Happy Sacred Sunday!

Welcome to the last Sacred Sunday of May. Before my eyes opened this morning, I had a thought:

Today is the day to interrupt the run-on sentence.

Life can easily become a run-on sentence. Some like to refer to this as Groundhog Day. It’s when each day blends into the other mindlessly because you are living on autopilot.

Life gets faster. Days become blurrier. And you slowly start drifting from dreams that were once important, habits that you know are essential, and the sparks of bliss that appear when you’re in flow.

But today is the day to interrupt this pattern.

And it’s quite simple to do.

All you have to do is take a few minutes to pause and reflect.

Notice: what was this month about? What worked? What didn’t work? What were your successes? What were your lessons?

Then make a decision.

Name: What energy do you want to step into for June? What do you need to prioritize and focus on? What will you release? What word or phrase captures that intention? That’s your theme for the month.

This simple process is like adding punctuation marks to your sentences, pressing enter to start new paragraphs, or turning the page to begin new chapters.

The best part is that it then begins a flow of intentional action for the rest of the month.

Nurture: Every choice, decision, thought, and habit you form intentionally nurtures the theme you’ve established.

This is your monthly reset. And if you can’t get to it today, you can get to it tomorrow, or the next day — because this isn’t about rules, it’s about creating rhythms. 

I have made reflection a lifestyle, and it is the only thing that slows down the clock just a bit so that I don’t miss my life in the chaos of living it.

Today on the podcast I’m sharing the theme I chose to nurture this June. It’s inspiring a new, fresh energy and I’m excited about it. I’m wondering what yours will be this month? 

Hit reply to this email and let me know. I love getting to be a part of your rhythm. 

Sending you love today and always,

Happy Sacred Sunday!

Sending you this love note from the beautiful beaches of Marco Island today. My girlfriends and I go on an annual family beach vacation together every year. The location and length of time has changed, but the trip has survived for 13 years. This trip got me thinking about the power of rituals, and how much I value anchoring into them. My favorite part about this vacation is that my friend, Frances, and I get up every morning to exercise together. Some years we’ve run on the beach. Other years we’ve done workouts with friends. The last few years we’ve simply walked. Regardless, you’ll find us together in the early morning, moving our bodies before everyone else wakes up.

And then, depending on the trip, we stack on other little rituals each year. This year, after our walk, we meet the rest of our friends for a lovely (and incredibly long) breakfast at the hotel restaurant. At a certain time, I step out to go wake up my new morning friend, Ryan, so he can join us. Little by little, the other husbands and children trickle into the restaurant, and then the day has officially begun. Even though the circumstances change, we establish a little rhythm the day we arrive and we keep that rhythm going for the rest of the trip. This is how I establish routine when I’m out of my routine. And I’ve noticed I do it in other settings too. The last few times my sister has been hospitalized, I’ve anchored into mini rituals around my visits. When she was in South Miami, I arrived every morning at 5:30 am, so I was always with her first thing in the morning. One day, the nurse came in a little earlier to draw blood and when my sister looked at the time it was around 5:26 am. She said to the nurse, “Oh, you’re going to meet my sister soon. I bet she’ll be here any minute.” A couple of minutes later I walked through the door. She smiled and said, “See, she’s like clockwork.” I couldn’t carry the same schedule while she was at UM, but I found my rhythm there too. We are walking paradoxes. We need certainty and uncertainty. Adventure and safety. Comfort and discomfort. We thrive when we have both the yin and the yang. In the face of change, creating ritual is one of the most powerful things you can do for your wellbeing. I didn’t realize I was doing this until I began practicing the art of noticing, naming, and nurturing an intentional life. This framework gives language to things that may otherwise go unnoticed. Things that are already working. Things that could add joy and harmony to your life even during stressful times. Anchoring into rituals has stopped me from drifting in my wellness habits, added stability in disruptive times, and created core memories that make life a little more romantic in hindsight. Now that you have a name for this practice, I invite you to notice: what rituals are you anchored into? And are they the ones you actually want? Some will be carrying you. Some will be carrying you in a direction you didn’t choose. The work is to know the difference. I gotta hop off so I can go back to the beach with my friends. But I couldn’t do that until I finished my ritual of sending you this love letter. Sending you so much love, today and always.

 

P.S. This week on the podcast, I share the sign that came back into my life after 15 years — and how I knew exactly what to do with it. If you’ve ever wondered whether something is a coincidence or a message meant for you, this episode is for you. [Listen here.]

Happy Sacred Sunday!

First and foremost, thank you for all the emails and well wishes you sent me this week about my sister and the very scary surgery she was facing. I’m thrilled to report that we’re on the other side of things, and she is recovering flawlessly. Other than the expected pain and discomfort of a procedure of that magnitude, she has had no complications, which we are extremely thankful for.

A friend of mine sent me a message earlier that said, “I hope you feel supported, Caro. Because as caregivers, we need to receive a lot in order to give a lot.”

I just want you to know, that I do feel so supported by this incredible community we have created together. Your messages, well wishes, prayers, and acts of kindness fill my soul. So does having you to show up for. I take this work very seriously and do it with deep purpose. Knowing you are waiting for this love letter and podcast each week keeps me going. Thank you for that.

I’ve been thinking about purposea lot this week.

My students often tell me they’ve lost their purpose. They can’t find their purpose. They’re waiting to figure out what their purpose is before they really start living.

Even my sister, hours after being extubated, whispered to me, “I know I’m still here for a purpose. I just don’t know what that purpose is yet.”

Here is what I responded to her, and what I teach to everyone that comes to me with a purpose question because I believe it so strongly.

Your job is not to find your purpose. Your job is to live purposefully.

Those are two very different things. The former often feels like an open loop you can’t seem to close, consuming you with thinking energy but little progress. The latter is a choice to take the next right step with the information you have right now, trusting that the path will reveal itself along the way.

People treat purpose like they treat happiness, clarity, and many other things in life: as this destination they have to arrive at like an ending to a Hollywood movie.

But what I’ve learned from the people I admire most is that they don’t find their purpose and then start living. They started living with purpose, and their purpose became stronger and clearer along the way.

Usually in hindsight. Because that is when our vision is the clearest.

Just like I shared last week that waiting for good things or bad things keeps us from enjoying the present, waiting to find our purpose wastes the opportunity of living with purpose today.

Which brings me to my friend Jeff.

Jeff Bud is the owner of Apocalypse BBQ, one of the hottest restaurants in Miami, which is saying a lot in a city full of hot restaurants. From the outside, his story looks like a fun one. A guy who loved barbecue, started smoking ribs in his backyard, and built something incredible. But that is not the whole story.

At what he thought was supposed to be the peak of his life, Jeff was diagnosed with leukemia … twice. That journey led him to becoming the kind of person who refused to waste a single day he was given. But overcoming that diagnosis wasn’t the end of his struggles. Much of his success has been built one uncertain step at a time.

Jeff didn’t find his purpose. He kept moving forward until he looked back and realized he was living his purpose.

We went deep and personal in this conversation. Into the parts most people overlook.

If you have ever felt like life threw you a curveball and you’re not sure where your current life is leading you, this episode is for you.

[Listen to my conversation with Jeff here.]

And if it moves you the way I think it will, share it with someone who needs to hear it. That’s the best gift you can give a guest who showed up this honestly.

Sending you so much love today and always,

Happy Sacred Sunday!

Today I’m taking my mother and my family to the Keys for Mother’s Day.

On the surface, this looks like the kind of trip you’d long for. Sunshine, family, a beautiful drive, the highlight reel of a fun Sunday.

But in reality, going on this trip wasn’t an easy decision to make.

My sister is having open heart surgery on Thursday. And the truth is, all of us are bracing for it. My mother. My brother. My sister. My family. Me. It’s human nature to worry, to brace, to live in the future when something hard is coming. 

My mom feels it most acutely because she’s the mother, she’s seventy-seven years old, and worry has always been one of the ways she shows love. Her instinct, and honestly all of our instincts, is to stay home and wait. Pause life. Hold our breath until Thursday.

I understand that pull. But I’ve learned something over the years that I keep coming back to:

When you sit and wait for good things to happen, you live in frustration. You spend your life waiting for happiness to come … when. 

Similarly, when you sit and wait for bad things to happen, you live in suffering. And as Seneca reminds us, we often suffer more in imagination than in reality. 

In both scenarios, the day in front of us, the only one you actually have, slips by. 

Going to the Keys today is a proactive choice. Choosing to leave the house, get in the car, and have a beautiful day in spite of what’s coming on Thursday is the harder thing. And it’s the thing I want to practice.

Because every hard moment is a rehearsal. You are practicing who you are becoming. Whatever you do today is what you reinforce.

I learned this from two experiences in my life. .

When I was in college, my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer and traveled to Atlanta for an experimental radiation treatment. I drove up to be with him for the first round. We walked out of the clinic on a Friday morning, and the doctor told him the symptoms would probably hit within twenty-four hours.

My dad turned to me and said, “Do you want to go to Six Flags?”

I looked at him like he had lost his mind. We were the for his cancer treatment! He said, “Tomorrow I might feel awful. But I feel fine today. So let’s enjoy it!”

So we went. We rode roller coasters all afternoon, stopped at White Castle on the way back, and ate burgers in the hotel room laughing until we fell asleep. It is still one of my most cherished memories with him.

The least memorable thing about that trip is that we were there for cancer.

That was the beginning of a seventeen-year battle with three different cancers. What I’ve realized, looking back, is that we lived seventeen beautiful years in spite of cancer instead of letting cancer dominate those seventeen years. My dad taught me how to live in the in the middle of the wait. 

I think about my best friends, Betsy & Alain, too.

A few years ago, their daughter died when she was just 2 years and 9 months old.  Just a couple of weeks later, their son turned one. They had already planned his first birthday party, a sweet little gathering at a play gym. 

When Fofi died, they had to decide whether to go through with that party.

The easy decision would have been to cancel. Nobody would have judged them. Nobody expects a grieving mother and father to throw a birthday party. Their baby was only turning one. He wouldn’t even remember.

But they went ahead with the party.

Because they had made a choice. They had decided they were going to be happy again one day. They had decided they were going to keep living for the children they still had. And they understood something most people don’t want to face:

If you wait until you feel ready to be happy again, you might sit in that misery forever.

You have to practice becoming the person you want to be, even when that version of you hasn’t arrived yet. Especially then.

So today we are choosing to make it a beautiful day. Not because these are the best of times … but rather because this is the only time we actually have.

And that brings me to you: What are you not enjoying today because you’re too focused on the future?

May today be a gentle reminder that a happy life isn’t something you achieve, it’s a choice you make. 

Sending you so much love today and always,

P.S. Every Mother’s Day, I pull out a little box from my closet that holds every card and drawing my boys have ever made me. I display them all over the living room. I read them. I look at them. And then I put them away until next year.

Marie Kondo taught me that the things you keep are meant to bring you joy, and if you don’t enjoy them, then they are not fulfilling their purpose. So I refuse to keep these cards locked in a box where they fulfill nothing. Once a year, I let them do their job. I get to relive every season of their childhood, even the seasons that have already passed. It is one of my favorite rituals of the year.

P.P.S. This week’s podcast I’m sharing lessons learned in my own motherhood journey and how it led me to entrepreneurship … and then became the comfort zone that kept me from proactively pursuing my dreams.  In many ways, it’s the same lesson as the one from this email. If we wait for when, we miss what is now … and that’s how we drift. Tune in here.

 

Happy Sacred Sunday!

My eyes opened naturally at 9am this morning. A time that was unheard of for me, until the last few months when things have shifted.

To give you some context:

I have been, what my girlfriend and I lovingly call, a morning friend for a very long time. I would typically wake up between 5 and 6am (sometimes earlier), and every once in a while I might sleep in until 6:30 or 7am, which felt pretty rebellious.

Morning time is my time. To think. To journal. To exercise. To read. To spend time with other morning friends.

For me, this is the time I use to recharge my personal battery before the day begins. Witnessing the transition from darkness to sunlight is like your cell phone reaching the 100% green light.

But I have stepped into a new season.

The season of older teenagers.

It feels like there is something every day that pushes their bedtime later and later. Practices, rehearsals, youth groups, homework, football games, weekend parties, sleepovers, and now prom season to name a few.

It has become a game of adaptation and adjustments. Every day a new sleep challenge for me to conquer. Some days I still manage to have my mornings. Other days I don’t.

Last night was particularly interesting.

My son was going to be late.

At some point I was laying in bed with the light on, reading a book, falling in and out of sleep. Every once in a while a text or my brain would wake me up, and I would check to see what the status was. My husband picked him up at around 2:45am and I heard their voices walking in around 3am. I got up to chat with him. Hear some stories. Give him a hug.

And then I went back to sleep. Hence the 9am wake up.

I laughed out loud when I saw my Oura ring’s response to my evening.

It classified my sleep as a nap!

But seriously, my first thought when I saw the time was, ugh my day is ruined.

I focused on what I dislike about this change. How I missed when my kids were little and home all the time, and mornings were all mine. How I used to wake up and go for a long run before the world woke up and how great I would feel all day long. How different it feels when you wake up and the sun is so bright you feel like the day has already passed.

I felt like when you accidentally leave the phone off the charger all night and then spend the day dealing with a low battery phone, charging it in little spurts.

But I only indulged in these thoughts for a minute.

Because here is the truth.

I do not stay up because I have to. My husband is a night owl and he always stays up to make sure my son gets home safe. Also, if we’re being honest, staying up doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t actually keep my kids safe. 

I stay up because I do not want to miss the moment. I enjoy hearing my sons’ stories. I love to sit with my boys and their buddies when they get home from a party laughing, chatting, and grabbing snacks from the fridge. I love giving them a hug and kiss at the end of the night. 

This is a season where there is so much life happening after dark that if I go to sleep too early, I will miss it.

I know my boys will be grown before I have time to process this, and then there will be a part of me who would give anything for my Oura ring to classify my night as a good nap.

That is the thing about seasons. We tend to romanticize the past and complain about the present. We pretend we do things because we have to, not because we want to. And we focus on the parts we do not like instead of the parts we will romanticize when this present moment becomes the past.

So yes. I, too, get caught up in those thought errors sometimes.

I did this morning.

But I quickly snapped myself out of it. 

One day I know I will re-read this love letter I am writing to you, and I will remember this as the good ole’ days also. God knows I have clearly already forgotten what was hard about the days when my kids were little.

In the meantime, this week’s podcast episode is out and I am announcing the theme I chose for this new month of May. You will have to listen to find out what the theme is, but I will give you a clue. It is inspiring me to reimagine new ways to charge my self battery while I am in the season of teenagers!

That is all I have got for you today. Now I have got to get my day started before the sun goes down!

Sending you lots of love,

P.S. If you, too, want to do the practice of catching yourself in the season you are actually in, of being present for what is happening right now instead of mourning what was or longing for what is next, that is the work we do inside The Well. The first 10 women who join get a free upgrade to The Well VIP, which includes four private 1:1 calls with me throughout the year. The spots are filling and the bonus closes the moment the 10th woman joins. Click here to learn more.