This month marks one year since I retired from the corporate world. It’s been a year of deep soul-searching. What I’ve discovered is that approaching life with seriousness and a heavy sense of responsibility has always been my Achilles’ heel, blocking me from truly being at ease and in the flow of my life.

Looking back, I can see that this tendency began in childhood. Fast forward to my late teens and my first year of college. I was terrified that I didn’t have what it took to succeed at this level. I’d struggled academically in grammar school but eventually thrived in high school, thanks to amazing teachers who saw me, believed in me, and encouraged me. But college felt like stepping into the great unknown.

During that freshman year I was in school full-time and worked long hours at a part-time job. I’d taken on a lot. Toward the middle of my first semester, two things happened within a week that would change how I saw myself—not just as a student, but as a whole person.

One night I was studying in my bedroom and felt a strange itch on my butt. When I looked, I saw a rash that pretty much covered my whole right backside. I thought I must have been bitten by teeny bugs. I showed my mother, and she immediately saw that they were hives. Clearly she thought that they were from stress and she wasted no time telling me that I was working too hard and needed to cut down on my work hours.

What was happening? My parents were the ones who taught me to work hard in school and in life. I was so confused!

A couple of days later, my history professor called me into her office. She was a nun at my Catholic women’s college in Nashua, New Hampshire, and I worshipped her. She was energetic, smart, and inspiring, bringing history to life in ways I’d never experienced before. I sat down, a little bit in awe, and expecting to talk about class. Nope. Her first question was, “Tell me what you do when you aren’t in classes.”

I was stunned. Then I thought, “This is my moment to shine, and she is going to L.O.V.E. my answer.” So, I proceeded with confidence and I told her how much I studied and worked. Good answer, right? To my surprise, she wasn’t impressed. She gave me the “All work and no play makes Jane a very dull girl” thing. More surprisingly, she then asked if I had friends (yes), if they invited me out (they did), and if I dated (sometimes). She also asked about my interests, my family, music, dancing, and all the things young people would do for fun.

I was steaming when I left her office. What was going on? Two people telling me I was working too hard? My mother, for whom “doing” was one of the most valuable ways to be, and a professor, a nun, telling me I was on the verge of being boring! How was this possible? Isn’t working hard what people are supposed to do?

I didn’t get what either of them were trying to tell me. Their wisdom and insight were clearly deeper than I could understand. And so, after that conversation with my professor, I felt defiant. I left her office thinking, “I’m going to show her.” I wasn’t sure what that was, but I defiantly reduced my hours at work and started going out more, taking ballet lessons and yoga, and getting together with friends for dancing at the disco and for dinner and great conversation. So there! Take that mom and Sister Lucille!

What happened after that? As my professor expected, my grades improved dramatically and my mother was happy that the hives went away and very happy that my grades improved. In the end, I graduated with an excellent GPA and had a lot of fun along the way. Go figure.

Fast forward again to the moment of retirement and to the woman (that would be me) who had worked since she was sixteen years old, practically non-stop, now bravely choosing again to walk into the unknown. What did she do? She didn’t take a breath before diving into projects and filling her calendar as quickly as possible.

The truth is that without the familiar structure of work, she suddenly had far more space and time than she had ever known.

One year later, “she” is no longer the “I” I am today.

Today I’m reminding myself that all work and no play make Ina a stressed-out woman who slowly loses the thread of her purpose, her joy, and her connection with herself, the Divine, and the people she loves.

As I’m learning to live with the spaciousness of my days, I’m returning to something I have known for many years: the gift of the hush. I find it in meditation and mindfulness, in moving my body, in walking through nature, and in those quiet moments when I simply allow myself to be.

The hush is not empty. It’s quietly alive. A place where I don’t have to rush to the next answer or fill every moment with activity. A place where I can simply be . . . where I can listen to my wise inner voice.

And when I listen, I begin to find the thread to myself again.

The truth is that we all experience these moments in retirement, career changes, relationships beginning or ending, becoming a parent, children leaving home, health challenges, loss, and in the seasons when life asks for something new.

In every life chapter, there is an invitation. Not necessarily to do more. But to become still enough to notice. To enter the hush. To reconnect with the wisdom that has been quietly waiting beneath the noise.

Because when we make space to notice, we begin to find the thread to that wisdom again.

If this story resonates with you, I’ve created a gentle listening practice called Returning to the Thread to accompany it. You can download the practice here.

It’s an invitation to pause, enter the hush, and notice the thread that is quietly calling you back to yourself.