Ultimately, when we are unmotivated, it is because we are struggling to make the connection between the task at hand and the benefit to our current and future selves. I want to be very honest and vulnerable with you: I have been feeling unmotivated about launching the next cohort of The Chingona’s Sabbatical. I believe it is my intuition speaking to me. I am finally ready to listen.

I love a journal prompt. I collect them for myself and offer them to friends and clients often. Sometimes when I offer a prompt or two, I can see the hesitation in the receiver’s face. It’s often easier to talk to another person than to sit alone and process thoughts and feelings. Recently, I came across my own hesitations to journal.

When’s the last time, if ever, that you asked yourself, “Who am I?” It is not a one and done kind of thing - we are ever-evolving beings. Asking yourself this question could cause you to freeze and say, “I don’t know,” or inspire you to list a variety of identities that you consciously connect to. Regardless of which of these is your initial response, I guarantee you that there is more waiting to be discovered under the surface.

Last week I had a moment where I had to lean into what I often recommend. A pause. After someone had been flaky about a commitment they made to me, I had to stop and take a deep long breath, and release a learned response that was rooted fear and ego, and transition to a softer response that was connected with who I am consciously evolving to become.

I am about 8 weeks into my quasi-sabbatical, but last week was the first time I respected the time that I set aside on my calendar to rest and reflect. With all the moving pieces from work and setting up my new home, I have allowed myself to keep functioning in doing mode. Even though this is supposed to be my season of learning what it’s like to be in being mode. I finally had to stop and reset my intentions for my quasi-sabbatical the next couple of months.

I heard someone talking about the ways our school systems hurt students of color. It reminded me of my years serving in K-12 schooling, and the shame I was feeling came from a core wound that gets triggered from time to time that I am not doing enough for people of color, specifically Black and Latinx folks, to be liberated.

I’ve been sharing for weeks about the season of transformation that I am in. In seasons of deep reflection and eventual action, we begin to identify not only what we are ready to expand but also what we are ready to shed. A couple of people I know who are also in similar seasons have focused on shedding people who are no longer in alignment with who they are becoming.

The universe is always speaking to us. We need to be in tune enough to listen. Last week, I shared that I am feeling a desire within myself to seek more freedom in my life, and I am still not clear on what that looks like. And then I came across Rachel Rodgers’ book, ‘We Should All Be Millionaires’…

I am kicking off a new book club with some besties this week. We are diving into a 7-week journey around manifestation. The premise of the book is that as we turn inward and find the blocks within us that are making it difficult to receive what we are seeking to attract, we can make conscious decisions to remove those blocks and begin to attract what we desire to our lives.

It’s time for another sabbatical. Not a full-blown slowing down season, as I have done in the past. I’m thinking more of a quasi-sabbatical where I open up more space in my schedule for large pockets of time to reconnect with myself. When I took my full sabbatical a few years ago, I felt deeply in my soul that it was important to completely walk away from the life I knew because I had become so deeply disconnected from a life focused on purpose. Though I am now on a clearer purpose path and living life authentically as me, I have been feeling lately that I need more time and space to breathe, listen, and reconnect to a very specific part of myself.