When something in our lives changes, there is often an immediate urge to figure it out.
We want to know the new routine.
What needs to change.
What needs to stay.
What we can continue doing and what we may have to give up.
We begin rearranging things before we have fully understood what the new season is asking of us.
I know this instinct well.
I like knowing how things work. And when they don't, my instinct is usually to find a way to make them work.
But lately, I have been wondering whether some things need to be held for a while before they are fixed.
I am learning this now as I settle into a very different rhythm of life.
There are weekends filled with classes, conversations, assignments, and very little space for anything else.
Then there are the weekends between them.
The quieter ones.
The ones where I return to the rest of my life and realize that I am still absorbing what happened the weekend before.
An idea from class appears unexpectedly in a conversation at work.
Something I thought I understood feels different when I encounter it in practice.
A conversation stays with me.
My thinking shifts in ways I don't always notice immediately.
The learning does not seem to stop when the class does.
At first, I wanted to understand how all of this would work.
How would school fit around work?
How would work fit around family?
How much could I realistically do?
What would I need to change?
What would a sustainable version of these two years actually look like?
I still don't know.
But I am beginning to think that perhaps I am not supposed to know yet.
Because while I am adjusting, everything around me is adjusting too.
People at work are learning that there are times when I am simply unavailable.
My family is learning the rhythm of the weekends when I am away and the ones when I am home.
Plans shift.
Someone else handles something.
Something waits until I return.
And sometimes, something I thought required me turns out not to require me at all.
These are things I could not have figured out entirely in advance.
I had to live them first.
Perhaps this is one form of holding without fixing.
Not refusing to adapt.
But resisting the urge to solve the whole thing at once.
I can learn the rhythm and respond to what I notice.
I can make a small adjustment.
See what happens.
Adjust again.
And allow some answers to emerge from experience rather than deciding them beforehand.
There are many seasons in life that work this way.
A new job.
A new relationship.
Parenthood.
A move.
A new responsibility.
A change we chose, and sometimes one we didn't.
We enter wanting to know how this new version of life is going to work.
But perhaps the first task isn't to perfect the rhythm.
It is to learn the rhythm.
To notice what this season asks of us.
What it changes.
What it leaves untouched.
What the people around us absorb.
What becomes easier with repetition.
And what continues to need our attention.
Holding without fixing does not mean standing still.
We can adapt.
We probably should.
But we don't have to rush the process.
We can give ourselves enough time to distinguish between something that genuinely needs to change and something that simply feels unfamiliar.
One day.
One week.
One experience at a time.
Learning the rhythm.
Adjusting where we need to.
And letting clarity arrive before we decide what needs fixing.
This Week’s Reflection
What are you still learning the rhythm of?
Where might you make room to observe and adapt before deciding what needs to be fixed?
Weekly Prompts
A note before you begin
You don't have to begin with the first prompt. Read through them and start wherever something catches your attention. Stay with one, skip another, or return when something shifts.
- What part of your life are you still learning the rhythm of? What have you discovered about it only by living through it?
- Where are you asking yourself for an answer you may not have enough experience to give yet? What do you know so far — and what are you still learning?
- As you move through a change, what has begun adjusting around you without your directing it? What does that tell you about what actually requires your intervention?
- What feels difficult right now simply because it is new? How would you distinguish between something that needs to change and something that may just need time?
- Instead of redesigning the whole situation, what is one small adjustment that would make the next few days work a little better? What could you learn from trying just that?
- What are you beginning to think, notice, or do differently because of what you are experiencing? Which changes have surprised you?
- What question about your life are you willing to leave unanswered for a little longer? What experiences might help you eventually answer it with greater clarity?
You do not have to fix the rhythm while you are still learning how to hear it.
