This is my favorite mantra (it may become yours)

I have recently moved to Western North Carolina after becoming an empty-nester. This big move—which we’ve been planning for four years—has been challenging, exciting and it has pushed me out of my comfort zone in many ways. One of the areas of growth that’s surfaced, is around friendships and community. I am used to having a wide, diverse, robust circle of friends and colleagues in Austin. Now, in a new town, I am getting to experience what it’s like to build my tribe from scratch.

And as we all know, these deep soulful, nourishing connections do not happen overnight. They take time to cultivate. 

Last week, in typical Renee fashion (I love to “make things happen,” and thrive on creating connection and community), I started mapping out several regional offerings—a small, weekly women’s self-renewal group, an intimate one-day retreat, a Mastermind group for women entrepreneurs—all things that are easy for me to do.  But as I began to explore bringing these events to fruition, I felt a strong internal resistance.  I realized I was trying to force things to happen rather than organically “allowing” synchronistic connections to unfold. 

As I became quieter, my old favorite mantra came flooding in: “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

Oh yeah, that’s right.

While I may very well end up offering some local programs, for me to initiate this now would use up all my creative energy and pull me out of “being” into full-on “doing.” (Unfortunately, I can’t help but pour all of myself into whatever I take on.)

Many of us are blessed with an abundant supply of ideas and are good at bringing things to fruition pretty effortlessly.  Others (myself included) are diehard “HOPOS”—my friend’s Margaret’s term for those of us who love to “help other people out.” But as I gain firmer footing in the second half of my life, I now realize how precious my energy or life force is and I don’t like to take on any new projects unless every cell in my body says, “YES!!”

So this month, I will practice doing less and trust that the perfect new friends and connections will come to me at just the right time in just the right way. From experience I know that I will never regret creating more space in my life, but I can easily regret over-filling my days.

COULD YOUR EMPLOYEES OR TEAM USE SUPPORT FOR FINDING BALANCE?

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Subscribe here to Live Inside Out, a weekly blog written by mindfulness coach/author/speaker Renée Peterson Trudeau. Passionate about helping men and women find balance through the art and science of self-care, her work has appeared in The New York Times, Good Housekeeping, US News & World Report, Spirituality & Health and more. She and her team have certified more than 400 facilitators in 10 countries around the globe to lead life coaching groups and women’s retreats based on her work. She’s the author of two books on life balance including the award-winning The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and 18-year-old son. More on Renee here.