a different kind of rhythm
When I sat down to plan Q4 Compassionote events, I realised something surprising:
December isn’t my year-end
Sure, the calendar says so, but the real shifts in my life don’t happen then. My true turning points are August and February: when school starts, when schedules reset, when family rhythms change.
When the new swimming lessons, the clubs, music lessons, sport practice, the early morning drop offs, the late pick-ups start…plus the set-into-Swiss-stone holiday schedule that periodically stops everything in its tracks.
There’s sicknesses that strike starting…now.
From August to February and February to July, there are the weeks when everything feels achievable, and the weeks when the best I can do is order pizza for dinner, lunch and leftovers.
Because in big and small ways, my life flexes and revolves around my kids.
And naming that out loud felt weirdly HARD…almost like immediately afterwards I had to caveat it:
I’m still ambitious, still motivated.
I am still visible.
Who am I defending myself to? To to old friends, to my family, to the world? In reality I think I am mostly trying to re-assure myself. It is me yet again holding up that (as a friend recently put it) “turd nugget” of a belief that my self-worth is directly proportional to my accomplishments or productivity.
But. Slowly but surely with small steps, I am letting myself have a new belief that I am still working on putting into words. At the moment it goes something like:
“I have not put aside my ambition.
My definition of success has changed.”
when I stopped trying to fit my rhythm into a December year-end, I felt a wave of honesty and relief.
When I started planning from this new belief, I saw more clearly what fits, and what doesn’t.
✨ More than one workshop a quarter doesn’t fit.
✨ Building in simple, low-pressure ways to connect does.
✨ Leaving space for creative fun nights out where someone else does the planning—that fits too.
And I thought: maybe this is true for you as well. Maybe you also feel the weight of being the planner, the one holding everyone’s needs and schedules in your head. Maybe you also know months in advance what weekends are already claimed.
If that’s you, I want Compassionote to be the opposite of “one more thing to fit in.” My hope is that it feels like exhaling. A space where you can learn something new, sink into community, or just have a night where all you have to do is show up.
That’s the spirit shaping our next season together.
👉 If you’d like to see what’s coming, have a look at the events page and save the dates that call to you: compassionote.com/events.
Registration always opens about a month in advance.
Make sure you check my Insider List emails, and I’ll remind you when it does.