Coming Home to Myself: Presence, Purpose, and the Power of Building in Private

Savoring simple daily pleasures

There are moments in life when stepping away from the familiar doesn’t just offer rest—it offers revelation. I didn’t fully understand that truth until I returned from a few truly fabulous days in sunny Australia with one of my daughters. The trip was everything I needed: warmth on my skin, space in my mind, and distance from the day-to-day noise I didn’t realize I’d been drowning in.

But the real transformation didn’t happen on the beaches or under the bright Queensland skies. It happened when I came home.

Something in me exhaled.
Not the shallow breath you take while rushing from one responsibility to the next, but a deep, grounding release. A sense of relief I didn’t know I had been waiting for. I felt myself settling—comfortably, confidently—back into my own skin.

For the first time in a long while, I was present.

Not racing, not chasing, not planning three versions of the future at once. Just here. Just me. And that’s when the words of the Dalai Lama drifted back into my mind:

“Want what you have, not have what you want.”

That simple shift—from longing to appreciation—felt like turning a key in a locked door. Suddenly the ordinary parts of my life revealed themselves as extraordinary. And the things I thought I needed? Many of them lost their urgency. Gratitude has a way of shrinking unnecessary desire and expanding everything that truly matters.

When Presence Sparks Possibility

Interestingly, it was this newly grounded presence that reignited my imagination.

I started thinking—dreaming—about future passion projects: ideas that had been sitting quietly in the corners of my mind, waiting for the right moment to stretch and breathe. I felt a gentle spark of inspiration flickering back to life. Not the frantic kind of ambition that demands immediate action, but the calm, confident kind that knows it will unfold in its own time.

And that’s when another truth landed for me:

Not everything is meant to be shared before it’s ready.

In a world addicted to announcement culture, where every idea becomes an Instagram story and every half-formed thought turns into content, there’s something profoundly powerful about building in silence. I’ve learned that when you expose something before it’s fully formed, you dilute it. You give away its energy. You invite opinions, expectations, and noise into a space that is still too fragile to withstand them.

It’s said that when you share something prematurely, you lose 50% of its power.
I’ve come to believe this is true.

Our ideas need incubation.
Our dreams need privacy.
Our next chapters need room to grow roots before they bloom.

The Magic of the Private Season

There is a season for planting and a season for harvesting—but we often forget that there’s also a season for tending, nurturing, and quietly building. The private season is where the real magic happens: the sketching, the rethinking, the early morning clarity, the gentle course-correcting. It’s where passion finds direction and ideas find shape.

When we protect our creativity instead of broadcasting it, we give it strength.
When we stay present instead of projecting into the future, we give ourselves clarity.
When we want what we have, rather than chasing what we don’t, we create space for authentic inspiration to emerge.

Coming Home in More Ways Than One

Returning from Australia gave me more than sandy memories and sun kissed skin—it gave me perspective. It reminded me that the most important journey isn’t across oceans, but inward. Toward self-understanding. Toward presence. Toward appreciation.

I came home, yes.
But more importantly, I came home to myself.

And now, from this place of grounded clarity, I can dream again—quietly, intentionally, powerfully. The future feels exciting not because I’m desperate to get there, but because I finally feel rooted enough to build it.

In private first.
In public later.
In alignment always.