A mid-year pause: What 2024 has taught me so far
I am taking stock at the year's halfway point. What I've learned comes down to this: I am constantly evolving and that's a good thing. Here are the practices that help me stay intentional.
With cartons pushed against a wall, suitcases rolled into a bedroom that contained a bed and little else, I surveyed the 700 square feet of empty space that I was about to call home. It was a week before Christmas 2023, and I had signed a 14-month lease for this apartment. It would be the first time in my life I lived alone. I wanted to feel excitement, anticipation and the relief of longed-for solitude and freedom after many months of being a caregiver at home for my mother. Instead, exhausted by the move, I collapsed onto the bed that my ex-husband helped me put together and hibernated for most of the month with a really bad cold.
That was my January 2024. As I pause at this half-way point of the year, it all comes swimming back to me. I decided my year of the word was ABUNDANCE, as I write about here, with FREEDOM and FLOW in supporting roles. In my typical fashion, I threw myself into live workshops and workbooks and question after question designed to help me map out my goals, dreams and desires for the year. I promised myself I’d keep these guiding words and intentions front and center as the months unfolded. But I’m only human (as I need to keep reminding myself) and so this commitment for monthly or quarterly stock-taking fell by the wayside.
Then, before I knew it, June was on its way out, as ephemeral as a spring rose wilted in the heat of the sun. The summer solstice was upon us. I read these words by
in her essay on “The Summer Solstice” and it was the call to action I needed:But this moment matters, the time between planting and harvesting, the time when the year yearns to pause. I urge you to mark it, somehow, even in solitude. I urge you to find a way to feel the furnace blast of its energy, to encounter its abundance of light, to immerse yourself in its efflorescence, its explosion of fluttering colour. The year races on. Winter, as they say, is coming. We have a handful of days to feel this teetering of the year.
After everything, still standing
This weekend I settled down with a pot of Earl Grey tea, my journal, and all those worksheets I had filled in. By now, my apartment was fully furnished and I surveyed it with contentment. The furniture, decor, photographs and paintings, and most of all, the shelves and shelves of books, were all thoughtfully arranged to provide the beautiful nest I envisioned back in January when I stood in those empty rooms. It had become home. I lit a candle and as I flipped through my journal, a theme emerged:
Here is a woman in a state of becoming and it seems she is only getting started.
That I was still, in so many ways, only getting started on this journey of the next chapter of my life, did not strike me as depressing. Rather, I felt that my beginner’s mind, the curiosity and drive that has led me to accomplish so much in my life, to gather around me people whom I love dearly and who love me, is a very lucky thing. The opposite of only getting started is to be finished. And I am far from finished. Post-divorce, post-full time caregiving for a parent with dementia, and most wrenching of all, without my mother and best friend by my side, I am still standing—tall and strong like the trees my mother loved to hug.
Here are a few observations from getting reacquainted with the woman I had been through the winter and spring and early summer of 2024 and key lessons I learned in this half-year life review:
January and February: Hibernating in my new nest, learning to slow down and to inhabit without fear this liminal space of the in-between (no longer married, not yet fully comfortable with my aloneness). Perhaps because I hadn’t lived in an apartment since my 20s, younger versions of myself seemed ever-present, as I write about here. That youthful optimism told me I was on the cusp of something I could not yet see, just out of reach. But it was coming. Lesson: I can be my own best company.
March: A month of travel, with my mother being cared for in a memory care facility, my sister nearby. It was that FREEDOM that had been among those words I identified in January. At a yoga retreat in Hawaii, our theme was “WONDER,” another word for my 2024 lexicon, in sync with my natural curiosity as a seeker. Especially when something uncomfortable came up for us, we were gently encouraged to wonder what it was there to teach us. That week was all about presence, acceptance, relaxing into our fear so that we could let go of it: to surrender and embrace undefended openness. One by one, the women at the retreat told me they admired my courage. Through their eyes I saw the evidence of a transformation that was happening within me, a strength and courage I don’t always give myself enough credit for. Lesson: I see what’s possible for me when I don’t play small.
April: Grief came for me this month. Two days after my 64th birthday, my mother died, dementia relinquishing its cruel grip on her. On the day after she left us, I wrote in my journal, “Mommy died yesterday,” using the term I’d used when I was young, since I once again felt as bereft as a child. These were the weeks I wrestled with guilt, thinking of the times I hadn’t been there for her rather than the love that had been there all along. I worked hard, through my tears, to get to a place of self compassion, knowing it was what Mom would have wanted. Lesson: My mother stays present with me when I am present for all the grief and all the love.
May: A month shaped inevitably by grieving but also by the love of family and friends, who gathered for my mother’s Celebration of Life. My journal tracked insomnia, tears, tummy aches, all the vestiges of grief. At the same time, I held onto dreams of abundance and sent out query letters to literary agents for a novel I hope to publish. Lesson: When I live in a state of abundance rather than scarcity, I gain courage and the confidence that what I want for myself will manifest in time.
June: A trip to Costa Rica with a dear friend, our long-planned belated mutual 60th birthday celebration was the restorative time I needed on the beautiful beach of Samara on the Pacific Coast. And I returned to feel my creativity abundantly nourished in the final weeks of the
The Visceral Self Writing Challenge. The practice of embodied writing during this time of grief was difficult but so healing. I am grateful for what it taught me about how to “write ourselves into becoming,” as Jeannine explains here. Lesson: I listen to what my body tells me and I observe the outside world with the wonderment of a child.Designing 2024, Part 2
I realize now that the first half of the year unfolded exactly as it was meant to without my monthly or quarterly reviews. Yet I am still drawn to dig deeper into what I want from this year—the first full year with the divorce behind me and the first, since becoming Mom’s caregiver, where I have the freedom to do what I wish and to go where I please.
So I picked up the Goodbye 2023 Hello 2024 guided journal from Project You and continued where I had left off. With the question of “What do you want to make 2024 all about?” LOVE topped the list, those connections I cherish with those I love and care about along with travel, creative pursuits, more joy—and possibly even romance.
At this half-year point, the words I want to feel are: ABUNDANT, BOLD and JOYFUL. While my eyes gravitated toward BALANCED, CONNECTED, PRESENT, I knew that those qualities had been much of my work in the first half of the year. Looking out towards the remainder of 2024, it’s time to say a full-bodied “YES!” to the vibrancy that can happen when you are in flow.
The Project You journal invites us to make a quarterly life design plan, focusing on what you’d like the next three months to be about; the activities, experiences, people, places, trips and projects that you want to fill your life with; and three things you commit to over the next three months. Then, at the end of the quarter, see how you’ve done. I’d missed the opportunity to do that the first two quarters of the year. But here was the third quarter and it would be an exciting one. Travel in August and September: Stockholm, Paris, Barcelona and walking the Camino de Santiago ancient pilgrimage route with my older daughter in September. The quarter will finish off with a week in New York City for the UN Climate Week.
As I thought about that travel—the best part of it the reunion with my two daughters and with many dear friends and Swedish family—the word SAVOR came up. I want to savor this time with the people I love, these places I will spend time in, and the creativity it will surely foster as someone who distills her experiences into her writing.
I like that new words for the year keep coming up for me. It’s part of that flow I identified back in January. The world changes, people and relationships change, circumstances change, I change and evolve. Not to welcome change, even when it’s painful, would be to turn my back on all the transformation that is possible—which still awaits me. As poet David Whyte writes in this essay:
Am I harvesting from this year's season of life? "Youth is wasted on the young" is the old saying. But it might also be said that midlife is wasted on those in their 50s and eldership is very often wasted on the old. Most people, I believe, are living four or five years behind the curve of their own transformation. I see it all the time, in my own life and others. The temptation is to stay in a place where we were previously comfortable, making it difficult to move to the frontier that we're actually on now.
I believe the universe sets in your path precisely what you need. So I was delighted to learn that my coach and founder of The Whole Soul Way,1Deb Blum (interviewed here on my podcast) is starting a series of Quarterly Life Design calls for members of the program. As Deb writes, “I want to help us all create the life we desire in the second half. And to make sure we're always pushing those edges a bit :)” She is referring to a concept she teaches about First Half of Live Living and Second Half of Life Living. Briefly, the first half of life is ego-led, where the primary driver is fear’s calling and our priorities are safety, security, striving, success and status. The second half is soul-led, where the primary driver is the soul’s calling and the priorities are relationships, authenticity, impact, meaning and love. So far, this year seems to be pulling me ever more urgently into that Second Half.
If you’re interested to learn more, you can contact Deb here. And check out her new Substack,
on this very theme.Five reflective practices for an intentional year
If this idea of taking stock of the year, or setting a word or intention for the year, it’s certainly not too late. Maybe something is calling to you, in this season of your life, to design the life you want, knowing it will deliver surprises along the way and always something from which we can learn. Here are give practices that work for me:
Keep a journal. There are so many ways to do this. The morning pages that are part of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way have been the way I’ve approached journaling for years.
is starting an Artist Way’s online group starting July 21 which is free for paid subscribers. I will be joining in. Sometimes, though, I like to change up my journaling with new prompts and suggestions. Check out for regular writing prompts that are always thought provoking.Set goals or intentions for throughout the year.
who writes at her 2024 Unravel Your Year workshop suggested monthly assessments of highlights and learnings, with additional questions for reflections. Maybe three unhelpful beliefs you’re ready to let go of, a few skills you want to learn or improve, brainstorm ways to deepen connections with loved ones. Project You suggests three commitments over the three months of each quarter.Take time to reassess on a regular basis. Susannah suggests monthly reflections, both highlights and learnings as well as questions intended to guide you to go deeper. Project You suggests looking at how you’re feeling, what has happened, happiest and most challenging moments, sources of pride and gratitude and how well you are doing on meeting intentions and commitments you set. Take the time to revisit your word, phrase or intention for the year. It might have changed.
Partner with a friend or family member on these practices to keep each other accountable. For me, it is this newsletter that helps keep me aware of where I’ve been and where I’m headed. But just as vital are the conversations I have with my daughters, my coach and women friends and taking that pause to view the big picture of where our lives are going.
- is a practice and a community that allows me to tap into my voice of unconditional love on a daily basis and it has been a guiding light in my life. When you tune into that loving voice we all carry within us, you can’t help but stay on the path of your truth and what you most desire.
Resources for a year guided by intention
If the idea of mid-year pause appeals to you, here are some resources I have found helpful:
Susannah Conway and Unravel Your Year
Goodbye 2023 Hello 2024 Project You
The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron
The Book of Awakening, Mark Nepo. This treasured book I turn to daily. In Mark’s words, it is “a spiritual daybook woven from my own story, the stories of others’ struggles with their humanness, and truths from the great wisdom traditions. A series of daily reflections, it serves as a guidebook for a journey with the soul. Each entry is accompanied with a practice that helps us face the call to awaken the mind and the heart.”
LET’S CHAT
Questions for the comments:
Have you set a word or phrase for the year and have you revisited it? Do you take stock of the year at different intervals and if so, what are the rewards of that practice for you?
Three Songs for 3-D
Divorce
“Divorce Separation Blues,” The Avett Brothers
Dementia
“Beyond the Sea,” Bobby Darin
This was a favorite of Mom’s. These lyrics speak to me, not as Bobby intends for his romantic love, but in my yearning for her and our reunion one day:
Destiny
“Wonderful Life,” Katie Melua
Look at me standing
Here on my own again
Up straight in the sunshine
No need to run and hide
It's a wonderful wonderful life
No need to laugh or cry
It's a wonderful wonderful life
As The Whole Soul Way is a program I truly believe in and has helped me tremendously to navigate “Living in 3-D,” this is an affiliate link. Should you sign up for any offering, a small commission earned is used to defray the cost of producing this newsletter.
Amy, you’re a wonder. I’m considerably older than you, yet I understand that feeling of being on the threshold, of just beginning. Wishing us both lives of eternal renewal, challenge, and adventure. Honored to count you among my friends.