Marjorie K. Proctor

For more than thirty years, I lived in the world of education—a world where bells often ruled my day. I wore many hats: classroom teacher, literacy leader, special education consultant, administrator, and theatre arts teacher.

And then there was the other side of me.

The creative.

She was always there, but for a long time I struggled to understand how my professional and creative worlds could exist together. I was one of those all-or-nothing gals.

Then I retired.

In the process of letting go, parts of myself that I had gently left behind began to reemerge. I learned to slow down. To pause. To breathe differently. To listen to that wise inner voice that can be difficult to hear when life is moving quickly.

My creative energy returned. Stories that had been dormant for years began asking to be written. And I began questioning something I had believed for much of my life—that expansion meant MORE.

More accomplishment. More productivity. More proving.

It was exhausting.

Then came a simple realization:

I don’t have to force expansion.
I only have to make space for it.

That understanding now weaves through my writing and the experiences I create, including Expanding Presence—an embodied practice rooted in awareness, breath, intentional movement, stillness, and reflection.

At the heart of all of my work is an invitation to slow down enough to notice ourselves, reconnect with what we already know, and recognize that we have a choice in how we meet the next moment.

Pause. Notice. Breathe. Choose.

If something in you connected with these words, I invite you to explore. Perhaps making space is where your own expansion begins.