I live both with a hyperactive mind and an extremely well-honed self-discipline. While I have accepted that these are assets to the world, they are very much a double-edged sword to me. Based on what I have heard from countless changemakers around the world, you may relate to my experience. So, I am ready to come clean.
For decades, I’ve moved at an uncanny pace, packing every morsel of time with something that advanced my goals.
I said I would sleep when I die.
I was always rushing, a mere hair away from being late to whatever the next thing was.
The year Titanic came out, it was the only movie I watched (walking out of Wedding Crashers because it was not a good use of my time).
Returning from an interstate conference, I used to force myself to use the cab ride home — at ten, eleven at night, utterly exhausted — to send connecting emails and enter the details from the stack of business cards I would have collected. Might as well, I thought, since I was way too tired to make any other productive use of time. Once home, I commanded myself to rest fast… yes, that’s a ridiculous notion.
Do you have a Frankenstein monster?
You might have heard me talk about my Frankenstein monster. On all those good days, I create. A conference presentation opens a few doors. Something I write invites irresistible ideas from others. So, I make room. I schedule. I set things in motion, orchestrating everything across the 17 time zones I work across. Then, on the not-so-good day, I am harassed by a Frankenstein monster that demands to be served — to be fed — when I just want it to stop.
I use this analogy because I am not a victim here. And neither are you, if this resonates. We create the hurricane that ultimately suffocates us.
For decades, spaciousness would have felt like a waste. Like a careless — irresponsible — disregard for all the opportunities granted to me.
While tempted only too often, I can’t outright hate my younger self: her curiosity and tenacity got me where I am. However, several months ago, my body put its proverbial foot down. I was no longer in control of my physiological responses. An exposed nerve, I hurt all the time. And I was oh, so very tired…
Being true to ourselves
Depending on how well we know each other, you may know that I rage against most cliches. In fact, the closest I come to believing in conspiracy theories is that the wellness/self-help industry wants us to be stuck in insecurity and helplessness — to feel bad about ourselves so that we contribute to the $48 billion it collected in 2024[1], set to double within a decade.
For most of us, it is utterly unattainable to be true to ourselves all the time.
For decades, I didn’t ask myself how I felt because what was I going to do about the answer? My day — my foreseeable future — were spoken for, with people relying on me. If you have children at home, you feel lucky enough to breath, take a drink of water, and shower because your whole life is spoken for, for years.
On top of that, achievement demands perseverance. Consistency. Reliability. If I don’t feel like it, will I really not take my kids to school? Will I really not open my shop? Will I truly be willing to stand my clients up?
For most of us, tapping into what we need feels forbidden because we’re afraid of what we find. We’re afraid to ask because the answer might undo everything we’ve built.
For all the designers out there, being forced to face this question felt like going from detailed design back to concept. Reversing where I wasn’t supposed to. It has been profoundly unsettling, and I’ve been going through this in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.
The humbling fact: I have been here before. A slow learner, I suppose.
During my Junior (second-to-last) year of university, I got mono. I didn’t even acknowledge I was ill, pushing through until I earned myself chronic fatigue. Shocker… I barely scraped across the finish line of that second semester, collecting more “incompletes” than grades before taking a year off. I didn’t have a choice because I wasn’t functioning. Still, even while I had but an hour of concentration a day, I was freaking out: what if I don’t get better quickly enough to return and complete my degree? I never graduated from high school, skipping most of it to start college at 16. What if I couldn’t finish university? What if after all that — after managing to take the SATs that got me university admission and scholarships at fourteen — my resume was merely that of a high school dropout?
Fast-forward, and I did manage to return to Cornell. To complete my undergraduate and them postgraduate degree, and to learn to live with chronic fatigue breathing down my neck.
Still, last year, I broke, once again. I have had to largely withdraw. To strip my life way-way down.
My new routine
After months of disorientation and self-ridicule, I have settled into a new rhythm. Every morning for the past four weeks, my eyes pop open between 5 a.m. and 5:30 a.m., and I am excited for walk. After months of being excited about nothing, I go with it. I roll out of bed and into a pair of leggings while I boil water to seep chopped ginger, adding a squeeze of lemon before I let the warm drink start up my system. Within 20 minutes of waking up, I rub some ointment into my ankles, slip into my sneakers, and head out for 2-2.5 hours.
Upon my return, I eat breakfast, take any morning calls and attend to anything urgent, potter around, and… go back to bed.
You heard me right.
I checked with my mom, and, indeed, I was a toddler the last time I napped. Sure, there’ve been a few exceptions — such as jet lag from major overseas trips, like between Australia and the US, and after all-nighters — but most of the time, even then I can’t fall asleep. After a while, I get up frustrated: not only did I not sleep, but I also have nothing to show for the time!
Imagine my surprise that after forty years, by mid-morning, I’ve consistently headed back to bed.
More often than not, I don’t think I will. Two hours into a strenuous walk, I am as energized as can be, all kinds of ambition cursing through my veins. And yet without fail, I shut down sometime between nine and eleven in the morning. Other times, I start daydreaming (can dawn-dreaming be a thing?) about my nap just a few minutes into my walk, embarrassed, ashamed, but still thrilled to keep going.
I first shared this with my writing group last week, prepared for some form of judgement that never came.
So, here goes… the maybe-shameful-maybe-not secret is out: I nap. Daily!
Doesn’t life have a vicious sense of humor..!
Which takes me to my next point.
Is this my new normal?
If you’re wired anything like me, you’ll understand why — even as I strive every day to accept what is — I need to know what it means! Is this my new normal? Should I never again schedule anything for mid-morning because I’ll be asleep? What does this mean for work travel? And what does it look like in the winter, when the sun will take a couple of extra hours to rise?
Having undone — erased — the details until a concept design is revealed afresh, I yearn to fill them back in. I NEED to know!!
If I were to distill my identity to just a handful of words, “planner” would be among them. I make a living from planning: I plan solutions that leverage emerging opportunities; I plan for risk; I plan my research; I plan career trajectories for changemakers; I plan movements, for goodness’ sake! So how ironic that here, I have to contend myself with uncertainty.
This new rhythm may end tomorrow. Or stretch for years… I simply don’t know. I have to accept that just as it made space in my life despite the formidable resistance I have put up, it may vacate it.
What might you take away from this post?
Image credit: Elena Bondareva
I took this picture this Monday, when I headed out in the dark. As I filled my lungs and settled into the rhythm of my feet on gravel, a vivid thought fluttered inside: making space. I was making space. Within an hour or so, I got a call from
, a dear friend who’s two hours ahead of me and knows I’m an early riser. As we caught up, she shared with me her longing for spaciousness. I immediately sent her this picture, both surprised and not at the serendipity: throughout my life, I am grateful when the Universe brings people into my life who are traveling a parallel path energetically. I wonder if Anna and I synchronized further while I had the honor to edit her book, a courageous and heartfelt memoir Lonely Girl, which releases on Amazon on August 22! So stay tuned.I found myself commending Anna for considering how she might create a bit more space in her life while she still had the choice. I had run myself into the ground to the point where that choice — and many more — were taken from me. And while I am still here and tentatively hopeful, I bet this journey would have been a heck of a lot easier if it had been my choice.
Rearranging my life because my body no longer obeyed — wondering if everything I’ve achieved was for not — being a person I didn’t recognize, let alone like — has been devastating. Humbling. Heck, my ego is definitely sulking, it’s back permanently back to me as it sniffles somewhere in the corner.
So, what might you take away from this post? Besides having a chuckle at my expense — which you’re absolutely welcome to do! Goodness knows, I am.
I understand that mid-morning naps may not be on the cards for you. Our kids are well and truly out of the house. Neither do I have to show up at an office every day. Please believe me that I’m not advocating for anything specific, merely inviting you to question what you might have forbidden yourself that doesn’t have to be so. Where might you loosen self-imposed constraints? Declutter your week? Make space for what’s important to possibly rearrange itself to better suit who you are today?
This post may merely validate your current experience. Or chafe against what feels right to you — agreement with me is forever optional! However, if there’s a chance that you feel cramped, constrained, stuck — like you can’t even lift or stretch your arms because you’re so compressed into a shape that no longer suits — I invite you to join me in trying to allow a little spaciousness.
How do we make space?
The priceless question is, of course: how do I make space in a life fine-tuned to a “t”?
Here are four ideas, but again, I am surprised they’ve come out of my lived experience. Yours may produce something altogether different, and I can’t wait to hear about it! All I can share is, look at what you see as the “forbiddens.” Remember those games where you’re supposed to connect dots you can only connect by drawing outside the perimeter, which we don’t do because we assume we’re not supposed to? This might feel a bit like that.
Make space for reading
I was an insatiable reader as a kid. Then, except for coursework and then, whatever my job required, I barely read through my 20s, professing that only people whose own lives were boring needed to read about others… Blessed cockiness of youth I wish knew how to hold its tongue, but she shared this ludicrous opinion freely!
I rediscovered reading in my early thirties, with a veraciousness of somebody starved without knowing it. I religiously read the New York Times book review and put books on hold at my local library.
It was a dozen years ago that my wife gifted me three Audible credits, a new thing at the time. I couldn’t get into it… she ended up using them herself. Now, I know it takes retraining one’s brain and have helped others do so. Let me know in commens if you need tips!
In 2024, I read/listened to 99 books thanks to audio books.
Logistically, audio books — and podcasts — make space because they negate the need to choose between reading and chores and exercise and commuting… you get my drift. With audio books, you can do a puzzle AND enjoy a book at the same time! It really doesn’t get better than that.
When I don’t use audio books to boost my productivity (yes, still a prime consideration… I am not a finished product), I listen to soothe my soul. Setting a timer, I fall asleep to a book every day. My eyes closed, having somebody read to me – a book of my choosing, whenever I want, for as long as I want, and at a pace that feels right that moment, may be my very favorite technological innovation.
Reading makes space because it rests my brain while activating my imagination. With audiobooks, I read genres I had never explored and, I dare hope, makes me a better writer. And I tap into a part of me otherwise dormant — neglected — denied — since childhood, when my parents read to me, and when that denoted safety, care, and hope for the day to come.
Make space for daytime baths
When was the last time you took a bath… before lunch?
A friend — Angela Spranger — came for a glass of wine later that same Monday and left quite excited about trying this.
The first time I enjoyed a bath at 10am was after one of my walks. The morning had been brisk, and a chill stubbornly stuck to my skin. Rather than turning on the shower, I found myself starting a bath. It felt logical to soak my aching joints a little. And I need to wash, regardless, didn’t I? But it felt wrong. Like I was breaking a rule. Like I’d be in trouble if caught.
Who said that baths are exclusively for bedtime?
Make space for walks
I haven’t been able to master “meditation proper.” Walking, hiking, dancing or hot yoga, however, have reliably stilled my mind since before I recognized them for what they were: moving meditation. I covered Luxemburg on foot several times over when I was there in September, as I do in every new place. A familiar place makes that sunrise walk only sweeter!
What wields the gentle power to quieten your mind?
Make space for naps
And, yes, naps…
Goodness, have I fought this, despite often siting
’s Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto (2022) by and the like in my writing. Adults don’t do that!! Adults of working age work mid-morning! They produce. They at least do chores. But they contribute! They make themselves USEFUL!For months, even opening my eyes felt like too much effort, and yet I wouldn’t consider a nap. I doubt I achieved anything during the hours I could have been resting. Moreover, I stress-ate, drank too much, and generally wound the machinery of my shame tighter and tighter.
I first gave in about six weeks ago, when I headed back to bed about 11 a.m. I justified it because I literally wasn’t getting anything done. It took another couple of weeks for me to surrender to my new reality while I told myself I must be fighting off a bug. I even contacted my doctor. Because I felt like an utter failure. My naps felt despicable. I felt kike an undisciplined, lazy, ineffectual disgrace.
Today, I walked for nearly three hours, covering 9.4 miles (15.13km or 19,500 steps) and climbing an equivalent of 58 floors. Caught up on the news. Finished a book and started another. Spoke with my mom and reconned with an old friend. Trimmed my Elephant Ear plants. Vacuumed, mopped, and cleaned my kitchen. Attended to my clients (including finalizing and submitting a final manuscript for publishing!) and to my nascent herb garden. Then, I took a hot bath followed by, yes, a nap. Then, I slow cooked a healthy, soul-nourishing meal from scratch and set a record in a phone puzzle while eating it. And I conceived of, wrote from scratch, and recorded this post. It is only 2:30 p.m.
I also wonder if my naps may be partly responsible for the fact that I haven’t been sore. After a lifetime as an athlete, I have pretty high-maintenance joints! The moment I overdo it, my ankles, knees, hips, or all three will throw it right back in my face. Inflammation will set in, taking me out for a week or two. However, despite the daily intensity of my routine, I’ve not hurt… Perhaps those of you who understand physiology better than I do can let me know, in a comment on Substack, if I might be onto something. If sleeping within a couple of hours of exercise may be helping my body recover.
Absurd — unbecoming — inconceivable to the me of just weeks ago — a tad embarrassing — this new rhythm that elbowed its way into my routine may also be… working.
I am stronger. My clients are happy. My Board and other commitments continue to be fulfilled. And I’ve tasted peace, a sensation that had managed to become foreign. I have also found a little hope. While I’ve been stripped of the arrogance to claim that the worst is behind me — that I got it all figured out — that I’m doing great — I do catch myself admitting that maybe — just maybe — I will be alright.
And that is something. More than something. Right now, it is everything.
If it sounds like I am trying to convince myself, it is because I am. Still. On a daily basis. And maybe, that’s okay as long as I let myself be convinced.
Having finished this recording, I might very well consider another nap! What will you do to allow yourself a little kindness? A little grace? A little rule-breaking? What might you consider to make a little space so that whatever you need at this stage in your life can unfurl?
[1] https://www.grandviewresearch.com/horizon/outlook/personal-development-market-size/global?utm_source=chatgpt.com, accessed August 15, 2025.
