I could see parts of the ski lift chairs peeking through the trees.

It gave me pause.

Change is on the way.

The mornings are becoming crisper. The leaves are beginning (ever so slowly) to loosen their grip on the summer green. Soon, more of the mountain will be revealed as one season quietly gives way to another.

And I wondered:

What if the seasons are changing in our lives, too...but we’re moving too quickly to notice?

Nature rarely rushes its transitions. It gives us clues. The cooler morning. The changing light. The first falling leaf. The lift chair suddenly visible through a thinning canopy.

Our lives give us clues, too.

A growing restlessness.

Something that once energized us now feels heavy.

A longing for more quiet.

A relationship that needs our attention.

A nudge from God that keeps returning.

A sense that the way we’ve been living no longer fits who we are becoming.

But when we move through life unconsciously, we can miss these signals.

We wake up and begin responding.

Emails.

Texts.

Obligations.

People who need something from us.

Before we know it, another day has passed.

Then another.

And another.

We can be responsible, productive, and successful while becoming strangely disconnected from the life we’re actually living.

This is one reason Greg McKeown’s idea of Essentialism speaks so deeply to me.

Essentialism isn’t simply an argument for doing less.

It’s an argument against moving through life unconsciously.

It’s an invitation to become awake enough to recognize what season you’re in, and intentional enough to choose what belongs in it.

There is a danger in unconscious living:

If we don’t consciously decide what matters, our habits, schedules, expectations, and other people’s priorities will decide for us.

And just like the mountain outside my window, our lives are changing whether we are paying attention or not.

So how do we become more conscious?

1. PAUSE — Notice What’s Changing

Nature doesn’t announce, Summer is over. Pay attention.

It simply begins changing.

Our lives often work the same way.

Something may be shifting internally long before we can name it. I had a great mentor share with me once that “God deposits a new season inside us long before we know it. These deposits need time to marinate.” This is why pauses matter.

Ask yourself:

What am I beginning to notice about this season of my life that I couldn’t see before?

2. PAY ATTENTION — Notice Where Your Life Is Going

Our calendars can reveal more about our priorities than our intentions.

We may say faith, health, family, meaningful work, friendship, and rest matter deeply to us. But where are our time & energy actually going?

Living consciously means occasionally stepping outside the busyness of our lives long enough to see where it’s carrying us.

Ask:

Where is my time, attention, and energy going—and is that where I want my life to go?

Think of it like a compass. You don’t have to be dramatically off course to eventually arrive somewhere you never intended. A few degrees, repeated over months and years, can take you far from where you hoped to be.

3. CHOOSE — Decide What Is Essential Now

Every season asks something different of us.

What was essential two to five years ago may not be essential now. (*You may want to read this sentence again.)

And that’s okay.

The trees don’t cling to summer because summer was good.

They release what belonged to that season and make room for what comes next.

Maybe conscious living requires us to do the same.

Ask yourself:

What are the three things that feel most essential in this season of my life?

And then perhaps the harder question:

What needs to become less important so these things can take more of center stage?

Because our lives have limits.

We cannot give everything our full attention.

We cannot say yes to every opportunity.

And we cannot enter a new season while insisting that everything from the old one come with us.

Maybe the opposite of an essential life isn’t a busy life.

Maybe it’s an unconscious one.

A life where we keep moving without asking why. Where we keep saying yes without considering the cost.

The changing seasons remind us to wake up.

To pause.

To pay attention.

To choose.

Because eventually our days become our years—and our years become our life.

The story you live in is the story you live out.

So as summer begins its slow surrender to fall, perhaps there is one question worth carrying with us:

Am I consciously choosing the life I’m living, or simply continuing the life that has become routine, habitual?

In September, for our Paid Subscribers, I’m going to take a deep dive into helping more women become intentional about how they want to live, how to find more joy, and how to live into their next season.

This will be hands-on, personally with me. Diagrams, worksheets, LIVE gatherings + more so consider upgrading to Paid and join us.

After I picked myself up off the floor (post-reading the eleven-page syllabus, and that’s just the first eight weeks), I realized the next step I needed to take. I had to separate what was important from what was essential.

I walked the members of my ALIGN Community through this last week, and they all concluded this was essential to entering the fall season. Here we go...

In his book Essentialism, Greg McKeown writes, “It isn’t about getting more done. It’s about getting the right things done and having the courage to let other things go.”

So many things in life feel important. Few things are actually essential.

There’s a lot competing for our attention as women. We are mothers, significant others, entrepreneurs, executives, sisters, community advocates, and spiritual beings.

You may not be starting seminary or graduate school this fall. But you’re probably starting, or in the middle of, some new season of your own.

• Perhaps you’re inserting a new workout routine into an already full life.

• Perhaps you’ve committed to cleaner eating, and that means food prep on the weekends. (This one has always been my struggle. Real talk: the commitment it takes is no joke.)

• Perhaps you’re adding a new line of business that’s going to take time to build brand awareness. It doesn’t matter how established you already are. New is new, and it takes people time to understand it’s part of your expertise.

• Perhaps you’ve reached a point where you know you can’t rely on yourself alone for the bigger answers, the bigger picture. You know you have to go deeper. It’s time to go to the source, to the ‘living’ water sitting in the well inside you. This new practice will take time & consistent effort and…it’s WORTH it.

Whatever you’re carrying this fall, here’s what I’m doing to make sure my sixteen hours a day (yep, 16 because we don’t actually get twenty-four. Remember sleep?) are spent on what’s essential, what matters most.

Take an Essential Audit

Create three columns on a page: Keep in column one, Reduce in column two, Release in column three.

Keep. Reduce. Release.

Get honest with yourself. Here are the questions I asked myself in each column to make sure I’m choosing what matters most:

Column One: Keep

These are the questions that tell you something belongs, not because it’s comfortable, but because it’s at the core of who you are.

• Does this connect directly to who I’m becoming this season, or to who I was three seasons ago?

• If I could only keep three things on my plate right now, would this survive the cut?

• Is this mine to carry, or have I just always carried it?

Column Two: Reduce

Reduce is the column most women skip. We think in all-or-nothing, when the honest answer for most of what’s on our plate is: less of this, not none of this.

• What would eighty percent of the effort, with eighty percent of the result, actually look like?

• Who else could help me with this so I’m not doing it alone?

• Is this still worth the energy I’m giving it, or would half as often be enough?

Column Three: Release

This is the hardest column, and the one where the real freedom lives.

• Am I holding onto this because it’s essential, or because I’m afraid of who I’ll disappoint if I let it go?

• If I released this today, what would really happen? (Most of the time, it’s less than we fear.)

• Is this life-giving or life-draining?

Go ahead and sit with your three columns for a few days before you act on them. Release is rarely a one-time decision. Some things you’ll move from Release back to Reduce, and that’s fine. The point isn’t to get it perfect the first time. The point is to stop running your life on what’s merely important and start running it on what’s essential.

I’d love to know what landed in your Release column. Hit reply and tell me. I read every one.

Upgrade To Paid

Read more

Maybe you have traditions like that too. Some you grew up with. Others you picked up somewhere along the way, in a different season, for reasons that made sense at the time.

Four years ago, I got to a point where I was ready to confront everything I’d been taught growing up. I wanted peace. I wanted more Joy. I wanted to feel fully alive, and to live in presence instead of that never-ending, low hum of performance.

Most of the time, it eluded me.

I loved God. I felt like I had strong faith. And underneath all of it, I still carried this gnawing hunger, this ache for what it actually feels like to live with peace, with Joy no matter what life throws at me, with presence, with a heart bathed in love.

So I asked myself a hard question: ”With everything I’m doing in my life, am I becoming a person of love, peace, kindness, and patience?”

Or to make it simpler, “Can I point to real, measurable growth in even one of those areas?”

The answer was a firm NO.

If you believe it might be possible to Find More Joy Every Day, and it’s still not your reality, ask yourself the same thing.

Would your family and friends say, “I sense a real peace about her. She seems joyful. I feel like she’s present when I’m with her”?

If not, it might be time for new practices. New rhythms. Ones that lead you into God’s presence, the kind where you feel held, close, like a warm blanket wrapped around you.

Sometimes we need to shake things up. Get uncomfortable. Try something new.

Luke 5:37-39 says, “No one puts new wine into old wineskins. The new wine expands, the old skins burst, and everything spills out and gets wasted. New wine needs a fresh skin. And after drinking the old wine, nobody wants the new. They just say the “’old is fine’”.

Maybe you don’t want to give up what’s become your go-to when it comes to faith. It’s comfortable. You don’t have to think about it. You’ve done it for years.

But here’s what I know. I love cauliflower and cake. I can’t live on either one alone. My body needs a variety of nutrients to actually grow, to heal, to become healthy. It’s the same with your Spirit. Church on Sundays, or a service streamed online, or a “read the Bible in a year” group with friends... these are all good things.

But ask yourself:

Is what you’re doing bringing you closer to God?

Do you feel His presence?

Are you carrying peace through your day, or have you just gotten good at performing it?

Have you let go of the worry, or are you still holding the wheel?

For years I ran myself ragged trying to control every part of my life, and my family's too.

Distraction is the primary spiritual problem of our culture right now. Everyone is tuned to a frequency of ON, all the time. We’re expected to respond to every request within minutes, and if we don’t, people start wondering if something’s wrong with us. At one point I was answering Facebook posts, Messenger, Instagram, Instagram DMs, personal texts, work texts, and email, all day, at a pace that left me exhausted by noon.

I might even describe myself back then as a Crisis Christian. I went to God, all right. Every time there was a crisis, I was on my knees. But most of the time, I was too busy trying to manage everything myself to ask Him for anything at all.

Here’s the danger of staying comfortable in the same old routine.

1. You might miss His whisper. You were created for more, and only God knows what your next season holds. The Holy Spirit is alive inside you, waiting, trying to get your attention, while you’re too busy or too unsettled to notice.

2. You start mistaking motion for growth. Showing up to the same service, saying the same prayers, checking the same box every week, can quietly become a way of feeling spiritual without ever actually changing. Comfortable becomes a disguise for stalled.

3. You lose your capacity for the unexpected. A life built entirely on routine trains you to expect God to show up the same way, at the same time, in the same form. When He doesn’t, you might not even recognize Him. New wine doesn’t fit old wineskins because it changes shape. If you never risk the new skin, you never make room for what He wants to pour into you.

I began to find my way out of this through something small. A daily practice, only fifteen minutes, that changed how connected I felt to God, not once in a while during a crisis, but every single day. I started worrying less about my business, my marriage, my kids. Not because the challenges disappeared, but because something in me settled.

I’m going to walk you through exactly how I structure those fifteen minutes, minute by minute, including the one thing I set up in my home the night before that makes it happen instead of staying a good intention.

Upgrade to paid

Read more

Read more

Read more

Get more from Finding Joy Every Day in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

Get the app

Read more

I’ll be LIVE in just 30 minutes on Instagram!

Join me as we officially kick off Come Closer: 40 Days with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit together.

During this live session, we’ll prepare our hearts for the next 40 days, talk about how to get the most out of this journey, and I’ll answer your questions live.

Be sure to have your Come Closer: 40-Day G…

Read more

We talk about macros, micros, calories, fasting, time-restricted eating, rucking (that’s carrying a weighted backpack to boost your cardio), red light therapy, cold plunges. I do most of the things on that list; however, I draw the line at cold plunges. The list goes on, all in the name of beating the odds on longevity.

But here’s what almost nobody is tracking: a plan for Spiritual Nutrition: What you’re doing to protect your soul from the “excess” digital distraction, the frenetic pace, the breaking news cycle that never gives you a break.

There’s a low-grade toxicity you and I breathe in every day, and most of it is invisible. It’s slow. It doesn’t announce itself. Our nervous systems have adjusted to running with cortisol levels high, and we’ve started calling that normal.

Here’s what I’ve come to believe: your plan for Spiritual Nutrition matters as much as your plan for physical nutrition. Maybe more. When your spirit is nourished, your mind operates differently. You think more clearly, make better choices, and carry a kind of vibrant energy that people notice.

I understand why the body gets most of the attention. It’s what people see first. But there’s this other part of you that, once cared for, creates a glow. People meet you and think, “What is she up to?” “What’s in that protein shake she’s drinking?” It’s the “I’ll have what she’s having” scene from When Harry Met Sally. And the part that took me a long time to learn, the part I want to shorten your learning curve on, is that this glow is already in you. It’s accessible. It doesn’t take much to activate.

That’s my intention here on Substack: to help you adopt a set of spiritual nutrition practices, easily and without a big lift.

Subscribe for free

Now, I know what you’re thinking, because I’ve thought it myself. Here are the three things I hear most, and how I respond.

“Joy, I don’t have any more time.” Friend, I’m right there with you. Family, a business to run, and I’m in graduate school for a Master’s in Spiritual Formation and Leadership. Time is not a luxury I have either. So let me ask it differently: do you have five minutes? Five minutes to sit still & breathe in the quiet. That’s it. It strengthens your immune system, boosts creativity, and it costs you less time than scrolling through your phone.

“I can’t meditate. I’ve tried; it doesn’t work for me.” I never said meditate. Grab a cup of coffee and look out the window for five minutes, phone out of reach. That’s the whole practice. Bravo, you just did it.

“This sounds good, Joy. Let me just get caught up on my to-do list first.” Here’s the thing about that one: when you practice presence for even a few minutes a day, you start to see your to-do list more clearly. What actually belongs on it, and what you can let go of.

Presence over performance. That one line rearranged something in me. Performance has driven most of my life, and I’m still unlearning it. That’s a conversation for another week, I promise you.

For now, if any of this landed, the practices I’ll be sharing here are built for people with real schedules and real skepticism about “spiritual” anything. No incense required. Just a longing to feel more of God at the Center of your life.

Subscribe

Here’s where I’m taking this next, for anyone who wants to go deeper than a five-minute practice.

I’m opening Come Closer: A 40-Day Journal with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit to paid subscribers. It’s a complete resource with Scripture and Journal Prompts, broken down into phases to bring God closer to your Center. Forty days of guided reflection built to turn everything I’ve written above into an actual daily practice, not just something you nod along to. I’ll be running weekly trainings alongside it too, live, walking you through each stretch personally so you’re never doing the 40 days alone.

The FIRST Weekly LIVE Training begins TOMORROW, Tuesday, August 4 at 11 am PT. I truly hope to see you there.

This is the spiritual nutrition plan, in your hands, one day at a time.

Upgrade to paid

Special Offer

For the next 14 days, you can take advantage of a lower rate for a paid subscription. There are only 7 days left!

I’m so excited to invite you to an exclusive LIVE training Tomorrow, August 4, at 11:00 AM PST as we kick off our Come Closer: 40 Days with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit journey together!

This will be a special time to prepare our hearts, set our intentions for the next 40 days, and learn how to get the most from this experience. I’ll also share …

Read more

I’m so excited to invite you to an exclusive LIVE training next Tuesday, August 4 at 11:00 AM PST as we kick off our Come Closer: 40 Days with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit journey together!

This will be a special time to prepare our hearts, set our intentions for the next 40 days, and learn how to get the most from this experience. I’ll also sha…

Read more

Maybe I’m dating myself, but remember the movie Urban Cowboy and the song “Lookin’ for Love (in All the Wrong Places)”? In the hurried, distracted, frantic culture we live in now, most everyone is looking for JOY in all the wrong places.

What I’ve learned is JOY is an inside game. Real JOY is something you already have available to you, especially when you make space for God and the Holy Spirit.

This is my purpose, my passion, my intention here. To help you easily & effortlessly make space to hear the whispers that God & the Holy Spirit have for you through LIVE teachings, practices, rhythms for daily living, and more.

When you subscribe, I’ll welcome you with a complimentary resource, 5 Practices That Move You Closer to Your Spirit.

In a world filled with noise, hurry, and endless distractions, these five simple practices will help you slow down, quiet your heart, and become more aware of God’s loving presence within you. They’re gentle rhythms you can begin today to cultivate greater peace, clarity, discernment, and joy.

It’s the first step in our journey together toward living each day with God at the center.

One of the challenging parts about hearing from God & The Holy Spirit is getting into an environment that opens your heart up to hear.

Perhaps…

You’ve spent years trying to do all the right things.

Seeking. Praying. Growing. Serving. Leading.

And yet, deep inside, you feel tired.

Not because you don’t love God. But because somewhere along the way, faith began to feel like striving.

What if the peace you long for isn’t somewhere ahead of you—but already alive within you?

For much of my life, I imagined God out in front of me. Leading. Guiding. Calling me forward.

But over time, I discovered something profound: God was never asking me to catch up. He was inviting me to live from the Spirit already dwelling within me.

Not God out front. God at the center. The Holy Spirit as the still point. The anchor. The sacred center from which everything else flows.

When God Is Out Front…

Faith can feel like a path you are trying to stay on. You wonder:

• Am I doing enough?

• Am I making the right decisions?

• Why do I feel anxious instead of peaceful?

It can feel as though God’s presence is somewhere ahead of you—always slightly out of reach.

When the Spirit Is Your Center…

Everything changes.

You stop striving and begin abiding. You stop chasing and begin resting. You stop asking, “How do I get closer to God?” And begin asking:

“How do I live from the Spirit who already dwells within me?”

From that Center comes:

• Peace in uncertain seasons.

• Wisdom for important decisions.

• Discernment for your next chapter.

• Greater trust and surrender.

• A deeper experience of joy.

Because joy is not something you manufacture. Joy is fruit—what naturally grows when your life is rooted in the Spirit’s presence.

My Own Journey

This understanding wasn’t born from comfort. It was born through loss. Lots and lots of loss.

In 2025, our family lost our home in the California wildfires.

Six months later, after a routine eye exam, I was told I was rapidly losing vision in my left eye. Two surgeries followed (Oct. 21 & Dec. 9) over the next two months. The first surgery failed.

There were many moments when I had no answers. Moments when striving no longer worked. Moments when all I could do was surrender.

And it was there—in the ashes, the waiting rooms, and the uncertainty—that my relationship with God shifted.

God moved from out front… to the Center.

I discovered that His presence wasn’t somewhere ahead of me.

The Holy Spirit was carrying me. Holding me. Sustaining me.

And from that center, Joy emerged. Not happiness based on my circumstances. But a deeper joy. A steady joy—the kind Scripture calls fruit of the Spirit.

Today, I often say that joy is the vessel I move through. Not because life is easy. But because when the Spirit becomes the center, joy becomes the fruit.

If You Are Longing For More…

Perhaps you are in a season of transition?

Perhaps you are questioning what comes next?

Perhaps you’ve accomplished much, but sense God is inviting you into something deeper?

Perhaps the invitation isn’t to run faster. Perhaps the invitation is simply to come home.

I'd love to take this journey with you.

A quieter way. A more peaceful way. A Spirit-led way.

You don’t have to figure it out alone.

I’m Joy Chudacoff, and for 21 years, I have helped women align and elevate their mind, body, soul, and spirit so they can live from the center of God’s presence and experience greater peace, purpose, and joy. I am certified in Spiritual Formation from Fuller Seminary, and I’m in the process of deepening my commitment to God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit by attaining a Master of Arts in Spiritual Formation & Leadership at Friends University.

I’ll create space for:

• Silence.

• Stillness.

• Discernment.

• Rhythms & Rituals for New Beginnings.

• Healing.

• Joy.

Subscribe now

Together we’ll explore topics like:

• Discovering how to silence all the noise in your mind

• Discerning God’s call for your new season

• Finding joy that isn’t dependent on circumstances

• Creating rhythms of stillness, silence, prayer, and reflection

• Letting go of what no longer serves God’s highest purpose for your life

• Hearing the whisper of The Holy Spirit

• Living from a place of peace

Not by striving harder. But by returning to the center.

Perhaps the invitation isn’t to run faster. Perhaps the invitation is simply to come home.

Subscribe now