Maria Connolly, LPC
Learn how to focus on the soft skills, the people skills like good communication, effective leadership, positive motivation, and managing your emotions.
This may surprise you: There’s a vast difference between having centering practices and being a centered person. A centering practice can regulate your nervous system for a few minutes. An embodied center changes who you are under pressure. A centering practice is something you do. An embodied center is how you live.
What happened to my client, Laura (not her real name), illustrates this well.
Fall has a way of pulling us into its whirlwind. The long, lingering days of summer give Life has a way of pulling us into its whirlwind. Deadlines, schedules, events, and the unspoken pressure to keep up seem relentless. Sometimes it feels like we have to force ourselves to relax and unwind, which can cause even more stress, rather than relieving it.
Slowing down may feel like a luxury you can’t afford, but here’s a new way of looking at it: rest isn’t the reward for finishing everything; it’s the foundation that makes everything in your life sustainable. It’s what fuels your energy, creativity, and clarity. Without it, you’re running on fumes.
For many high-achieving women, food isn’t just about nourishment. It’s about regulating your mood, energy, and performance. So there are many elements to consider when we’re looking at how food affects your mood.
You may eat between meetings. Or skip meals without noticing. You reach for something quick when your energy dips. At the end of the day, you unwind with something comforting, not because you’re hungry, but because your body is asking for relief.
And often, the conversation around food gets reduced to discipline. What you should eat. What you shouldn’t. What’s “good” and what’s “bad.” But that framework misses something essential. Your relationship with food isn’t just behavioral. It’s somatic. It lives in your nervous system.
If you’re like many of the women I work with, you don’t struggle because you don’t know how to calm your mind. You struggle in the moment when your body takes over.
Your chest tightens. Your jaw clenches. Thoughts accelerate. A conversation shifts, a comment lands wrong, pressure builds, and suddenly you’re no longer responding. You’re reacting.
And in that moment, it doesn’t matter how self-aware, intelligent, or practiced you are.
Your nervous system has already made the call. This is the piece that often gets missed in conversations about “how to calm your mind.” Because the mind isn’t actually where the spiral begins.
Today, I’m doing something new and different. I’m not writing to teach or “showcase my expertise” as the marketing gurus claim we ought to always be doing. Today I’m writing for the pure joy of writing about something I love. (It’s only fair, since I’ve been encouraging you to do things just for the fun of it.) I’m being vulnerable and revealing a part of myself that few people ever get to see.
I love the warm days of spring. There’s a beguiling quality of afternoon light, the air carrying just enough softness to make you look up from whatever you're doing and feel it. And immediately, almost involuntarily, I think of the lake.