I’ve been resetting my life for as long as I can remember. Long before I had the language for it, I understood that when things around me felt chaotic, I needed to create calm.
As a kid, if I wasn’t doing well in a class, my first instinct wasn’t necessarily to study harder. I wanted to start over. I’d reorganize my binder, rethink my note-taking system, buy new pens so I could color-code different subjects, and create a new study schedule. Success didn’t always mean getting an A. Sometimes success was simply figuring out how to make it through the class. But I needed a system that made everything feel manageable again.
When life around me felt particularly chaotic, I did the same thing at home. I’d pull everything out of my closet and drawers, fold it all, organize it by color or category, and put it back together. Even my bathroom counter had a system. I didn't realize it then, but I do now:
For me, finding peace has almost always started with creating calm.
That instinct followed me into adulthood and eventually into my career. When work felt overwhelming, I organized. My notes. My Outlook folders. My calendar. Give me enough categories and colors and I could probably convince myself just about anything was manageable.
Over time, I became known as someone who could create calm out of chaos. Give me a complicated problem and I could usually break it into smaller, digestible pieces. Give me a struggling team, an off-track project, or something that needed to be built from the ground up, and I could create a plan. I became a problem solver. And I was good at it. For years, that ability helped me build a career I was incredibly proud of. Until eventually, something changed.
When success stops feeling successful
From the outside, my career was thriving. I was leading a growing team, delivering some of the strongest results of my career, traveling around the world, speaking on larger stages, and finding myself in rooms I'd spent decades working to enter. And somewhere in the middle of all that success, my body started telling me something my ambition wasn't ready to hear.
I started feeling a lump in my throat whenever I thought about work. Travel, something that had been part of my career for years, became something I dreaded. I was constantly moving between airports, hotels and time zones. I had experienced places and opportunities that many people would consider incredible privileges and I knew that. But I was exhausted.
Then came anxiety at a level I'd never experienced before. Then panic attacks. My body, mind and spirit seemed to be rejecting a pace and an environment I kept trying to convince myself I could handle. And still, stopping felt impossible.
I'd been working in corporate since I was 20 years old. I knew how to perform. I knew how to solve problems and take care of people. I knew how to keep moving. I wasn't nearly as good at stopping. As a Black woman who had built an executive career without a college degree, I often felt I needed to be exceptionally prepared just to earn my place in certain rooms and even more prepared if I wanted to be heard once I got there. So, I learned to overprepare. Overdeliver. Overfunction.
Eventually, continuing that way was no longer sustainable. I took a leave of absence to care for my mental and emotional well-being. It was one of the hardest decisions I had ever made. Not because I didn't need it, but because some part of me believed needing it meant I had failed.
Learning how to be
At the beginning of my leave, I wasn't exactly relaxing. I was counting the days until I had to go back. As the return date got closer, instead of feeling restored, my anxiety intensified. Eventually, I extended my leave. And that's when something started to change.
I stopped counting.
I started reading again.
I journaled.
I tried new hobbies.
I spent time working around my home, noticing the things I loved about it and the things I wanted to change.
I slept better.
I paid more attention to what I was eating.
I sat down and actually enjoyed meals instead of treating food like something I needed to get through before moving on to the next task.
And I spent a lot of time alone. Not accomplishing. Not leading. Not solving. Just being.
That was unfamiliar territory. But slowly, I started reconnecting with myself. And I began seeing just how much of my life had been spent pouring outward. Into my career. My teams. My family. My friends. My home. I had become incredibly good at creating experiences where everyone else felt cared for. I just hadn't included myself on the guest list.
When hospitality leaves out the host
I love hosting people. I can spend hours preparing for friends and family to come over. I'm the person fresh-squeezing lime juice for cocktails, muddling cucumbers and running around making sure everyone has exactly what they need. I want people to feel special in my home. And at the end of the night, I'd look around at everyone laughing and enjoying themselves and feel genuinely happy. But eventually I had to admit something:
Sometimes I didn't enjoy my own party. I enjoyed watching everyone else enjoy it.
While everyone else was connecting, I was refreshing, cleaning, preparing and checking. Then they'd leave happy, and I'd be standing in a messy kitchen with tired feet.
There's nothing wrong with caring deeply for other people. I hope I never lose that part of myself. What needed to change was the belief that caring for everyone else required neglecting me. How many times had I told a member of my team to take care of themselves while answering emails late into the night? How many times had I created calm for everyone around me while living internally in a state of urgency? How many times had I told myself:
“I'll rest after this project.”
“I'll slow down this weekend.”
“I'll feel better on vacation.”
“I'll take care of myself when things calm down.”
Except things don't just calm down. There is always another email. Another meeting. Another load of laundry. Another person who needs something. At some point, I had to confront an uncomfortable truth:
I was waiting for my life to give me permission to take care of myself.
It wasn't coming.
Ten minutes
I'm still learning this.
I wish I could tell you that I stepped away from my career, discovered balance, and now glide peacefully through my days with a candle burning and a cup of tea in my hand. Absolutely not. Give me a project I'm excited about and I can still disappear into it for hours. I still catch myself overfunctioning. I still have to remind myself that rest doesn't need to be earned.
The difference is that I'm beginning to notice. And I'm learning how much can happen in ten minutes. Ten minutes to sit quietly with a cup of coffee. Ten minutes to journal. Ten minutes to sit outside. Ten minutes to do absolutely nothing productive.
And here's the funny part:
Nothing breaks.
Nobody stops breathing. The organization keeps moving. The dishes remain perfectly capable of sitting in the sink for another ten minutes. Dinner can wait. The email can wait. The laundry can wait. It can wait. Not forever. Just long enough for you to remember that you're a person inside the life you're working so hard to maintain.
For a long time, I associated peace with escape. A vacation. A beautiful hotel. A quiet weekend. A break from work. Somewhere else. And there is certainly something wonderful about getting away. But if peace only exists when you escape your everyday life, what happens during all the days in between?
I'm learning that I don't want a life I constantly need to recover from. I want to create small pockets of restoration inside the life I'm already living. Not perfectly. Not every morning at 5 a.m. Not according to someone else's self-care checklist. Just deliberately enough that I don't disappear from my own life again.
You don't have to escape your life to find peace.
Sometimes you just have to make a little room for yourself inside of it.
A Small Invitation
Give yourself ten minutes today without asking those minutes to accomplish anything. Don't answer an email. Don't organize something. Don't use the time to prepare for what's next. Sit somewhere you enjoy. Drink something slowly. Step outside. Listen to a song. Or simply do nothing at all. Whatever you choose, let those ten minutes belong entirely to you.
Everything else can wait.
