focus on where and how you want to direct your energy in the coming months is not only wise, it’s radical self-care. Whether you’re mothering yourself or your children–the gift of slowing down and pausing to hear “what you most need to hear” BEFORE taking action–is an investment in yourself that will bring you returns for years to come.

Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 12th!  Know a mom who is ripe for self-care and is seeking more balance in her life? Learn more and purchase my books Nurturing the Soul of Your Family: 10 Ways to Reconnect and Find Peace in Everyday Life and the award-winning The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal: How to Reclaim, Rejuvenate and Re-Balance Your Life here. And check out my upcoming events in TX, MA and NC–I’d love to see you in-person at a May or June gathering!

Subscribe here to Live Inside Out, a weekly blog written by life balance teachers/speaker author Renée Peterson Trudeau. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Good Housekeeping and numerous media outlets. Thousands of women in ten countries are participating in Personal Renewal Groups based on her first book, The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and son. More on her background here.

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