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September 26 Spring is in the air
What if this season is asking something
What if this season is asking something
different of you?
different of you?
There comes a point in life when you begin to notice that what carried you through one season may not be what you need for the next.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately.
About strength.
About health.
About getting older.
About the woman I am now, and the woman I still want to become.
I have always loved being active. I love feeling fit. I love the way movement clears my head and brings me back into my body.
But I have also had seasons where looking after myself came last.
There were children to raise.
A home to hold together.
Work.
Relationships.
Responsibilities.
Loss.
Change.
Life.
And like so many women, I became very good at keeping everything moving.
Sometimes so good that I forgot to ask a simple question.
What do I need now?
Not what did I need ten years ago.
Not what does someone on Instagram tell me I should be doing.
Not what should a woman my age look like.
What does this version of me need?
That is where I keep coming back to Water · Pebble · Ripple · Return.
Water
Water
What am I swimming in?
What am I swimming in?
Before we change anything, we notice the season we are actually living in.
For years, many of us have been swimming in responsibility.
Caring.
Doing.
Organising.
Supporting everyone else.
Perhaps your body needed rest.
Perhaps your family needed more of you.
Perhaps you were surviving something no one else could see.
Perhaps exercise consisted of a walk around the block when you had five minutes.
None of that means you were doing life badly.
You were responding to the water you were in.
And the water changes.
Your children grow.
Relationships change.
Bodies change.
Priorities change.
You change.
Which means the way you care for yourself can change too.
Pebble
Pebble
What am I noticing?
What am I noticing?
Lately I have been noticing a pull toward strength.
Not smaller.
Not younger.
Stronger.
Strong enough to walk wherever I want to walk.
Strong enough to travel.
Strong enough to pick up grandchildren.
Strong enough to keep saying yes to adventures.
Strong enough to live independently.
Strong enough to still feel like myself at 70, 80 and beyond.
That feels very different from the messages many of us grew up with.
We were taught to watch the scales.
Shrink the body.
Start another diet.
Try to look younger.
Compare ourselves to another woman.
But what if the question was never:
How can I make myself smaller?
What if the question became:
How can I support the woman I am becoming?
That is a very different conversation.
Ripple
Ripple
What is one conscious choice I can make?
What is one conscious choice I can make?
This is where I believe we often get caught.
We think our next chapter needs a complete reinvention.
It usually doesn't.
A ripple can begin very quietly.
Walking again.
Doing some strength work.
Cooking something nourishing.
Going to bed earlier.
Taking twenty minutes for yourself without explaining why.
Booking the class.
Putting your runners beside the door.
Drinking the water.
Saying, “This matters to me too.”
Small choices become evidence.
Evidence becomes trust.
Trust begins to change the way we see ourselves.
This is why I keep returning to 20 Seconds of Courage.
Sometimes courage isn't signing up for the marathon.
Sometimes courage is simply putting your shoes on.
Return
Return
Who am I becoming?
Who am I becoming?
For me, this is the most important part.
We are not trying to return to the body we had at 25.
Or the woman we were before children.
Or some previous version of ourselves.
Return, in Conscious Ripple, means returning to the woman underneath all the roles, expectations and inherited patterns.
And then choosing consciously what comes with us into the next chapter.
There may have been a season when resting was exactly what you needed.
There may now be a season when your body is asking to be challenged.
There may be a season when your focus is physical strength.
Another when it is emotional strength.
Another when it is learning to receive.
Another when it is simply finding yourself again.
There is no hierarchy.
There is only awareness.
And this is something I wish more women had been told when we were younger:
You are allowed to change the way you care for yourself as your life changes.
You do not have to compare your season with anyone else's.
You do not even have to compare this version of yourself with the woman you used to be.
You are not behind.
You are not failing.
And you are certainly not broken.
You have been shaped.
By everything you have lived.
And now you get to decide what shapes the next chapter.
So perhaps the question this week is not:
What should I be doing?
Perhaps it is:
What is this season asking of me now?
And then listen.
There may be a pebble there.
A small knowing.
A walk.
A boundary.
A class.
A conversation.
A dream you had forgotten.
Pick up that pebble.
See where the ripple goes.
Alive · Self led · Grounded in who she is
Equipped for what comes next
Cathy
Conscious Ripple
Water · Pebble · Ripple · Return
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