When the season moves faster than you do
Audio version:
Spring always surprises me.
Every year, I dream of easing into the change of season gradually, a slow thaw, a gentle unfurling. And every year, before I know it, the calendar is full. Celebrations. Preparations. Opening the gardens, washing the windows, all the small rituals of summer openings that say goodbye to winter.
This month is no different. On top of our usual spring awakening, our son is getting married, and the whole month has become one long, joyful preparation for their wedding day. Everything about this celebration fills my heart. And, the reality is that it moves fast. The truth that we can lose our footing in seasons like this, even the happiest ones, is more real to me than anything.
If you are anything like me, you know exactly what I mean. Life is big. I like it that way. But I only like it that way when I feel grounded and centered inside of it. When I’m present enough to actually taste the moments instead of watching them blur past.
So today I want to share a sweet and potent practice that helps me do exactly that. It’s quick. It’s effective. And it lets me stay present to each precious moment, no matter how fast things are moving around me.
It’s called the ACT tool.
A little backstory, because I love knowing where things come from: this practice grows out of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, an approach developed by psychologist Steven Hayes back in the 1980s. The heart of it is beautifully simple; our suffering rarely comes from our difficult thoughts and feelings themselves, but from our struggle against them. Instead of wrestling our inner experience to the ground, ACT teaches us to notice it, make room for it, and then choose our next step from our values rather than our fear. It shares so much DNA with the practices I hold dearest, Yoga Nidra, meditation, and the long morning walks by the sea, that the first time I learned it, it felt less like discovering something new and more like coming home.
And that’s exactly what it does. It brings me home.
Here is how I practice it, in three small steps. A.C.T.
A — Acknowledge the thought. When the swirl picks up — there’s too much to do, I’m behind, I can’t hold all of this — I name it without judgment. I say to myself: I’m having the thought that there’s too much to do. That little phrase, “I’m having the thought that…,” creates a small, sacred distance. I am not the thought. I am the one noticing it. Already, there is more room to breathe.
C — Check what it’s pulling me away from. Then I ask: What do I actually value right now? Who do I want to be in this moment? This month, the answer is almost always the same — I want to be the mother who is fully here for her son’s wedding. Present. Soft. Awake to the joy. I let my value, not my racing mind, set the direction.
T — Take one small aligned step. Not the whole transformation. Just the next true thing. A breath. A pause at the window. Setting down the list and looking at the person in front of me. One small step back into the moment I’m actually living.
That’s it. Three breaths’ worth of practice, and I’m back. I am always home in this practice — exactly where I want to be.
If your spring is moving fast too, I hope you’ll tuck this one into your pocket. You don’t need a quiet room or twenty spare minutes. You only need the willingness to notice, to remember what matters, and to take one small true step toward it.
The season will keep rushing. We don’t have to rush with it.
With love, from my corner by the sea,
Sarah ❥
