Adapt — Listening for what feels true, even when it isn’t the loudest voice

I’m Suzanne — a mum, occupational therapist, and long-time listener to the quiet wisdom that families carry. Lead Together is a space where parents and young people lead, services follow, and your vision for your life and your family’s life is honoured from the start. You are the expert. I’m here to walk beside you.

Welcome here,

You are receiving this on Bealtaine, May Day and she can be a little loud as she announces the coming of the light half of the year until Samhain. As I read more about Bealtaine I read about the importance in Celtic beliefs that it was also a time of protection from folk-magical and super-natural beliefs. Flowers (May posies) placed on entry and exit points to the home were thought to offer protection. If this feels like something you would like to practice, yellow flowers were seen traditionally as the flowers that were seen as particularly potent against evil spirits.

This week, Adapt doesn’t arrive as a strategy or loud like the coming of the light.

It feels quieter than that.

More like a shift in where we listen from, maybe that is the coming of the light.

Because Adapt, here, is not about doing something differently.

It is about being with what is already here… without rushing to organise it.

This week, I found myself in conversation with a parent.

They shared a possible explanation that had been offered to them as to why their child may be as they are.

It made sense on the surface.It was thoughtful.It came from a place of care.

But when I asked, gently,

“does that feel true for you?”

something paused.

And then something else emerged.

Not a rejection.

Not a dismissal.

But a different kind of knowing.

One that came from being with their child over time.

From noticing.

From living alongside what others only glimpse.

The explanation they offered wasn’t a million miles away from the original explanation offered,

But it held something more.

It made sense to the parent.

And, sitting there with them, it made sense to me too.

And I noticed something in that moment.

How easily we can lean toward what sounds certain.

What is professionally shaped.

What arrives with language that feels complete.

And how quietly other forms of knowing can step back.

Not because they are less valid.

But because they don’t always speak in the same way.

Adapt, this week, feels like staying with that pause.

The moment where something doesn’t quite fit.

And instead of moving quickly past it…

we turn toward it.

We listen again.

Not just for the most polished answer—

but for what keeps returning.

In Internal Family Systems™, we sometimes speak about “parts” or “passengers.”

Different voices, different knowings, all present at once.

Not needing to be fixed.

Not needing to agree.

Just needing space to be heard.

And perhaps this doesn’t only live inside us.

Perhaps it lives between us too.

In conversations.

In relationships.

In the spaces where more than one kind of knowing is present.

A possible next step

Not a plan.

Just a direction.

If something this week doesn’t quite settle—

something you’ve been told,

or something you’re holding—

what happens if you pause there?

Gently.

Without needing to resolve it.

And ask:

what feels true for me, right now?

Not instead of other perspectives.

But alongside them.

Abundance, for me this week, didn’t arrive as certainty.

It showed up once again in relationship.

In a conversation where something was shared.

Where laughter and seriousness sat side by side.

Where not everything was clear—

but something was held.

And perhaps that, too, is a form of enough.

A small invitation for relationship

If you notice a moment this week where your own knowing feels quieter than what is being offered around you—

what is one small way you might stay with it?

Not to prove it.

Not to defend it.

Just to let it have a place at the table.

A glimpse ahead

As we continue with our LEAD compass and move into Discover, I find myself wondering—

what shifts when we begin to trust that not all wisdom arrives fully formed?

What becomes possible when we allow different ways of knowing to sit alongside each other, without rushing to decide which one is right? Is there abundance and gratitude there?

A closing blessing

May you find space for the knowing that doesn’t come in polished words.

May what you have learned through being alongside others be welcomed, even when it feels uncertain.

May you not rush past the pause where something doesn’t quite fit.

May the conversations you are part of hold more than one truth at a time.

May you remember that your way of making sense… belongs.

And somewhere nearby,

a chipped teapot sits quietly on the bench, and the marmalade passed between hands,

and the ladybird pauses at the edge—

not deciding which voice is right,

just… staying long enough to hear them all.

(I am enjoying Marion McGarry’s book on Irish Customs and Rituals as I learn more about how our ancestors lived in community with the rhythm of the seasons.)

Take all of the care,

Suzanne

You're receiving this because you're part of Lead Together—a slow, relational space for all communities living in intergenerational spaces with the more than human world.

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