Early Spring in Michigan can be a slog. The weather teases us briefly with opportunities to shed our heavy coats, hats, and gloves, step outside without wincing and then- boom- hail storms and the return of gray skies that make you question every life choice that led you to live in the midwest. For many folks I know- spring is a relentless, accelerating parade of appointments, obligations, recitals, performances, end of school-year projects, and celebrations, all crescendoing until the summer- when we can finally catch our breath.
My recent Thursday: up at 4:30am catching up on progress notes, being present and fully engaged with my therapy-clients, juggling 3 text threads about 3 different carpools, navigating a new medical issue for one kid, scrambling to comply with a new law by immediately rewriting our office’s policies, sending invitations for an upcoming party, and ordering a fourth dance leotard because, yes, the first three didn’t fit. This amidst the normal chaos of everyday adulting: dog-walking, lunch-packing, exercising, loading the dishwasher, and remembering to floss.
It’s a LOT. And this Spring it’s not just the personal stress that’s weighing on us- it’s the collective backdrop too. War. Violence. Surging cost-of-living. Freedoms that are less certain. Many of us are moving through our ordinary days while carrying something heavier underneath. That’s real and it matters.
There’s no single way through times like these. Previously I wrote about getting grounded in our values- a more serious strategy for getting through. This month, I want to offer something lighter. Possibly ridiculous. Definitely effective.
I pretend I’m in a movie montage.
I’ve always been a sucker for a good movie montage — You know: The sequence where the protagonist is doing All The Things, and it’s hard and a little frenetic, but there’s a great song playing and the energy is high and somehow it all adds up to transformation. Think Elle Woods cramming for the LSAT and charming her way into Harvard Law in Legally Blonde. Think Rocky running up the stairs at dawn like the world depends on it. The mundane becomes meaningful. The exhausting becomes triumphant. Nobody in a montage looks defeated — they look determined.
When I’m making the third grocery run of the week for a school project I heard about 45 minutes ago or am dashing out to fit in a vet appointment between meetings- I cue the music mentally and visualize forward motion rather than just chaos.
It sounds a little ridiculous and also- it works. Here’s why: How we narrate our experience changes how we feel about it. Framing a relentless week as “I’m barely surviving” feels depleting. Framing it as “I’m doing hard things and I’m still going” — with an imaginary soundtrack — shifts something. It’s not toxic positivity. It’s a deliberate story you tell yourself that leaves room for both the difficulty and the resilience. With good music.
So if you’re in it — the juggling and the sheer relentless volume of it all — consider this your invitation to pick a song and roll the montage. I might choose So What or Roar if I need some grit. Good as Hell or Shake It Off if I need some joy.
What would you put on your montage playlist?
