This week, the “weeds” I’m walking through are all about what happens after the chaos.

If you listened to the last episode, you know my life has been in a massive state of upheaval. The last six months have been a constant series of big events. We moved our family from the East Coast to the Midwest , I sent my youngest off to college, and my oldest graduated and moved back in with us. All at once, I was selling a house , buying a new one , closing my private practice office , and trying to be present for all the “final” moments of my son’s senior year of high school.

When I’m under that much stress, my go-to coping mechanism is to disconnect emotionally and just get to work. I go into “get it done mode,” making checklists and just pushing through to the next task. It looks really productive from the outside, but in reality, it’s my way of managing (or avoiding) the very big feelings that are happening.

But now, the dust is theoretically settling. We’re in the new house. The kids are where they’re supposed to be. I’m entering the phase where I should be getting back to “ordinary time”.

And I’ve found it’s surprisingly hard.

The Two-Part Challenge of Starting Over

The challenge for me right now is twofold.

1. My old routines don’t fit. I’m in a new place. I can’t walk into town for coffee the same way. My old exercise class isn’t here. Even my morning ritual of sitting by my fireplace isn’t the same, because it’s not the same space. I’m trying to figure out what my routines are in this new space and new phase of life.
2. I feel an intense internal pressure to “do it right”. There’s this nagging inner voice telling me all the things I “should” be doing. I feel tremendous guilt about resting or not being productive enough. I’m worried about creating new routines that don’t serve me, or worse, ones I’m not supposed to be doing.

How I’m Finding My Way Through It

So, how am I dealing with these weeds?

I’m starting by slowing down and paying attention to my body. When I’m in that “get it done” zombie mode, the first thing I do is disconnect from my physical body. My way back is to get back in touch with what I actually need.

This doesn’t have to be some huge, time-consuming thing. I’m not sitting down for 30-minute meditations every day.

For me, it’s about taking my everyday, ordinary things and turning them into purposeful moments.

It sounds silly, but it all started with an electric toothbrush. I finally bought one, and it has this two-minute timer. I’ve always preached something called a “toothbrush meditation”—the idea that for the two minutes you’re brushing your teeth, you have a forced pause. You can use that time to check in with your body, say positive things to yourself, or just focus on the single task at hand.

During the most frantic part of our move, this toothbrush forced me to stop and pay attention, even for just two minutes. It was a grounding tool that helped me reconnect to my body when I didn’t even realize I had checked out.

The Difference Between a Routine and a Ritual

That little two-minute pause has been the key to everything else. It’s helping me be more present with what I actually need.

And here’s the real discovery: I’m getting back into routines so that I can find my rituals.

An ordinary day, on its own, isn’t always wonderful. A routine is just something you do, maybe on autopilot, because it needs to get done.

A ritual is when you take that ordinary moment and make it intentional and special.

The wonder isn’t in the whole ordinary day. The wonder is in the small, intentional rituals you create within it. For me, it can be as simple as choosing a special coffee mug , one that reminds me of a place I love. That simple act turns an ordinary routine (drinking coffee) into a ritual—a small moment of joy and wonder.

These rituals are what ground us. When the weeds are thick, they give you something to look forward to, something that brings a moment of peace into the chaos.

That’s my focus this week: turning my new, simple routines into rituals so I can get back to the ordinariness of life after so much change.

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