What to Do When the Structure Disappears

The hardest part isn’t finishing something well-worth doing, it’s figuring out what to do the morning after

Oct 26, 2025

I woke up this morning and, after a brief grounding for the day, I reached for my phone to check today’s prompt.

There wasn’t one.

The 13-Day EcoSpirituality Challenge ended on Friday. Today is Sunday. The structure that held my days for nearly two weeks vanished overnight. No framework. No prompt. No expectation waiting for me. Just empty calendar space and the question every person who finishes something structured eventually faces: Now what?

This morning I made coffee. Before feeding the dogs, I sat down and read through the Substack posts I subscribe to. I answered comments and questions with the kind of patience and deep attentiveness I’m only recently learning on this new-for-me platform.

This is the first time I’ve experienced real community in a social and writing context since the early days of Twitter, before 2013, before everything became performance, algorithms, and noise.

There are so many people on Substack writing and sharing profound ideas. Reading and replying with genuine thoughtfulness. It’s incredibly rewarding.

But here’s what I found to be strange: I didn’t do this because a challenge prompt told me to.

I did it because I wanted to. This small fact revealed something the Stoics understood centuries ago: we suffer when we try to control what we cannot control. We find peace when we focus on what we can—our practices, our pace, our choices—and let everything else work itself out.

The Ancient Lesson About Control

During the challenge, I could control when to show up to write. I could control my own commitment. I could control whether I posted or not.

I could not control reader response. I could not control engagement. I could not control whether people found value in what I shared or ignored it entirely. So I focused on what was in my power and hoped the rest would work itself out.

Now, with the structure gone, I’m learning the same lesson applies.

I can control my practices and my pace. I cannot control outcomes or external expectations. I can control showing up to the page. I cannot control who reads it or what they do with it. Much of life is this, isn’t it? We take action but can never control how that action—or its perception—is received by others.

This is a step toward wisdom.

Lots of people can embrace this in their own ways rather than feel crushed by external expectations, politics, or factors beyond our control. The structure disappearing forces this clarity, and it is uncomfortable.

When the Camino Ends

I’ve walked the Camino de Santiago five times.

The first one was the hardest ending. I arrived in Santiago numb. This pilgrimage had been on my bucket list for thirty years—thirty years—and when I finally finished, it didn’t feel right at all. I needed quiet and reflection along the way, a deep reverence for the process, history, and mystical experiences people have had for over a thousand years.

Instead, I was surrounded by people talking, noise, activity, and celebration. Everyone else seemed to know what finishing was supposed to feel like.
I didn’t.

The day after, I wandered around puzzling over why it felt so wrong. How could something I’d wanted for three decades feel so empty? The irony is that I didn’t recognize a need for contemplation within me before the Camino. I had no language for it. But that ending—uncomfortable, wrong-feeling—made me discover something essential about myself.

I need quiet to process. I need space to integrate.

It wasn’t until I started walking the Camino upstream in France, along one of the four ancient French paths, that everything felt right. The quieter paths. The fewer pilgrims. The contemplative pace. Now I can’t stop returning.

While walking, I journal and process many things. But the deep learning really has the chance to develop only afterward, when the structure of the path no longer holds me. When the yellow arrows and red + white lines along the great hiking routes in France disappear. When I have to figure out what to do with myself.

That’s when you discover what the journey actually changed in you.

You’re Not the Same Person Anymore

When you finish something intense, nobody tells you that you can’t go back to normal because you’re not the same person anymore.

The challenge changed how I think about public writing. It changed my relationship with accountability—both self-imposed and community-witnessed. It proved I could complete something I’ve tried and failed at before. I’ve attempted challenges like this before and didn’t finish them. This time I did.

The difference?

I made it public in my community. That added pressure to get it done—but most of it was positive, self-imposed pressure because I genuinely wanted to do this. Nobody else held me accountable. I did it for myself. But I did it for myself, knowing people would notice.

That’s the paradox of structure: it holds you accountable while also constraining you.

When it ends, you’re left with the question of who you are without it. What you actually want to keep doing versus what you only did because you were supposed to. This discovery is more complex than any structured challenge.

What I’m Actually Struggling With

I’m struggling with how to continue this focus on writing and processing my experiences without losing it.

There’s the fear that without daily structure, the practice will dissolve. That I’ll drift back to old patterns. That what I discovered will fade without the framework holding it in place. But here’s what Stoics would say: I cannot control whether I “lose it” or not.

That outcome is beyond my control.

What I can control is whether I show up today. Whether I engage with the Substack community with patience and attentiveness. Whether I write when I have something to process. Whether I honor my actual energy rather than override it. I can control the practices.

I cannot control the outcomes.

The Difference Between Challenge Energy and Sustainable Practice

Challenge energy is intense, focused, time-bound.

It’s “I can do anything for 13 days.” It’s adrenaline, commitment, and accountability pushing you forward. It’s also not sustainable. I posted daily for nearly two weeks. That doesn’t mean I’ll post daily forever. That’s not the point of challenges—they’re meant to prove you can, not mandate that you must.

Sustainable practice is different.

It’s quieter. Less visible. It doesn’t announce itself daily. It shows up in my morning routine: coffee, reading Substack, responding with patience. It shows up in the community I’m discovering. It shows up in writing when I have something to process, not because the calendar demands it.

Sustainable practice includes rest. It honors actual energy.

It lets go of performance. The structure ending isn’t the end of the practice. It’s the beginning of discovering what the practice actually is when you’re the only one holding it.

What I Want to Keep Doing

I really want to keep writing every day about what I’m experiencing.

Not because a challenge requires it. Not because I need to prove consistency. But because I think it can be helpful for people who are earlier along the path of ecospirituality, even without naming it. They may connect with or otherwise live with nature. They may practice religious naturalism. They may have an Earth connection, though they can't yet describe it.

My writing is for them.

For people discovering what I didn’t know I needed on that first Camino: contemplation, presence, and relationship with the more-than-human world. This desire to write and share is what remains when the structure disappears.

This is what I can control.

Whether anyone reads it, whether it helps them, whether it builds an audience—those things are not in my power. So I’m learning to let them go, and I’m relieved to release the self-doubt that I could maintain this kind of commitment.

I proved I could do it.

Now I’m learning what comes after proving: simply doing it because it matters, not because I need to demonstrate capacity. There’s also freedom in not having to show up publicly every single day. In letting the practice become more private, more internal, more mine.

Permission to Not Fill the Space

When one structure ends, there’s a temptation to immediately grab another.

Sign up for the next program. Commit to the next 30 days. Keep the momentum going. But momentum isn’t always the answer. Sometimes, what you need after finishing something is space. That is what the Celtic celebration of Samhain is all about.

Not empty space that needs filling, but space that allows integration.

Space to let what you learned settle into your bones. Space to discover what you actually want, not just what sounds good to commit to. Space to recognize what you can control and release what you cannot. The Camino taught me this.

When I finished that first one, feeling so wrong, I didn’t immediately understand why.

It took walking the French paths—quieter, more contemplative—to discover what I actually needed. The deep learning happened in the processing after, not just during the walk. I continue to learn to honor that processing time instead of rushing past it.

What This Morning Actually Looked Like

Coffee. Reading. Responding with patience to my Substack community.

Writing this reflection—not because I have to, but because I’m processing what it means to be on the other side of structure. I want to keep writing about my experiences for people earlier on this path, recognizing I cannot control whether they find it, read it, or benefit from it.

That’s not in my power.

What I can control is showing up. Engaging thoughtfully. Honoring my energy. Letting the rest work itself out. That’s part of Stoic wisdom. That’s what sustainable practice looks like when the structure disappears.

What You Can Do Right Now

If you’re in that space after structure, whether you finished a challenge, returned from a retreat, or completed something that shaped your days, here’s what I’m trying out:

Make a list with two columns.

On the left: What you can actually control right now. Your practices. Your pace. Whether you show up today. How you engage with what’s in front of you.

On the right: What you cannot control. Outcomes. Other people’s responses. Whether you “lose momentum.” External expectations.

Look at the left column. That’s where your energy goes. That’s what sustainable practice is built on.

Let the right column go.

This isn’t a resignation, it’s wisdom. This is what the morning after structure requires.

What structure recently ended for you? What can you actually control in the space that follows?

Reply and let me know. I’m figuring this out right alongside you.

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