A long exhale (and life update)

Little life update- we moved!

I may have shared with you that Patrick and I began house hunting back in April. The owners of the house we had been renting were moving back to Maryland and planned to live in the house.

So, we were given the “fun” opportunity to find a place to live… in two months’ time.

Because we’d really like to buy a home, we spent the first month house hunting. In case you were wondering- the housing market is still crazy. Not as competitive as when we were looking back in 2021, but buyers are still willing to waive inspections and appraisals, give up a kidney or their first-born child, etc.

As our move out date grew closer, we began considering rentals. But we were struggling to find rentals in our financial window that would allow a month to month lease (not to mention two pups over 50 lbs).

One day, I was sharing my woes with a client- lamenting that we may be living on the street with two dogs if we don’t find a place soon (dramatic, I know). She very generously offered to rent her house to us- for as long or as little as we needed.

So, over Memorial Day weekend, we made the big move into her beautiful house.

While we’re still only renting, this place definitely feels like home. Surrounded by beautiful trees and on the border of a park, we get regular visits from deer, playful foxes, and little bunnies. At night, we’re serenaded by the croaking and chirping of frogs while fireflies dance and put on their light show.

This place feels like a long exhale.

Getting here, however, was most definitely not serene or smooth. The weeks leading up to our move were chaotic. They were full of boxes and packing tape. Long nights and weekends of sorting through all one accumulates (and says they’ll sort through “one day”). Letting go of things we no longer need and carefully packing up what we want to bring with us into this new chapter.

With many long days of sorting, packing, moving heavy furniture and boxes, taking things apart and putting them back together- I knew I wouldn’t recover well if I stuck to my usual movement routine. With a solid schedule of clients on top of it all, I knew I would hit a wall if I didn’t go easy on me.

So, I planned a reset week: a break from my usual strength training. I focused instead on gentle yoga, mobility and stretching. And I let myself off the hook when my meditation practice slipped through the cracks on some days (who am I kidding- it was most days).

I’m not gonna tell you that the little voice in my head that always seems to whisper “you should be doing more” didn’t pop in from time to time. But when it did, I got in the practice of reminding myself that it was a liar. That it was nothing more than conditioning from a society and culture that benefits from us wearing ourselves out. Beating ourselves down. Operating like machines rather than human beings who need (and deserve) rest, slowness, and softness.

I tell you this because every one of us will go through times (maybe it’s right now?) where our nervous system cannot hold it all. Big life events like moving, having a baby, caring for a family member, etc on top of taking in and holding the too muchness of the moment we’re in collectively… is a lot.

Please listen to yourself, to your body, to that deep inner loving voice. When that voice asks you to rest, rest. When it asks you to move, move. When it asks for sun on your face and fresh air in your lungs, get your butt outdoors.

You know what you need. And I bet it isn’t to carry it all, all the time.

Perhaps it looks something like setting some (or all) of it down from time to time. Taking a deep breath and long exhale. Finding moments of joy and gratitude in the mundane everyday-ness of life.

Because it’s in those times of presence and rest that we replenish ourselves. Nourishing ourselves so we have the strength to pick it back up again when the time calls.

🤍 Courtney

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P.S. Something new is coming- from a place of wanting to make the self-care practices I offer more widely accessible. So stay tuned!