Slowly Awakening to the Year Ahead

Spring doesn’t ask you to hustle. It asks you to wake up.

After a few quiet weeks and time spent traveling through Asia, we come home to a different pace and a different question: how do we want to move through 2026? As the cherry blossoms arrive and the spring equinox gets closer, we reflect on seasonal living and the way nature models renewal without forcing it. If you’ve been feeling the collective intensity, the constant stream of world events, or a low hum of unease in your body, this is a gentle place to land.

We share four simple practices we’re leaning on to create more ease and softness: nervous system regulation, soft intentions instead of rigid goals, simplifying what no longer fits, and inviting more pleasure into everyday life. We talk about mindfulness in practical terms, like not rushing, taking short pauses between tasks, and using your senses to come back to the present moment. We also touch on Robin Sharma’s “3S focus” from The Wealth Money Can’t Buy: silence, stillness, and solitude and why these daily moments can help you feel safer, calmer, and more connected. 

If you’re craving slow living, intentional self care, and a healthier relationship with goal setting and productivity, this conversation offers a clear, realistic reset. Listen, then share it with a friend who needs a softer spring, and don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review so more people can find Journey to the Soul.

Book mentioned in this episode:

The Wealth Money Can’t Buy by Robin Sharma

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Transcript

Breaks, Travel, And Recalibration

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hello everyone. Welcome to a new episode of Journey to the Soul. I took a little break. It's been a few weeks since I last spoke to you, since I last sat down to record something. And I took a little break from recording because we went away traveling for a couple of weeks. And I also just felt like I needed it, like my soul needed it. There's been so much energy that's still moving around. I know that I've spoken in the last few podcast episodes about what's going on energetically and what we're all feeling. And there's so much happening in our lives every single day, but also the world around us. You know, something is always happening around the world, you know, so so many things are going on right now, and it can make everything feel a little bit uneasy, or there's just a lot more energy, and sometimes we need to step away to take care of ourselves, our well-being, whatever that may look like, whatever shape or form that may take. So that is what I felt called to do the last few weeks. It wasn't what I planned, but it's what I felt like I needed. And I am someone that moves with the energy that is always changing and evolving, whether that's through the seasons or through the energy of what's going on astrologically. These are always things that I'm looking at and just kind of flowing with. So the end of 2025, I know, was just a heavier time that everyone was experiencing with all the energy that we had experienced in the last year and everything energetically that that year was asking of us. So I just felt like I still needed just a couple of moments to recalibrate, to ground, to take a beat. So my husband and I were actually away for the last couple of weeks. We've been back in the US for maybe three weeks now, but we did go away for three weeks, and that's part of where I did my recalibration as well. We spent a few weeks exploring Asia, which was really, really amazing. I had been wanting to explore some new places in Asia, and we got the opportunity to do that to go visit three new countries that we had never been to. So it was a wonderful escape from the cold as well, because winter has definitely been chillier here in the south in Tennessee where I live, but I am back home and it's been really nice and nourishing to be back home and to just be settled for a while. We are probably gonna be going away again in the next couple of months, so in between trips, I always love to just be home, be in my own space, take some time to fill myself up and move through my day in whatever way that really nourishes me. But over the last couple of weeks, as I've been going outside and on my walks and looking out the window, you really are seeing the first few signs of spring everywhere. I mean, I feel like the cherry blossoms just blossomed from like one day to the other over the last two weeks, and from one day to the other, there was just a flurry of color everywhere, and it was just so beautiful to see. It's so incredible to see how nature has its own evolution, like how it unfolds by itself without any outside influence or anything like that. So we're all feeling that right now, that doorway that we're in, where we are leaving winter behind and getting ready to welcome the energy of spring in the energy of renewal, new beginnings, growth. I feel I know I talk about it all the time. I always tend to do a podcast around the springtime because I feel like my energy always shifts around this time, and it's interesting for me to now look back after so many years and look at this particular moment in time, and for me now it makes sense why that is, because by nature, this is when nature is beginning to awaken again, and I feel like we are so tied to that, you know, to the cycles that happen all around us, we are a part of that, even though we can be a little bit more disconnected from that. So spring is gonna be here in just a few short days, and I just really wanted to sit down with you since it has been a little bit more of a quieter start to my year. I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into what I spoke about in my last episode of how I was going to be stepping into this new year and the energy of that. I talked about ease and softness in my last episode, and I just wanted to tell you how that's looking like right now. What are the things that I am doing for me to move through the year in that way? And it's really just four simple things. There is no overcomplication here, but I feel like this is definitely where I want to put more energy to this year. I want this year to be even more light and joyful and easeful than it has been in the past. So, one of the ways that I am going to be working towards that consciously is focusing on regulating my nervous system more. And this has been something that I have actively been working on for years. If you aren't new here, then you know how my relationship with doing and rushing and constantly going and achieving has evolved, and how I used to struggle with a lot of anxiety. So this is still something that I'm always working towards. There's still a lot of room for growth here, but right now, the ways that I am actively doing this is simply for me not to rush. So simply moving through life in a meditative way. And if you practice meditation or some form of mindfulness in your day, you kind of already know how this feels. So in every moment, I am making sure that I am present. So this is just micro ways throughout my day that I'm checking in to make sure that I am. And if I am walking, it's me feeling my feet as they touch the ground. If I am just sitting somewhere and want to connect, it can be taking a couple of deep breaths to just feel and connect to my body, to feel the breath coming in and out of my nose, and to just do that for a couple of minutes with no stimulation, nothing, but just be there. This can also look like pausing in between doing tasks. Like if you're gonna go do a block of like focus work and then you're about to move on to your next task. In between doing those tasks, you can take a mindful pause in between doing each task to again connect, check in and see how you are. Check in with your body, your body tells you so much, and I also feel like it just creates moments of sacredness in our day when we're not rushing from one thing to the other, but creating a space to finish and start something new. Let there be a change in your energy for that. It could also just be hearing the birds sing as you go for your walk or hearing the leaves rustling, you know, in the trees, and using any small moment to really be mindful. Just ask yourself, how can you be more in this moment now? And I have worked on many different things and used many different tools to help me get to the point where I am to be able to move life at the pace that I do now, more slowly and more intentionally. And I'm still bringing this up as a point because I know that there is still so much room for growth here for me, because learning to move through life from one way to another can take time, it can especially take your body time to catch up, to learn a new way of being. If you have moved through life a certain way for most of your life, you know, but I have deepened my mindfulness practice and the ability to do this through meditating, through moments of stillness, through spending time with myself. So it's been years of building up to now. And I've thought of actually doing another podcast episode about if you wanted to start trying to have a meditation practice, maybe some tips and tricks to do that. So if you're interested in that, you can let me know. I've thought about doing that because I do feel like curating moments in our life for us to do that, to connect, and it doesn't need to be through meditation, but to connect in some way is so important every single day. And I'm still reading this book, and I came across this point in it. The book is called The Wealth Money Can't Buy by Robin Sharma. I have been wanting to read some of his books for so long, and I have never actually gotten the chance to read one, and I am about halfway through this book, and I absolutely love it. I highly recommend it, but he mentioned the importance every day of creating what he calls the 3S focus. So being in silence, seeking stillness, and enjoying solitude. And these different things really help us and our bodies feel safe, feel connected, feel at ease. And I am someone who definitely thrives in all of these in solitude, stillness, and silence. I feel like it actually comes very naturally to me. I think it's also again, astrology, human design, it could show us so much. But my 12th house placements in astrology really show that for me, because the 12th house is the house of solitude of the psyche. It's the unseen. So it's a very quiet and intimate house. But these things are so supportive for us now when we are in such a fast-paced world. These things become even more sacred to be able to get moments in our day for us to be able to tune into these things. And even though it feels like maybe like what's the point, maybe you're not gonna get that much out of it, you would be surprised at what comes through when you are sitting in silence, what you feel when you are in stillness, and what you hear or feel when you are in solitude as well. The other thing that I am doing this year for a more easeful and soft approach, and I talked about this briefly in my last episode too, is I'm not setting any goals for the year. I have just some very, very soft, soft intentions that I am working towards. I've mentioned this before too, but I'm not someone that typically does resolutions or goals or intentions at the start of the year. I'm someone that typically does them around my birthday that feels more natural to me. And my birthday is in April. So I feel like it also feels more natural because, like we're discussing in this episode, the energy changes in March. So I notice within myself, like I shared, that change in energy as the seasons are changing. So it just feels more right for me that if I do set intentions to do so from the state of what do I want to accomplish in the next year around this world. So from my birthday, but also just this next year, this natural year, starting with spring being the start of the year, for me at least. So this really is the least amount of goal setting that I have ever done in my adult life. And I have shared in other podcasts how the last few years have gone by. I've gone from, I went from a couple years ago to creating an excess amount of goals for every possible area of my life to now, and it's taken me a lot of you know work and surrender to get to this point of really not having that many goals for the year or intentions, and I do want to say that everyone is different, our approach and what we need every year changes, and just as people, our needs are different. So even though this works for me right now, that doesn't mean it will work for others, but I just want to share with you as well that for me at least, there are also moments in time where perhaps you need or want more goals or structure with certain things. So you might want to have more goals, you know, more specific things, current areas of your life that you're actively working on. And there are moments in time where we do, but in this season that I am in and what it's asking of me, I am just moving gently and consistently in that direction. My intentions give me some small parameters, and I feel like that's necessary for me, having some small parameters, but that's about it. You know, they give me the general direction, but I am determining the pace that I'm gonna go since it will evolve as the year goes. You know, we're not meant to move through the year, you know, every month it's gonna be exactly the same, consistently the same. That's not realistic. You know, there's gonna be certain moments of the year where you're gonna be able to focus on your intentions and what you're working through with more ease and focus, and then other moments in time where you feel like you barely touched it, you fell off track, or this, and that's ultimately life. I feel like the most important thing that we should always look at is not necessarily our pace, but it's that we're moving forward in that direction because we're all in a different chapter in life, and as long as you are moving towards what you want, even if it takes you however long to reach that thing that you're working towards, you are still working towards reaching that thing, you will get there in the end. So that is how I am approaching my intentions for the year and how I've evolved with that. And I am very happy with that, I am very good with that, I know it may change, and I will be okay with that too. But this is where I am now, and kind of tying into this last point leads me to the next one, and it's simply not overcomplicating things and really asking myself, how can I simplify this? Or even is it necessary? You know, is there certain aspects of your life that you might need more help or support that can ease some tension that you may have, or just make things easier for you so that you move through every day with the least amount of tension as possible. And last year we really let go of a lot. It was a year of letting go, of shedding. That was what the year was asking of us, of all of us. And we did that, you know, we showed up, we let go of what we didn't need anymore. And now, when you let something go, of course, you have space to let something in. So just because you've always moved through the world or done things a certain way, you're for so long, you know, for most of your life or however long, it doesn't mean that you need to keep. Doing that. So, how can you simplify your day? Simplify your tasks, simplify your schedule, simplify your life? Who can you ask for help? If you could have help in one area of your life to make things less complicated for you, what would that look like? Would it look like having your partner help you cook dinner a few times a week? Would that look like having someone come clean your house once a week or every other week because you want to enjoy your weekends a little bit more? With your schedule, it's like, do you really need to do some of these things that you put in your schedule? Like, are they a filling you up with good positive energy? Is it nourishing? Is it actually helping you move through those things that you are really trying to work towards? What are the ways that you can simplify things? And the last thing that I am doing for this year is simply enjoying, enjoying my life and inviting more pleasure in. Not taking anything for granted, celebrating all the little things, and really letting yourself enjoy and celebrate the bounty of the season that you are in, even if you are working towards something else, you are working towards big goals. That's great. I love that for you. But how can you enjoy the now more? How can you enjoy the path, the journey? I would love to know how you are all doing as we are starting spring, as you are tuning into this. How has 2026 been treating you so far? I know I said this in the last episode, but I want to say it again. You have all the time in the world. There is no need to rush, to move with anxiety and a sense of lack from thing to thing, from goal to goal, from place to place. We're so programmed to be going and rushing all the time and not really being active participants in our lives. And I am someone that like one of my biggest fears is missing out on the best parts of my life because I was too busy thinking about the future. And that's why, you know, I talk about half of these things because these are the moments that we prayed for. Everything that's in your life right now, what you're doing, you know, the people in your life, it's so much more than you could have ever imagined. And I think it's wonderful to be working towards more, but I also think it's so wonderful and so brave and so nourishing to also be living your life and to just enjoy your ride while you're here on this earth because you really are exactly where you are meant to be, and everything is unfolding as it should. So I would love to hear how 2026 is going for you all so far. If you are new here, thank you for being here. I see where you are all tuning in from, and my heart is so so full looking at all the people from all over tune in and just be on this journey together. So thank you for being here. If you're new here, if you've been here with me month after month, I am so happy to have you here again. And I look forward to talking to you all in my next episode. Enjoy the blooming, the welcoming of the spring equinox in just a few short days. Sending you all a big hug and so much love and light.