I’ve been talking about the emergence of your essence in previous podcast episodes, but I want to talk about what that’s actually starting to look like.
I suppose before I did this work, I didn’t fully understand what it meant for your essence to emerge. I don’t think I actually thought it emerged. I perhaps believed at one time that you connected to the core of yourself that was always there meant that you’d be guided by it, and that’s all. But it’s so much more than that.
And the reason I’ve wanted to talk about this is because something unexpected has happened recently. Last week, I had a quiet workday, nothing pressing, no fires to put out. It felt unfamiliar, but it was eerily comfortable. I was able to be productive in the ways I needed to be for the day, and I was able to get caught up on things that had been on my to-do list for quite some time. It didn’t have much structure, but it allowed for other productivity to emerge. The day was workable.
Then came an unstructured Saturday. And instead of relief or ease or the desire to rest, I felt unsettled. And it wasn’t because there were things left undone. It was because I wanted to enjoy my day, really enjoy it, and I didn’t have an obvious way to do that. This caught me off guard.
I know myself deeply, but I realized I haven’t always had the capacity, or the freedom, to give myself my full attention. Rest, I know. Recovery, I know. Running a business, being a single mom, and managing a household is something I’m quite good at maintaining.
But enjoyment? Wanting my own company, not just as a place to recover, but as something I genuinely look forward to? That’s new.
And maybe for those of you listening, you might be thinking this is akin to downtime or treating yourself. It’s a little different than that. I want to experience myself – doing the things I love to do, yes, but also actually enjoying them, being present in them, and not looking at them as another checkmark off the list.
And here’s what I’m starting to see: the structures I’ve been building aren’t only creating stability and sufficiency. They’re making room for pleasure, for curiosity, and for exploration. They’re making room for a relationship with myself that isn’t organized around what needs to get done.
Last time, I talked about melt mode, the experience of receiving support that was already there.
Today, I want to talk about what comes next.
Because maybe the question isn’t “how do I rest?” anymore. I’ve got that. Maybe it’s: What becomes possible when I’m not just responsible for my life, but an active participant in enjoying it?
Part 1: Making Room for Enjoyment
We’ve talked quite a bit about creating financial stability, internal safety, and structures that allow you to move through life without constantly feeling like you’re managing a crisis. But there’s another dimension of sufficiency we haven’t explored as much. Having enough room in your life to enjoy being alive. Not because you’ve earned it. Not because everything on your to-do list is finished. And not because you’ve reached some financial milestone that finally gives you permission. Simply because enjoyment is a legitimate part of living.
Believe it or not, there is a capacity required for this.
And maybe what I’ve been sensing is that I’ve built that capacity, and my life is asking for a different kind of architecture now. I’ve built considerable structure around my responsibilities. My mornings have a rhythm. My work has systems. My outreach has a cadence. My household has routines. But what about enjoyment? Not another schedule to obey. Just more possibilities to receive.
And here’s the thing that has perplexed me about this: I’ve had free time before. Every weekend, my boys are with their dad every Friday night after school through mid-day Saturday and every other Friday night after school through Sunday morning. I’ve spent that free time in intentional ways. But I’m realizing now that having free time and having the capacity to enjoy it aren’t necessarily the same experience.
And I wonder if that’s what makes this past Saturday’s disappointment interesting. I wasn’t necessarily trying to escape my life. I wanted to participate in it more fully. There’s a difference between wanting to be entertained and wanting to be engaged. And I’ve been taking that time to do a lot of the former. Scrolling, watching television, and consuming content aren’t inherently bad. But they’re largely receptive activities. You’re taking in something someone else has created.
What I’m longing for sounds more like a desire for active enjoyment. Creating something. Learning something. Exploring somewhere. Experiencing something new. Engaging with the world in a way that feels personally satisfying.
I’ve spent months developing the internal and external architecture to support my life. I’ve been learning to recognize when I’ve abandoned myself, when something isn’t mine to carry, and when my body is signaling that I need something different.
Now perhaps I’m beginning to recognize another kind of signal. Not a signal that something is wrong. A signal that something is wanted. And that might be an important development. Because self-trust isn’t only about recognizing what you don’t want, what doesn’t feel right, or what you need to release. It’s also about being able to recognize what genuinely delights you – and allowing yourself to move toward it.
Because enjoyment can tell you where you’re aligned, what you’re drawn to, what feels alive, what you look forward to, and this is all information about your essence.
I’m talking about having an entire day in which your own desires are the organizing principle. Think about how different that is from the architecture I’ve built around my life so far.
My morning routine supports my energy so you can move through the day. My work systems support my income and business. My household routines support my children and home. Even when those structures are serving me, so much of their purpose is helping me meet the demands of your life.
And now I want structures that exist simply to support my enjoyment.
A full Saturday that’s genuinely mine represents more than leisure. It represents time that doesn’t automatically become available for someone or something else simply because it isn’t already occupied.
A month or two ago, an open Saturday was primarily an opportunity to recover. Now I’m imagining a Saturday filled with experiences, and rather than sounding exhausting, it sounds delightful. My relationship with available time is changing, and enjoying myself in that available time is a muscle I’m building through curiosity, experimenting, and noticing what I actually like.
In a way, enjoyment is becoming something that shows me who I am. I’ve been exploring what happens when you stop organizing your internal world around who you think you need to be. Now I wonder whether I’m beginning to explore what happens when you stop organizing all of your available time around what you need to do. What do you choose when nothing is required of you? What delights you when it doesn’t have to serve a purpose? What does a day look like when you are allowed to be its primary consideration? And perhaps most importantly, can you let yourself enjoy that day without feeling obligated to make it useful?
Sufficiency isn’t only having enough to meet your needs. It’s having enough space, resources, and freedom to honor your desires, too.
Part 2: Discovering What It Feels Like to Be You
If being well-resourced externally gives you the margin to have and do more, being well-resourced internally (meaning having the capacity to hold more) gives you the room to enjoy it more.
I referenced capacity at the beginning of this episode, because I believe that having the capacity to enjoy yourself is a real thing, and not one that we’re taught.
Personally, I find myself doing things I used to love to do, but I’m doing them with new eyes… meaning, a new capacity.
Part of this is re-discovering what you like, but also you’re discovering what it’s like to enjoy being you.
I’ve spent so much of my life developing my ability to respond to what life requires of me. I’ve become increasingly intentional about how I work, how I parent, how I structure my days, how I care for my body, and how I respond to difficult circumstances. But now I’m encountering a question that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with responsibility, growth, healing, or achievement.
What would I simply enjoy?
And perhaps the novelty isn’t in the answer. Perhaps it’s in the experience of being able to answer that question without immediately filtering it through everything else. What do the boys need? Can I afford it? Should I be working instead? Is there something more important I could be doing? Some of those practical considerations will still exist, of course. But they don’t have to determine whether my desires matter.
We’ve talked about my experiences of melt mode — that growing sense of internal safety, of being able to receive the present moment without needing to manage or control everything.
I wonder whether this is another expression of that same developing capacity. Not just receiving stillness. Receiving pleasure. Receiving enjoyment. Receiving experiences that exist entirely for you. And maybe that’s why Saturday felt disappointing. Not because I couldn’t tolerate having nothing to do. But because I could finally sense how much more I wanted to experience.
On this podcast alone, I’ve spent so much time talking about the architecture of my life, and now I’m talking about what I want to put inside it. And it’s not more responsibilities. It’s more living.
Maybe the next part of emergence isn’t about becoming more capable. Maybe it’s about discovering what you want to do with the capacity you’ve already created.
What is it like to experience life when I am the one receiving my own attention? And I’m not talking to the version of me who needs to solve something, or the mother anticipating what her children need, or the business owner thinking about what needs to happen next, or even the woman intentionally working on herself. Just me.
Walking into a coffee shop because I want a coffee. Wandering through a museum because something catches my eye. Sitting down for lunch without needing to be anywhere afterward. Choosing something beautiful in a store simply because I like it.
And perhaps the most interesting part is that I’m not describing a desire to become someone else. I’m genuinely curious about what it feels like to be fully present for the person I already am.
This is especially relevant to our exploration of essence.
We’ve talked about emergence as something that happens when you stop getting in the way of what’s already there. But in this episode, we’re looking at another dimension to that – one that we haven’t really explored yet. What happens when you stop directing so much of your attention outward that you rarely get to experience yourself as the center of your own life?
Not in a selfish or self-absorbed way. In the very ordinary, human sense of having a life that belongs to you, too. I’m not saying, “I don’t know who I am without all these responsibilities.” I’m saying, “I know who I am. I’m excited to find out what it’s like to spend time being her.”
I’m not waiting for someone to tell me that I’ve done enough, earned enough, accomplished enough, or sacrificed enough to deserve enjoyment. I’m recognizing that my enjoyment is mine to choose, create, and experience.
There’s a difference between giving yourself permission to live and recognizing that your life is already yours to live.
In Closing: How This Relates to Emergence
Perhaps one expression of Emergence is no longer experiencing enjoyment as something that must be earned, justified, or permitted. As internal safety and self-trust deepen, enjoyment becomes something I can freely choose and give to myself.
If melt mode is receiving rest and support, enjoyment goes a step further: receiving pleasure, curiosity, and your own company, with no task attached. Rest is something you can recover into. Enjoyment asks you to show up as a participant, which is why my unstructured Saturday felt disappointing. Nothing was wrong. I was simply meeting a capacity I haven’t had much room to build, and the disappointment may simply be the edge of something new.
That also fits Emergence. Stability and sufficiency are the ground, and enjoyment is what grows once the ground is there.
And this is the heart of Soul’d, too: marketing and manifesting with nothing but the essence that is you. Because if I can’t enjoy being with myself, I’m not going to build anything from that place. Enjoyment isn’t a reward at the end. It’s part of how essence shows up.
Click on the link above to watch the latest episode of Soul’d, or listen to it here on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sould-by-christina-giordano/id1760357148 or here on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2EXmS5t7jgohMD4P4ZzKEu
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Begin with the foundation. Soul’d: Business That Begins Within is an essence-led framework for building a business that is rooted in coherence, not performance. Learn more: https://christinagiordano.com/get-guidance/the-e-book/