December and the Gift of the Pause
December wasn’t what I expected, but it was what I needed.
It brought the gift of the pause.
This year taught me the gift of the pause, the difference between courage and bravery, and how
Healing often comes not through force but through presence.
The waves that marked this year crashed into the shore, and as the tide receded, clarity emerged.
I’ve realized something about myself: I love low tide. At low tide, you can see the gifts of the
ocean. You can dance on the sand in a way you can’t when the water is high. The ocean grows
quieter. The ground becomes visible.
This season wasn’t about being in the ocean of life.
It was about standing on solid ground, reflecting.
Hence, the gift of high tide.
I love being in the ocean of life, but this season invited me to stand on solid ground and reflect.
The gifts of the pause:
Reflection. Presence. Trust. Healing.
Mile Markers and Altars
There are mile markers in my life, and they’re usually books.
One of those books is Hinds’ Feet on High Places. The main character, Much Afraid, begins her
journey cripple,d longing to know love, courage, and freedom. Her companions are Sorrow and
Suffering. The path is winding, often backwards, and regularly feels impossible.
What has always stayed with me is that at the end of each leg of the journey, she pauses to build
an altar, anchoring and receiving the gift of that part of the path.
That is what December reflected for me.
The Goo of Transformation
This year has been deeply internal. Transformational in a way I’ve rarely known. It has been the
goo of the chrysalis; messy, unseen, liquid.
Resting long enough to actually see the gifts of the goo has been profound.
As I’ve been writing about the difference between courage and bravery, I asked myself where
that distinction was born in my own life. The answer surprised me with its clarity.
September 1st.
The day Kathryn “Supermanned” off the stairs and landed headfirst on the tile floor of our foyer.
We spent three days in the ER.
Science, the Heart, and Wholeness
One of the great gifts of this season has been anchoring wisdom in science.
Since reading The Body Keeps the Score in 2020, my life’s trajectory has shifted. That book
opened a doorway into understanding the body, especially the nervous system, in a
transformational way. As I prioritized healing and regulation, forms of healing that had eluded
me for decades finally became accessible.
This year, that curiosity extended to the heart.
The human heart emits an electromagnetic field measurable up to a meter beyond the body. The
brain’s field extends only a few inches. The heart has four chambers; two that give, two that
receive. Two that send blood to the lungs, two to the body.
I see this mirrored spiritually: our internal relationship with ourselves and with God, and our
external relationship with the world and the ego (which is not inherently bad). I’ve long held a
teenage commitment to guard my heart and keep it soft, knowing that this jurisdiction belongs to
me alone.
Bearing Witness in the ER
When Kathryn fell, she was connected to a heart monitor. I remember hearing the sound of her
fall and knowing immediately that it was serious. I ran out of my room and found her lying still
on the floor.
What rose in me was not panic, but surrender.
The Lord gives and takes away. This is an altar of trust.
I sensed she would be okay, but that I would have to walk the path of trust regardless.
Healing, from the Old English hælan, means to make whole. To restore completeness. In many
ways, this season has been about allowing wholeness to reassert itself.
As her mom, my question became: how do I steward this moment so it brings gifts without
leaving residual harm for her, for her brother, and for me?
We can’t control hard moments. We can only choose how we respond.
Regulating, Not Rescuing
So I paused and leaned fully into what I knew about nervous systems and hearts.
I always stayed within three to four feet of Kathryn, only moving farther away when she felt safe
enough for me to do so. When she was in pain, I tried different soothing modalities, holding her
hand, soothing the vagus nerve, singing our familiar songs, whispering comfort, caressing her
head/hair.
What fascinated me was watching the heart monitor. Even when she was crying in pain, certain
forms of soothing brought her heart rate down significantly. When I saw that, I stayed there.
Her pain was real.
But her nervous system was comforted.
That mattered.
I was also intentional about including her brother. They had been goofing around when the
accident happened, and I knew how we framed this moment would shape his story too. This was
not his fault. It was an accident. We can do hard things.
Even the language mattered. To the staff, I explained she fell “like Superman” off the railing, not
down the stairs. And later, Kathryn gently corrected me: “MumMum, I didn’t try to be
Superman.”
Framing matters.
From Courage to Bravery
In those moments, I shifted from courage to bravery.
I couldn’t fix this. I couldn’t solve it. I couldn’t remove it from our lives.
So the work became learning how to receive the moment well.
How to radiate calm.
How to show up without force.
How to trust what I couldn’t yet understand.
I didn’t know what the healing journey would look like but something in me pivoted. Shifted to a
place of receiving.
Waiting in the Goo
The goo has its own challenges.
In that space, we learn how to nourish ourselves from within rather than consuming from
without. The changes are internal. Invisible. We trust chemistry, mystery, and timing.
Fall 2025, especially, taught me how to create space to receive. It’s a different energy. A different
prioritization stack. And a necessary part of living from the heart.
Rather than filling the dark spaces that needed healing, I chose to wait. The pause. Allowing
life; quantum, goo, mystery; to do its work.
Trusting High Tide
Kathryn healed faster than anyone could explain.
I am eternally grateful.
And the deeper shift that moment created is still being stewarded. I don’t yet understand all of
the gifts AND I trust they are real.
I am trusting the process.
Trusting the pause.
Trusting both low tide and high tide.
And allowing healing and wholeness to continue unfolding.