From Barely Holding It Together to 7.5/10 Calm in Two Weeks

Two weeks. That’s all it took for M to go from barely holding it together to feeling like herself again.

When I asked her how calm and emotionally regulated she felt before my mindfulness retreat, she said she was at a 3 out of 10.

A 3.

She left the retreat at a 6. Already a massive shift. But here’s what really gets me…

I checked in with her two weeks later for a 1-1 call.

She’s at a 7.5.

And she’s not just “feeling better.” She’s actually living differently. Less stressed. Taking care of herself. She finally has the confidence to book that solo trip she’s been wanting to take for years - something she hasn’t done in 40 years.

She meditates while folding laundry – turning a mundane chore into a mindfulness practice. Takes pause breaks at work before walking into a busy work environment. And when her heart starts racing, she has this internal voice now that says “you need to meditate, you need to do this for yourself.”

And she actually listens to it.

What M Did (That You Can Do Too)

After the retreat, M downloaded Insight Timer and started meditating twice a day. She uses my yoga nidra to fall asleep. She practices mini-meditations while doing dishes, folding laundry, before walking into work (which has been a major stress point for her).

She’s practicing tai chi. Doing yoga. Even journaling - which she doesn’t love, but does anyway because it helps.

The other day, she told me she was practicing meditation on the couch at work. Not hiding it. Not caring what anyone thought. Because it felt that good.

When I told her how proud I was, I meant it.

Because here’s the thing: she did this with support from our 1-1 coaching and her own committed practice. She took what she learned and ran with it. Built these practices into her life.

But what if she’d had even more structure? More accountability? A community cheering her on and troubleshooting the hard moments together?

Then There’s S: From 'Almost All Negative Thoughts' to Actually Present

S had been struggling for a couple of years. Different things happening in her life. By January 2025, she knew she needed help with her mindset.

She’d been to therapy. But she wanted something more - maybe meditation, eastern practices, tools she could use herself.

She found me on Instagram, came to my February retreat, and had this huge realization:

Most of her thoughts were negative.

Like, when she actually paid attention to her day-to-day thinking, almost none of it was positive. And suddenly it made sense why she’d been feeling sad and upset for so long.

So she joined my online course Find YOUR Pause. Eight weeks of practicing together.

What Changed for S

Here's what she told me three months after completing Find YOUR Pause:

“The biggest thing I learned is that meditation isn’t something you have to sit and chant for 20 minutes or else you didn’t do it right. It’s about giving yourself space from the negative thoughts in your head - even if it’s just 2 minutes.”

Her favorite practice? Walking meditation. No candles, no cushion. Just walking in her neighborhood, looking at the sky, noticing the birds. Being present instead of walking for five minutes without a single thought about her surroundings.

Now she catches her negative thoughts as they happen. She recognizes the noise in her head isn’t reality.

She’s sleeping better because when she wakes up with anxious thoughts, she can turn them off. She’s never been able to do that before.

She’s more present with her family on weekends because she’s not worrying about what’s happening at work on Monday.

And here’s the thing she said that really got me:

“Usually I forget the thought I was even having. I realized how much time and energy I was wasting on these negative thoughts.”

She’s not an expert. She’s not a Buddhist monk meditating for hours. She’s just a woman who learned how to put a wedge between herself and her negative thinking.

The Pattern I Keep Seeing

1. and S. Different women. Different challenges. Same result: they’re not wasting energy on negative thoughts anymore.

M went from 3 to 7.5/10 in feeling calm in two weeks with retreat support and 1-1 coaching.

S transformed over 8 weeks of structured practice and community support in my online program.

And I keep thinking… what if more women had this kind of support? What if they had structure around building these habits? What if they didn’t have to figure this out alone?

Why I’m Walking the Camino This Week

This month I’m walking part of the Camino de Santiago in Spain. Six nights of pilgrimage. Just me, my thoughts, and a lot of walking.

Here’s the thing: this pilgrimage? This IS the work I teach.

Walking meditation. Using my senses - the smell of the air, the sound of my feet on the path, the feeling of the sun (or rain, let’s be real). Being present in each moment instead of worrying about what’s next.

It’s exactly what I teach in Find Your Pause. How to build a personal pause practice that fits your real life and in so doing reclaim your mind. 

Find Your Pause is my 8-week online program where you'll learn to build a personal mindfulness practice that fits your real life—with weekly group coaching, guided meditations, and a community of women doing this work together. Next cohort starts March 20..

And I’m coming back from this pilgrimage ready - energized, grounded, fully present - to start the program. 

Ready to stop wasting energy on negative thoughts? Join me in Find Your Pause starting March 20.

 P.S. I'll be sharing updates from the Camino in my next post—including the walking meditation practices I'm using and what I'm learning about presence on the path. Stay tuned.