Alex Rainbird Music tiptoes into my ears and the noise inside me settles as my thoughts are let loose. Stillness resides here. The windows of my mind are rolled down and the breeze dances across my face.
It’s a rhythm I’ve learned to create; a rhythm I yearn for.
This is a space I access only through intentionality.
A beat forms under my fingertips as my thoughts escape and land on the screen. It mirrors the music – soft, steady, unforced. There’s a quiet cadence that isn’t metronomic, but rather feels like breathing. A stroll down a quiet, damp, windless path. It’s restorative.
The writing.
The sound.
The flow.
Placing pauses within chaos.
These rhythms make sense when so much doesn’t.
For years, I wanted a semblance of a routine that seemed impossible to capture, but lately the word rhythm has come to mind.
The wake up times vary. Supper follows an unpredictable schedule determined by the end of ball practices. Bedtime routines are but a distant hope.
And yet, there is a rhythm; a pattern with a steady structure underneath it all.
There is an intensity and an ease that meld together.
Last Saturday, I ran 20 miles (16 that morning before rushing to pre-Easter festivities; a slow four that evening to finish up). I’ve learned to hold back in the beginning. To let my body enjoy the slowness, finding a place to settle in, and when the rhythm comes things change. My mind clears, movement feels effortless, things click, and my body responds. (And let’s be real, we all know Brooke is still chugging along at 37-year-old, mother-of-four type paces, so don’t be fooled, we’re not flying over here).
Rhythm isn’t about doing the same thing each day, but about moving through days in a way that has similar patterns with flexibility.
We feel the rhythm when it’s there, but we also, probably even more so, notice the lack of rhythm when it’s missing.
Those moments, days, months, years when we feel things are out of sync, disconnected, and lacking a steady flow. We’re rushing, behind, exerting energy, but coming up short. Scattered. Discombobulated.
Motherhood can sometimes feel this way, but, even still, we can find rhythms.
A common theme among the athletes I’ve worked with is this: they’ve lost their flow. They can’t quite find their next gear or get in sync with what once felt natural. What used to come easily now feels forced.
We slow things down. We bring awareness. We re-create patterns. We ground. We become intentional about the environment we’re creating – internally and externally – until rhythm returns.
Some say, “I just can’t find it.”
Others feel like they’ve lost it.
That next level. That next step. That next gear.
It’s still there. We find a way to access it.
We see rhythms woven into creation.
Day and night.
Tides.
Seasons.
Growth.
There are things that ground our rhythms and things that pull us out of them.
So what do we do when the rhythm feels off?
We don’t force it. We find it. We become aware. We get intentional.
We settle in.
Because rhythm was never about perfection, but returning to that flow. That steady structure underneath it all.