down time
what if we used the down, what if we trusted this time...
there’s a space, a spot—
I don’t like to visit it a whole lot—
where burdens take root,
where reality weighs deep,
where gravity pulls me down,
and I sink beneath its keep.
my ambitions want to revolt,
my mind wants to take its toll,
but all my body can do is reach—
for stillness, for rest,
for the place where movement fades away.
and I’m there—
and bare—
and my god, sometimes it feels so not fair.
yet my spirit whispers, insists I see—
this is a space and time for me—
to breathe, to be,
to recalibrate my vitality,
a pause where my body can reprieve.
to be down,
to be without fuel,
to be unwell is not something we choose,
yet we feel—
it is real—
but what if we used it as an opportunity to heal?
what if this was the chance to surrender the lists—
and all the well-intended insists—
to finally receive what the body so desperately needs?
what if the mind finally aligned
to the heart, to the truth—
that we need time for this potion to prove
our immunity, our communities?
what if this is the very opportunity—
to resist, to rest,
to let myself be in the nest—
to stop chasing the very distress
that brought me here?
what if there was nothing to fear?
what if we didn’t push and rebound,
but let this time to be down
be exactly what it’s meant to be?
I ask my mind to please see—
this may be a gift for me,
this time some will never receive,
this down that will one day be
the place where I bloom,
the place where I rise,
the place where I resume
in a fine and more aligned tune.
what would be the after-effect
if more of us could respect
this liminal time as a threshold, as a door—
instead of insisting on doing more?
this time, this down—
in it, my refocus can be found.
with the little I have left,
what if we knew more than being bereft?
what if we stayed close to the earth,
saw this as an opportunity for rebirth?
with time, if we stay,
if we let the miraculous remedy be made—
we need this time.
we need the down.
not to be tethered, not to be mistaken,
but to redefine all that is ours for the taking.
don’t fake it, don’t keep pushing through.
allow it to hold all of me and all of you,
to be the resurrection of all this time—
of being down, of being low,
of being still—
and what it actualizes in us,
what seeds it finally sows.
without down time, how can anything bloom?
be it illness, hardship, or the ways this world consumes
the very heart and soul of all we are—
what if we used it as the very star
to wish upon and rest within?
what if all this down time
is a way for us to truly begin?
Hey hear dear community, for the last ten days, I have been down. COVID took its toll, and in the thick of it, I had no choice but to stop—fully, completely. And what I’ve realized in this time of forced stillness is that it wasn’t just my body that needed to rest, but my spirit, my drive, my deeply ingrained conditioning that whispers, keep going, keep doing, keep proving your worth.
Yet here, in the depths of being unwell, I found something else: contentment. Not the kind that bypasses pain, but the kind that holds it with grace. Santosha.
In yogic philosophy, santosha is the practice of contentment—not just when life feels abundant, easy, and clear, but especially when we are met with gravity, grief, and great ambition. It is the ability to center into enoughness, even when scarcity knocks at the door. It is the invitation to trust, to soften, to surrender to the moment as it is—without resistance, without rushing to the next thing, without needing to fix, force, or fight our way through.
And trust me, I know how hard that can be.
As an entrepreneur, a sole creative, a person whose work is woven into my being, there is no built-in safety net. No paid sick days, no pension, no system ensuring income while I heal. The shadows of scarcity and urgency still try to pull me in—whispering that time off is time lost. That rest is risky. That pausing will set me back.
But what if that’s not true?
What if these ten days—this deep, necessary down time—has not been a loss, but a return? A return to wellness. A return to presence. A return to the truth that I cannot offer what I do not have.
Healing takes time. And time is something we rarely give ourselves.
We rush through illness, expecting instant recovery. We rush through grief, expecting it to obey our timelines. We rush through the discomfort of the world, numbing ourselves instead of sitting in it long enough to listen. But what if this, too, is a portal? What if, instead of resisting, we allowed the lows—the uncertainty, the slowness, the stillness—to show us what is of true value? What is essential?
For me, it always comes back to this: being well.
Not just getting by, not just pushing through, but truly, deeply, sustainably being well.
And I can’t teach something I don’t know. I can’t give something I don’t have.
Even with all my practices, all my knowing, I still wrestle with the urge to override my limits. But this time, I let go. Softly. I surrendered, I rested, I let santosha take the lead. And I can already feel the difference—when we give ourselves permission to be in the down time, to honor the pause, the rising becomes that much sweeter. The return is richer, more rooted, more aligned with truth and longevity.
And I wonder—what if we all allowed ourselves this space?
To move from illness to illumination.
From disease to ease.
From depletion to deep knowing.
Because we were not meant to rush through healing.
We were meant to arrive fully into the wholeness that awaits us on the other side.
And sometimes life reminds us of this in the most beautiful, sacred ways…
On my birthday, February 22nd, the coffee bloomed at my most cherished space and place, the Fallas Coffee plantation in Costa Rica…
What a gift! A gentle and grand reminder, straight from Mother Earth herself, that everything unfolds in divine time, in due time, thanks to the courage of down time.
I’m still shaking my head and smiling wide for that gift, that blessing, and all the other incredible ways love showed up so brightly for me—even when I was down and under.
It’s got me thinking and feeling into the questions, the curiosities: How can anything truly blossom without the roots that run us down, hold us up, and remind us of just how innate the beauty can be?
💛 please feel free to share any and all of your thoughts, insights, challenges, downtime and bloom time below in the comment box - and please consider clicking the heart at the top and bottom of this page as a way of supporting and uplifting the reach of mine💛
ps, Learn more about my dear friends, Esteban and Lilliam Fallas, and their vision for sustainable Costa Rican coffee here: https://www.fallascoffeecostarica.com/