Drifting

Here we are, nearly through the first quarter of 2026, and, I'll be honest, I haven't felt much inspiration this year.

As last year wound down, I was heavily focused on putting the final touches on my online course and getting it launched in time for the new year. As this year settled into routine, major renovations began on my house and have only just been completed after several weeks. And then there's the ever-present weight of what's happening in the wider world, the kind of low hum of collective unease that has a way of settling into daily life whether we invite it or not.

All of it together pulled me away from my meditative practices, from deeper presence, and from the sense of meaning that usually keeps me grounded. What I've been left with is that particular kind of quiet that doesn't feel restful. It just feels distant.

As I consider this drift, I recognize something that I both know and apparently still need to learn. Knowing the things that keep us steady and actually living them consistently are not the same thing. And that gap isn't a personal failing. It's just what it is to be human. We are not machines that, once programmed, run without interruption. We are part of nature, subject to the same rhythms and cycles as everything else in the natural world.

Just as nature moves through seasons, so do we. There are seasons where things are growing and thriving, and there are seasons where things go fallow and quiet. Seasons of momentum and seasons of stillness. Seasons of contentment and seasons of stress. The question isn't how to avoid the harder seasons. It's whether we can recognize which one we're in and respond with some degree of grace rather than resistance.

When we drift from the practices and rhythms that ground us, most of us don't just notice it neutrally. We judge it. There's often an inner voice that shows up and says something like, "You know better than this," or "You know what you need to do, so why aren't you doing it?" That voice doesn't help. It adds a second layer of distance on top of the first. The drift becomes something to feel bad about, and self-criticism rarely motivates us back toward anything good.

I talk about this rhythm in my Vision Voyage course, how the ebb is normal and expected, not evidence that something has gone wrong with you. Knowing that doesn't eliminate the self-criticism when we're actually in it, but it can soften the edges. It gives us something to return to, a gentler place to land when we notice we've drifted.

Self-compassion isn't a solution to the fallow season. It doesn't make it shorter or less uncomfortable. It's more of an orientation. A way of remaining in some kind of relationship with yourself even when the inspiration is quiet and the practices have gone spotty and the world feels heavy. It's the difference between drifting and knowing you've drifted. Between being lost and knowing roughly where you are.

I'm still in this season. Writing this is one small way of staying in relationship with it rather than just waiting for it to pass.