I’ve written before about RETURN ON RELATIONSHIP with yourself. A couple of years ago, I focused on creation… on following your instincts, leaning into uncharted experiences, and listening to that inner nudge that tells you to try something different. I still believe that. But sitting at the beach the other day, with no agenda, no notifications, no expectation to respond or produce, I realized there’s another side to that idea that has become even more important to me. This time, it wasn’t about creating anything. It was about sitting still long enough to hear myself think. And that, for me, is RETURN ON RELATIONSHIP WITH MYSELF too… maybe even more than before.
I wrote this last Sunday as I began something I’ve been thinking about for a while… my new quarterly social media hiatus. I’ve been taking one annually for a week after my birthday the last week of December for a few years now, but this was the first quarterly one I decided to start doing.
If you’ve read The Gift of Stepping Away, you know this isn’t about disconnecting for the sake of it. It’s not about rejecting social media. It’s about resetting my relationship with it, and more importantly, resetting my relationship with myself.
And to be clear… this isn’t about sitting in silence all day or trying to “empty my mind” like some idealized version of meditation. It can include that, but that’s not the point. What this really does is free up time… time that normally gets fragmented by checking feeds, reacting, posting, and staying in that constant loop. When that goes away, something opens up.
I found myself writing more freely, without thinking about how or when to share it. I read more, and more importantly, I absorbed more… without feeling the need to immediately turn it into a post. I listened more deeply. I gave myself the space to let ideas sit, to see where they go, to understand what I actually think and feel before putting it out into the world.
And it’s not just about thinking. It’s about living a little more uninterrupted. It’s having a phone call without watching the clock or the notifications. It’s riding a bike without feeling compelled to capture it. It’s being present in moments that don’t need to be documented to matter.
We live in a world engineered for interruption. Every spare moment gets filled… scrolling, checking, reacting. Even our downtime becomes consumption. We stay connected to everything and everyone… except ourselves. And that’s where this shift has really hit me. A few years ago, Return on Relationship with yourself meant doing… exploring, creating, following curiosity. Now it also means creating space… not reacting, not performing, but giving yourself room to think, to feel, and to simply “be” without interruption.
That quiet time at the beach isn’t about escaping… it’s about reconnecting, it’s about noticing what’s been buried under the noise, it’s about giving yourself the same attention you so often give to others. Because relationships, real ones, require presence… they require listening, they require time without distraction. Why would that be any different when the relationship is with you?
What I’ve come to understand is this… the stronger your relationship with yourself, the stronger every other relationship in your life becomes. You show up more grounded, more intentional, more real. And as I’ve said for years, REAL still trumps PERFECT… because REAL creates TRUST. That includes the trust you build with yourself.
So maybe RETURN ON RELATIONSHIP isn’t just about what you give to others, or what comes back over time. Maybe it also looks like stepping away, creating space, and investing in the one relationship that influences everything else… the one with you.
Coming out of this week, I feel a little clearer, a little more present, and a little more connected to what actually matters.