Taking A Break

Spaciousness is the new luxury.

Jul 15, 2026

It wasn’t until the eighth day that I noticed. Not that I was in New York. I’d arrived there a week earlier.

I was too busy curled up with a 60 lbs dog in my bed, checking for ticks, eating gluten free muffins for breakfast, clicking puzzle pieces into place, wandering antique malls without a shopping list, cat napping (with said 60 lbs dog), sipping ciders at dusk, blabbing with girlfriends, and road-tripping across the state with my sister.

I was living.

And somewhere along the way, the noise in my head disappeared. The problems I’d brought with me from San Francisco– like what I was going to write next, how I was going to grow my business, what needed to happen next– were suddenly no where to be found. Poof.

So were they even problems to begin with? Or had they become impossible to solve because I was asking myself the same questions from the same place every day? Ugh, what a mind fuck.

Beneath the hum of my annual sliver of East Coast summer, I found what had been waiting all along. My heart. My values. My soul. The things that make me feel most alive. I just needed enough space to hear them again.

This trip also happened to fall during my 41st birthday. Usually birthdays are a time when I reflect, dream, and get excited about what’s ahead. Who doesn’t love a fresh start? I love thinking about what the next year could become. But this one was different. I felt sad.

Not because something was necessarily wrong. Just because old sadness was there. The kind that comes from longing. From noticing the places where life doesn’t always look or feel the way your heart imagined it would.

And instead of immediately trying to figure out why, fix it, or turn it into a lesson about growth, I let myself feel it as I blew out the candles on the most delicious berry crumble my mom has ever made.

Maybe happiness isn't about the absence of sadness. Maybe it's about staying connected to the things that matter, even when life feels uncertain.

That was day 10. Man, I’m always amazed how long it can take to unwind sometimes.

A few weeks ago, one of my clients told me she was considering taking two weeks off to plan for fall instead of trying to squeeze strategic thinking into an already packed schedule. You could feel the hesitation. Because taking time off—especially when you’re building something—is not always the thing we are taught to do. But my immediate gut response was: YES. DO IT!

Because sometimes you’ve reached the edge of what the current version of you knows how to create. And the next version doesn’t always come from pushing harder. Sometimes it comes from creating enough space to hear and sort through what has been trying to find you.

We spend so much of our lives believing that progress comes from adding. Another lunch date. Another offer. Another idea. Another book. Another thing to figure out.

But what if some seasons of growth come from subtraction?

I have another client who intentionally takes 2-3 big international trips every year. When she first told me that, part of me wondered if I would ever try that. Because I understand why.

Perspective is hard to find when you’re standing in the same place every day. Sometimes your body has to move before your mind can switch gears. Vacations aren’t just a little reward we give ourselves for working hard. They are an investment in the foundation we build everything else from.

I’m not someone who dreams of retiring early or working only four weeks a year. I genuinely love my work. I love writing. I love sitting with clients until we untangle something neither of us could have done on our own. I love sharing the beauty and meaning in things.

I found myself writing a little while I was away just because I wanted to. I had thoughts I was noticing, untangling, curious about understanding. Which made me realize something rather comforting.

The things we’re truly devoted to don’t disappear when we rest. They wait for us.

Maybe that’s the test….

Can we stop gripping so tightly and trust that what belongs to us is already ours?

On the flight home I finished The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. I picked it out as an intention for my 41st year. To become the kind of person who can calmly and joyfully do what actually matters.

Calmly…. oh, such a simple word. And yet, modern life often feels like the exact opposite. Like everything is urgent. Like there are always twenty-seven tabs open in our brains.

I don’t want to live like that. Maybe that’s why people say the new definition of luxury is having more time. Not necessarily more free time. But more spaciousness. Enough time to read one chapter without checking your phone. Enough margin to arrive somewhere early. Enough silence to hear your own thoughts before someone else’s find you. Enough trust to believe that your work will still be waiting for you tomorrow.

Nicholas Carr writes about the attention economy and how the internet has changed the way we consume information. He says that surfing the net used to feel like scuba diving in a sea of words, but now it’s more like riding a jet ski.

I know exactly what he means. Pop on Instagram for a minute and suddenly you’re riding a wave of ideas, opinions, products, and information.

Where do we practice contemplation? How do we keep our own discernment intact?

Very little asks us to be still. To sink into something long enough to know where it leads next.

And maybe that’s what longer breaks really give us. Not distance from our lives. Distance from the urgency. The ability to return with softer eyes. And softer hearts.

I noticed this after my trip to Europe last year too. I came home and wrote one of my favorite pieces about how to keep aliveness going. The optimism, openness, and ease poured out of me.

Then, a few months later, that energy faded. And maybe that’s the lesson.

Maybe we aren’t meant to find ourselves once and be done. Maybe we need rituals of returning. Moments throughout the year where we step away from momentum long enough to reconnect with what’s always there.

Am I still building the life I actually want? Am I still connected to the things that matter most?

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