Reflections on Connection-Centered Leadership - Issue No. 18: Being Present in Moments that Matter

Melissa Swonger & Erica Elliot at iHeart Radio Country Music Festival '26 & Melissa and her daughters

This season of my life feels full in a way that is both meaningful and demanding. My personal life with adult children is a season of transition. Two are still undergrads, one is in grad school, and the oldest is out of grad school and in her first career-based role. One is getting married in a few months. One has an imminent proposal. One is preparing for the MCAT. Last weekend alone, we celebrated a birthday, said “yes” to the dress, honored Mother’s Day, and encouraged those still moving through finals, all while navigating tri-state travel for personal matters and continuing work with the IRB for research projects.

Professionally, the pace has been just as full. In the last six weeks, I’ve moved between very different environments—from attending the iHeart Podcasters Awards at SXSW, to the iHeart Music Awards in Los Angeles, to the iHeart Country Music Festival in Austin, all as a VIP with my publisher, She Rises Studios. In between those moments, I’ve recorded podcast interviews, continued building Mind Shifts Lab with Erica Elliott, spoken at events, developed workshops, worked on studio and brand development, and continued consulting and coaching, all while promoting current books and writing the next one for release in February, Mind Shifts with Erica. There are also collaborative retreats underway, including one in Costa Rica this October with Sharing Sunshine Safe Haven, along with the teams supporting each of these efforts.

Perhaps your schedule doesn’t look exactly the same, but the end result is often similar. We find ourselves managing full days that seem to move quickly from one demand to the next, with very little margin in between. And when you layer in something like CPTSD or ADHD, the transitions between those demands can feel like hopping on lily pads in the pond that has suddenly become an ocean.

If leading ourselves well is the first step to creating meaningful outcomes, and a necessary foundation before leading others and the work we carry, then moments of pause are not optional. They are essential. At several points this past weekend, I found myself intentionally slowing down enough to take in the moment I was actually in. Not the next one, not the one I had just come from, but the one right in front of me.

In the middle of all of it, one thought kept returning: be present in the moments that matter.

That awareness was reinforced in an unexpected way. Alongside everything else, I have started turning the lyrics I write into songs, beginning with writing songs for my children’s birthdays and pairing them with videos of their lives told through photos. It is, admittedly, a new hyperfixation that occasionally keeps me up longer than it should. But it has also become something deeply meaningful and unexpectedly grounding. It has required me to slow down enough to remember, reflect, and engage with moments that could otherwise pass by.

What I have learned, regardless of season, context, or environment, is that the stress does not disappear simply because we pause. The responsibilities remain. The list of what needs to be done is still there. But our experience of those moments shifts when we allow ourselves to be fully present within them. Many of us, especially those carrying multiple roles and responsibilities, find it difficult to compartmentalize. We carry the weight of one moment into the next without realizing it. Over time, that accumulation can feel like overwhelm. But we are not bound to operate that way. We can learn to work with our brains rather than against them.

For me, this has become especially important in a life where work and home are often intertwined. With a home office, remote work, and a studio, there are very few external cues that clearly define when one part of the day ends and another begins. The structure has to come from within. The shifts have to be internally led.

Here are a few ways I’ve learned to stay present in the moments that matter:

1. Accept the limits of the dayI acknowledge there is always more work to do than can be completed in a single day, and I release the pressure to finish everything at once.

2. Invite God into the structureI thank Him for the work in front of me and ask for wisdom and discernment in how to steward the hours of my day well.

3. Work in focused segmentsI create space in 30- to 45-minute blocks, allowing myself to reset, step away, and return with greater clarity.

4. Give distractions a place to goI keep a notepad with me so I can write things down instead of holding them in my head. I don’t reprimand myself for distraction—I acknowledge it, thank my brain for remembering, and give it a place to rest.

5. Create intentional transitionsWhen moving between work and family, I mentally “put the day away,” envisioning it in a container I can return to later. I ask God to hold it in the meantime so I can turn fully to the people in front of me.

Without these practices, my attention becomes divided across too many areas, and I begin to feel the effects of that fragmentation. We are not designed to fully engage every area of our lives all at once. Sure, we multitask. There is organization and rhythm to that. But trying distractions and unintentional delays due to fluid boundaries within each sphere of influence are not the same as intentionally multitasking. As our lives expand and each area holds weight and importance, the need for intentional presence becomes more, not less, significant.

This is where the sequence matters. When we begin by connecting vertically, we anchor ourselves in something greater than the moment. When we move inward, we begin to understand how we are wired and how to work with our internal patterns without shame or condemnation. From that place, we are better able to connect outwardly in a way that is grounded, present, and responsive rather than reactive.

The weight of shame or self-criticism often does more to hinder progress than the actual demands before us. When we release those and learn to work with how we are designed, we create space not only to accomplish what is in front of us, but to actually experience it.

We have a great deal to do, a full life to live, and people who matter deeply within it. The impact we make begins with how we lead ourselves within the moments we are given. It begins with surrender, with the recognition that God is God and we are not, which frees us to be fully human within the life we have been entrusted with. From there, we can work with our minds and bodies rather than against them, and in doing so, we find that we are not simply moving through our days, but are actually present within them, able to recognize the moments that matter and receive them as they come.

— Melissa, Architect of Connection-Centered Leadership

The Sage Hill Project

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