November Reset

Choose on Purpose, Why Context Matters & the Practice of Returning

When I returned to writing, I promised monthly resets, and although I intend to honour that commitment, there are a few formalities we need to attend to first. This month, the monthly reset looks different. Because what better time to set the tone than at the beginning? The October reset was the first of our monthly series. We called reset a return. A return to self, to steadiness, to choose what builds rather than breaks. We set three gentle anchors for heart, home, and mind, and kept the practice intentionally small. Progress over performance, tenderness over overhaul.

Now, with that foundation in place, November can ask a different question. Not how to start again, but how to keep returning when life is full and the light changes. If you follow us on social media, then you'll know I call Nai my Fairy, and as the Fairy always says, context matters, so here's mine.

Many of my readers responded positively to our October reset article. They found the tips I offered around the ritual thought-provoking, useful in resetting and returning to themselves, and it got me thinking about the importance of maintaining new habits, which I, for one, have always found challenging at times in my life for one reason or another. What I can tell you is that there will always be a reason, a challenge, an obstacle. Life is just designed that way.

I have been going through an era of self-discovery. Rediscovering myself, my choices, and my habits...all of it, and I've learned two very valuable lessons. 1) It’s not enough to change. However, understanding the need for change is just as important, if not more important, than altering my routine, activating healthy boundaries and habits to achieve a calmer lifestyle. 2) Change is a lifelong journey. It is not a one-and-done game; it requires constant input.

Epictetus reminds us that we are disturbed not by things, but by the views we take of them. Remembering my context helps me choose my view, then my response. Life isn't straightforward, so why would this be any different?! It requires work to understand how we arrived here, and this is where your personal context is powerful. It’s the difference between starting a new routine when you feel energised, optimistic and hopeful, and maintaining that same routine when life really starts lifing.

When you’re going through a negative experience, a heartbreak, a grieving process, or some other loss. When the weather is damp, dark and cold, or when finances shift downwards, it’s easy to fall back into old habits and revert to familiar coping mechanisms that offer superficial soothing. Those are the times when old coping calls you back like fingers finding a piano scale they learned years ago.

You scroll a little more with the device glued to your hands like a magnet to a fridge door. You snack a little more. Skip the walk. Skip the gym. Skip the learning session. Binge the series. You tell yourself you’ll try again when you feel like it. But here's the thing: if you wait until you feel like it, you'll never feel like it.

Broccoli goes quiet. Bus shelter is forgotten - Read next on Patience & Boundaries

Context helps me adjust the habit instead of dropping it. I keep it going, just in smaller doses. Two minutes of box breathing. One session of tap therapy. Five mindful sips of coffee, or even stand in daylight for 90 seconds. Rinse wrists under cool water. Hand on heart and say, “I am doing the best I can. Do it with me and finish the line.

“Today I will care for myself by…”

Trust me when I tell you, minimums are not nothing. They keep you connected to yourself. If music helps you return, I've created a November playlist to set the mood. Slow edges, a steady heart, nothing that shouts. Press play while you do your minimums.

I bet you’re still wondering about my context huh?!

For me, it’s remembering how it felt to be powerless in my own life. Uncomfortable in my own body. To feel like I was over-functioning in relationships, or on the receiving end of low inclusion. Not considered. To pass the blame on to everything and anything outside of myself. Remembering those moments and how they left me feeling. Context. Never wanting to feel that way again means having a self-care contract I cannot break. One I will not break, because the price is higher than I could afford.

This is the bit that changed me, and as Marcus Aurelius wrote, the impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. Minimums turn hard days into practice rather than proof that I have failed. The Fairy often tells me that if I am not changing a pattern, a habit, a way of thinking or living that no longer adds love or value, then, whether I like it or not, I am choosing it. Even in the moments when I feel lost.

Now I see it. It is not enough to change; understanding why the change matters and what season I am in when I try to maintain any change in my life is the real work. So now I choose on purpose.

I still feel everything deeply. Frustration, anger, fatigue, sadness, disappointment, confusion and fear. The difference is that I no longer bypass any of it. I remember the context, and then I choose on purpose. To stay with the rituals and routines, because they are a form of love, respect, and self-compassion. Making these small promises keeps me close to myself when the world is loud.

Choosing on purpose does not mean I am perfect and have everything figured out. It means I notice when I drift and come back sooner. It means that when I notice my drift, I do the minimum instead of doing nothing. It means I lean into my creativity, and sometimes that is me listening to myself through my writing. It means I set one honest boundary, so I don't end up at another bus shelter. Wet, cold and crossed with myself, waiting for someone else to rescue me. It means I keep watering the broccoli even when I cannot see a floret yet. I act first and let the feeling catch up. Have you ever heard someone say, "I never feel like going to the gym, but onece I am there and I get going, I am glad I went"? That's exactly what I mean. Act first, then let the feelings catch up.

There is a deeper piece, too. I ask myself why I sometimes give up just when things might turn around. Do I have a small inner voice that feels threatened by an imagined critic outside me, arms folded, ready to say “told you so”? Just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Some days, that voice is an old fear dressed as wisdom. Other days, it is a younger part of me trying to keep me safe by keeping me small. I know now how to recognise the difference. This is why I turn inward, to notice it, name it, and decide whether it gets a vote. As Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” I hear that as an invitation. Look in. Tell the truth. Choose on purpose.

If you are wondering why philosophers keep turning up here, it is because I keep inviting them. I like good company while I tidy my habits. Blame my hobby of reading dead Greeks with my morning coffee.

In December, I want to practice love as a verb. Not the grand gesture, but the everyday kind that steadies a room. A handwritten card, sealed with wax. A warm table laid for two. A phone put away so a story can land. My homemade mince pies for friends and neighbours. I call it "Love at Christmas"; for me, it is context made tender.

Choosing on purpose to make small scenes of care that return us to one another.

With Love Always,

Mon ♡