The Intelligence of Returning to What Matters
TTL:R: This essay explores how resilience alone isn’t enough and how naming your core values becomes the bridge between surviving and regenerating. You’ll learn how Creative Adaptive Intelligence helps you turn chaos into clarity, proving that the way back to yourself starts with what already matters most.
How to Find Clarity (and Peace) in the Busy Season
You know that pre-holiday moment when your brain starts whispering,
“Sure, I can do that… and that too,”
and suddenly your to-do list looks like a Christmas tree overdecorated and about to fall over?
Yeah. That was me this weekend.
My improv team had a show in New Orleans. I hosted two parties at the ThrivHOUSE (one with live music, four cases of champagne, and about 80 neighbors passing through). Add three photo assignments, and it was equal parts fun, fulfilling, and utterly depleting.
And the Sunday Cup of Joy newsletter?
Yeah, that didn’t happen.
Well, not the way I planned.
Because, of course, I gave it my classic “I can do it all” energy. The kind that usually ends with me staring at a laptop at midnight, whispering, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
UGh! I have to remind myself, Jenn …
You can’t manage chaos by muscling through it.
You can only calm it by anchoring into what matters.
And this time, I actually took my own damn advice.
I checked in with my values, aka my compass. I asked:
What does success really look like right now?
And the honest answer? It wasn’t “doing it all.”
It was doing what mattered, and doing it well.
So instead of forcing a rushed Sunday newsletter to send, I chose to delay it, not out of failure, but out of integrity.
My value of living a harmonious life led the way.
You can’t pour from an empty cup of joy.
You refill it when you return to yourself.
Where Resilience Ends & Regeneration Begins
Naming my values was my first and most essential act of Creative Adaptive Intelligence.
Before I ever defined Creative Adaptive Intelligence, I lived it instinctively, reactively, sometimes beautifully, sometimes with the grace of a bull in a china shop.
I thought clarity came from effort. From getting things done, proving I could handle anything, and holding it all together with a smile and a spreadsheet.
Spoiler alert: it didn’t.
Clarity arrived when I finally slowed down enough to hear myself.
When I realized that what I called “resilience” was often just exhaustion dressed up as strength.
For years, I wore resilience like both a badge and a bruise. It got me through every storm, every pivot, every season of pushing through when pausing felt impossible. But the truth is, I was mistaking endurance for evolution.
Resilience kept me moving.
Regeneration taught me how to return.
Because returning is what turns resilience into momentum that lasts.
Momentum without regeneration burns out.
But momentum born from return from rest, reflection, and realignment becomes sustainable.
That’s the moment I realized:
“coming back” isn’t weakness. It’s wisdom.
When I finally gave that intelligence a name, it felt like naming a truth that had been living quietly inside me all along.
I couldn’t see it before, because I was too busy keeping everything in motion — saying yes to everything, trying to hold it all. HAH! Sound familiar?
The Pivot Point: Naming My Core Values
That missing piece revealed itself the day someone asked me,
“What are your core values?”
It seemed simple.
But when I tried to answer, I realized I could list other people’s expectations faster than I could name my own truths.
It wasn’t that I didn’t have values. It’s that I hadn’t given them language, presence, or permission to lead.
When you can’t name what matters, the world will name it for you.
And you’ll start living by everyone else’s values instead of your own.
So I sat down and named them. One by one. Sat with them. Let them breathe.
And gave them a way forward with me and for me.
That’s when everything shifted.
My values became anchors. not abstract ideals, but companions.
They helped me filter noise from signal.
They grounded me before I acted.
They became the way I returned to myself before I reached for anyone else.
And this is exactly what I did last weekend.
When I wanted to push through, I paused.
When I wanted to “just get it done,” I asked what my values had to say.
And the answer was simple: Harmony first. Hustle second.
That pause, as an act of return, was a regenerative decision. It was Creative Adaptive Intelligence in real time.
Ever wondered what happens after you name what matters?
(Other than realizing you’ve been brilliantly winging it all along?)
Where resilience learns to rest, purpose gets playful, and awareness starts leading the way.
Where Creative Adaptive Intelligence hums through the everyday leadership of how you show up, say yes, say no, and stay true.
💛 Get your Clarity Compass ThrivBUNDLE and start giving your values words. So they can give you wisdom.
If you are wondering …
