Today is the day I write my Substack article and to tell the truth, I don’t feel like writing it. This feeling is weighing heavy on me.

Everything in me says we should always push through. The responsible prism in me says we must honor our commitments. Those are so ingrained in me and I usually move forward in life with those character traits cemented into everything I do, often at great personal cost.

Today feels different somehow. It has been “that kind of week.” I’ve been working on a 60-page magazine and it’s crunch time. It has been so intense—the way deadlines get when everything else is also happening at once. I spent a day helping my 89-year-old aunt prepare for a trip to Cape Cod for her grandson’s wedding. She has Alzheimer’s, as did my mother, her sister. Helping her pack means making every decision alongside her, choosing outfits, buying wigs, packing everything up and bringing it all to my house so it’s washed, packed and ready to go for next week. It also means frequent frantic phone calls of her worrying when we are going to pack and when we are going to leave. Of course, those calls have been ongoing for weeks, long before we ever packed. It was a full day on an already overcommitted schedule.

Then late Friday afternoon I got a text from my daughter’s friend saying she had taken my daughter to the ER and was waiting with her. I knew she had been in pain all week and had encouraged her to go to the ER earlier. Emergency surgery.

Saturday I spent the day and evening at the hospital. I didn’t eat and I didn’t drink enough water, but I was there. I was present through the surgery and I was grateful to be there.

This morning I got up early, took care of the dogs (one was a neighbor’s who is out of town and the other was mine) and the chickens, got the laundry done, started packing for the trip, and waited to hear when my daughter is being discharged, whether she comes home with me and for whatever she needs.

Meanwhile my phone rings every hour or two. It’s my aunt, calling to ask how my daughter is and when we are leaving for Cape Cod. She asks because she loves us. She asks because Alzheimer’s prevents her retaining the answer between calls. I pick up every time.

I have Monday and Tuesday and what is left of today before I leave. In the middle of all of it, there is this article.

In his book “Do the Work,” author Steven Pressfield calls it being locked in a battle with intelligent, malign force of resistance. I had a big taste of that today.

Here is what I know about brand strategy: consistency is everything. The promise you make has to be the promise you keep, even when it is inconvenient, even when conditions are not ideal. I believe that completely and I have built a career on it.

And yet… today is harder than it’s been on any other Sunday since I started this Substack. There are days when life is so full it presses in from every direction at once, sometimes wonderfully and sometimes so hard you feel like you are on one of those centrifuge rides at an amusement park. You know, the one that spins so fast that not one person lining the cylinder’s walls can lift a hand or move their body because of the centrifugal force? This has been a week when being a mother and a caregiver and a business owner and a neighbor and a writer all arrived on a massive scale at the same moment and I haven’t quite caught my breath yet.

Let me be clear. I love what I do. I love teaching brand, helping business owners understand what they have—their distinction—and watching the clarity arrive. Today I don’t have something polished to offer. I am writing this article because showing up imperfectly still counts as showing up…it still counts towards my message of consistency.

I do hope it’s enough for this Sunday. And, I am genuinely curious what others do in these moments. How do you honor yourself and still maintain the consistency of your commitment?

Interested in more insights from Jennifer? Check out her latest thinking on Substack.