September feels like a fresh page

On new beginnings, letting go of what isn't working, and finding your way back to yourself when the routines have slipped.

There's something about September that gets me every year, even now that my kids are grown and mostly gone and there's no backpack to pack or first-day outfit to pick out. The light changes. The air shifts just slightly. And something in me sits up a little straighter and thinks: okay. New season. Fresh start.

I've needed that feeling more than usual this year.

If you've been reading along since May, you know it's been a heavy summer. Grief, caregiving, a hard season that asked more of me than I had some days. I've written honestly about all of it because I believe that's what this newsletter should be, honest, and because I think a lot of you have been in your own version of a hard season too.

What I haven't written about yet is how much my own routines have slipped. The massage appointments I've rescheduled and not rebooked. The VAT sessions I've been meaning to get back to. The float tank sessions I leaned on so heavily last year that helped me get through some genuinely difficult stretches.

Actually, that brings me to something I want to tell you directly, and in my own words, before you hear it any other way.

Our float tank went down in June. If you've been a float client, you received a separate email about this, but I want to speak to it here too because it deserves more than a form letter.

When the tank went down, I fully expected to get it back up and running. But the repair process has been slow, the manufacturer has not been easy to work with, and the longer this has gone on, the more I've had to sit with a question I wasn't ready to ask: is this the right service for Circle of Life going forward?

Float therapy is extraordinary. I genuinely believe that. It changed my relationship with rest, with stress, with my own nervous system. For the clients who found their way to it, I know it changed things for them too. I will always be grateful for what floating brought into this space.

But it is an incredibly difficult service to run. The maintenance is significant, the equipment is temperamental, and it has never been easy to help people past the hesitation of trying something so unfamiliar. We have worked hard at it for years, and I am proud of what we built. And after a lot of honest reflection this summer, I've decided it's time to move on.

We will not be bringing the float tank back. Instead we are focusing on what we have always done best, and leaving room for what comes next. Infrared sauna and vibroacoustic therapy are staying, growing, and we are excited about the possibility of new services being introduced in the future.

This is not a loss. It's a decision, made with clarity, about what Circle of Life is and what it does best. And I feel good about it.

Now. Back to September.

I am not someone who handles slipped routines gracefully. I know what I need. I know how much better I function when I'm taking care of myself consistently. And I also know how easy it is to let that slide when life gets heavy, and how hard it can be to find your way back once it has.

September is my invitation to begin again. Not perfectly. Not with some ambitious new regimen that I'll abandon by the third week. Just one thing, recommitted to, with intention. For me that's getting back on the VAT table regularly. For you it might be something else entirely.

That's the thing about transitions. They don't require a grand gesture. They just require a decision, and a first step, and the willingness to begin again even when you've lost the thread.

September is a fresh page. What are you going to write on it?

Jen 💚