Some things take longer
After many delays we eventually moved back into our room. Some things just take longer than expected. And that’s okay.
At last we moved back into our own bedroom. Some things just take longer than you expect them to. This journey started with Matthew wanting to surprise Chantal with a properly fixed shower in our bathroom in January of this year. Once the shower was retiled, Chantal got the inspiration to make some changes in the main and spare room.
“We need to upgrade these built-in cupboards,” she said, looking at the very solid but very old fashioned cupboards from the 70’s.
Then she thought, if we are going to rip out the cupboards, maybe we should put in those wall to wall carpets in the main room? And a good repaint would really give it a facelift.
We packed up two rooms of full cupboards, moved items into places and spaces to store boxes and pieces of furniture. Temporarily. Our house looked like a second hand shop but it didn’t matter, it was only for a couple of weeks.
Everything slowed down
Of course once we had started ripping out stuff and peeling off wallpaper, other things revealed themselves. Like another leak in the wall, a wonky ceiling board and bubbling floor covering.
Everything slowed down. Sodden holes in walls had to dry out just as the weather turned wet. It didn’t help to try to hurry it. If we wanted it all to be done well we had to give it the time required.
We kept on reminding ourselves that we were lucky to have a decent place to stay while all the fixing and painting, laying and straightening was happening.
At last everything was complete. The curtains were up, and the furniture moved back in. Yet it still took us a few days to fill the new cupboards with our clothes, make the bed, and move back properly.
The idea of the move that we had been anticipating for so long was curiously resisted. We had become so comfortable in our temporary space. The new routines and habits that we had formed had started forging new pathways. Now we had to start again.
So inconsequential
It sounds so inconsequential, an internal move from one room to the other. On the one hand it is but on the other hand it isn’t. It stands as a metaphor and a mirror for key life changes.
Both of us came into this year knowing that we had to make some decisions about our work. The messages had been there during the course of last year. One door after another had shut and pathways to work had reached dead ends.
Change had happened, mainly externally and largely out of our control. Internally, however, we were feeling the discomfort of clothing that did not fit as well any more.
When a hand-in-glove opportunity with a potential client elicited an emphatic “No” it was the blaring horn of impending change bearing down on us like a massive ship. We had to get out of its way.
Metaphorical closets
We unpacked our metaphorical closets, and cleared out the rooms. There were things we had to say goodbye to. That was hard.
“There’s too much,” said Chantal, “We have to pare down and only keep what we need.”
Matthew, the more sentimental one, tried valiantly to tuck the box of also-rans in a dark cupboard behind the stationery and rolled up posters, “just in case”. He knew, though, that their time was done. He didn’t have to like it but he did accept it.
We planned and strategised and talked to AI. We worked through project plans and worked ourselves up into a frenzy of activity and learning.
“It’s such fun learning all this new stuff.” grinned Chantal peering at her screen.
“Mmmm,” replied Matthew, his prompt patter with Claude spewing reams of information that he gathered, digested and curated into brilliant content.
Our energy levels were high, we were motivated, determined, driven.
Some things take longer
Weeks have gone by. We are still not yet fully and completely in our new “rooms”. There have been delays, of course there have been delays.
Matthew has been ploughing through a particular project for much, much longer than he should have. He was almost done. And yet. He couldn’t get over the finish line. It caused not a little frustration.
A chance engagement, a chat with Chantal about something completely different, and there it was: the reason for the delay. A gift really.
“Imagine if I had finished this up and left that out?” he said.
Chantal too, found herself working on one element of her offering when it would stall. Her focus would be pulled to something else, also important. But the delay on the other task had left her feeling concerned.
It was only after she was closing out the new task that she realised that there were key elements from it that had to be brought into the other one.
These delays, initially seen as obstacles, were actually needed and necessary. A bit like discovering we had a huge leak in the wall before we painted it.
Some things do take longer than you expect them to. We have learned that patience is preferable to pushing. We have leaned into trusting the process. We listen for the clues and look for the hints.
The biggest difference has been in not rushing or forcing a result because there is always a reason for the delays and detours. While we keep a keen eye on the destination we are also embracing the journey.
Until next time.
Yours in feeling,
Chantal & Matthew
The Enhanced Games funded the demonstration of its own irrelevance
The Certainty Deficit is the space between what you can do and what your body will let you do when it counts. It is context-specific. You might have zero deficit in one situation and a significant one in another. Forty-two enhanced athletes performed in Las Vegas on Sunday night with every chemical and equipment advantage money can buy. Only one world record fell. This is what happens when an organisation builds the colosseum and forgets what it takes for a body to deliver inside it.
Credits for this issue — Images: 5th Place
Written by
Chantal Dawtrey
Supporting women, especially in midlife and beyond, to navigate life transitions · Emotional fitness coach
Chantal supports women, especially in midlife and beyond, to navigate life transitions. She designs and delivers data informed digital programmes that build organisational emotional fitness. She helps people move beyond habitual patterns into greater awareness, agency, and well being.
With over 15 years of coaching experience and more than two decades in facilitation and human development, Chantal partners with individuals, teams, and organizations to build emotional resilience, enhance self-awareness, and develop sustainable well-being strategies.
Her primary focus as a coach is supporting women, especially those in their 50’s and beyond, to navigate profound life transitions with clarity, steadiness and self-reconnection. Finding answers to questions about identity, purpose, belonging and desire to an emergence, a reclamation and a return to self.
If you're going through a transition and would like support, let's talk.
Matthew Green
Reducing the Certainty Deficit in high-performing people and teams · Emotional fitness coach
Matthew works with athletes, performance teams, and anyone who wants to reduce the Certainty Deficit in their situation or context.
The Certainty Deficit is the space between what you can do and what your body will let you do when it counts. It is context-specific and situational. A person or athlete can have zero deficit in one situation and a significant one in another.
The body holds beliefs that keep the Certainty Deficit in place. These beliefs run deeper than self-talk and faster than any conscious strategy. When they shift, the ceiling shifts, and new possibilities arise.
Matthew is also an emotional fitness coach who supports individuals to live and lead from a place of inner clarity and stability. The work is somatic-first, practical, and grounded.
If you're seeing a pattern that current approaches haven't shifted, let's talk.
My origin story: Why elite athletes underperform when it counts
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