We live in a world that rewards being busy. That measures worth in output, in speed, in how much we can carry. And somewhere in all of that — we forgot how to pause. We forgot that the right brain exists. We forgot that creativity is not a luxury reserved for artists. It is a neurological necessity. A daily act of making something — anything — that returns us to ourselves.
WHY IT WORKS
The right brain
cannot worry.
When you enter a state of genuine creative flow — when you're truly absorbed in making something — your left brain steps back. The hemisphere that runs the anxiety, the to-do lists, the endless loop of worry, simply cannot operate at full capacity while the right brain is active. They cannot both drive at once.
This is not philosophy. This is neuroscience. And it means that fifteen minutes of genuine creative presence — a photograph, a sketch, a few lines of writing — is fifteen minutes of real, measurable relief. Not distraction. Not escape. Relief. The kind that leaves something behind even after you stop.
WHERE THIS BEGAN
Lonely in one of the most beautiful places in the world
I had built a life in London. Thirteen years of it. I moved there from Slovenia at twenty-two, and London became home — the real kind, built from years of ordinary mornings and late nights and friendships that know your whole story. I met my husband there. We married. I became a mother there.
And then, when my youngest daughter was five months old, we moved to Monaco.
Monaco is, objectively, one of the most beautiful places on earth. The light on the water. The warmth. The sense that life here is elevated, gilded, impossibly charmed. And I arrived with a toddler not yet two years old and a baby in arms, knowing nobody, speaking almost none of the French that surrounded me everywhere — and feeling more alone than I had ever felt in my life.
"How can you complain when you live in Monaco? The world tells you that you should be grateful, that this is the dream, that people would give anything to be where you are. And you know they're right — and still, you lie awake feeling invisible. Because any place, even a perfectly beautiful one, can be lonely. The loneliness doesn't care about the postcode."
My entire support system — the friends, the familiar streets, the coffee shop where they knew my order — was back in London. My girls were too small for school, so there were no other mothers at the gate. My husband went to work. And I was at home with two children who couldn't yet speak back to me, in a city I didn't know how to navigate, feeling unheard and invisible in one of the most photographed places in the world.
For a long time, all I wanted was to go back. Everyone who knew me then will tell you that. I felt guilty even saying it — because from the outside, my life looked like a dream. That guilt made the loneliness heavier. The feeling that I had no right to feel what I was feeling.
Something shifted the moment I picked up my camera with purpose. Not to pass time — but to create. With curiosity. With playfulness. I stepped into a different frequency — present in a way ordinary life rarely allows. Monaco light falling on water. Photographing my daughters in golden hour. Creating something from what I saw and felt that day. And in that act of creating, something in me quietly expanded. It wasn't an escape. It was the opposite — I was more myself than I had been in months.
Even on the hardest days, when Monaco felt impossible and London felt impossibly far — going out with my camera and photographing the light on the Côte d'Azur made me feel better. Immediately. Not eventually. Right away.
But the camera did something else too. It gave me a reason to reach out. To invite people into something. I started photographing friends — new ones, slowly found — capturing them in the light I was learning to love. What began as playful creativity became something more. The portraits became artistic photoshoots. The photoshoots became fine art. I started exhibiting. People started collecting. What had started as a quiet act of survival — a woman alone with a camera and two small children in a city she didn't yet know — had grown, without my ever planning it, into a full career as a fine art photographer. The artist I am today was born in those early uncertain walks along the Côte d'Azur, camera in hand, learning to see the place I had been desperate to leave. And when I was behind the lens, I was in flow. Completely present. Completely myself. Completely alive. The loneliness wasn't just fading. It was being replaced, photograph by photograph, by a new life — and a new purpose.
Monaco became home. Not because it changed. Because I found a way to truly see it.
Your Daily Pause is what I wish someone had handed me the day we arrived. I'm sharing it because I know how it feels when life offers no pause — ever. And I know what becomes possible when you find one.
"You don't have to be in crisis to need a pause. You don't have to be visibly struggling to deserve stillness. Sometimes the loneliest places are the most beautiful ones. And sometimes all it takes is fifteen minutes to remember who you are."
A daily creative practice that quiets the anxious mind, reconnects you to joy, and brings you back to what matters.
For anyone who has ever felt there is no pause. Ever.
MAJA KERIN — FOUNDER, YOUR DAILY PAUSE
The practice. Three things.
01
Pause.
Stop. Put down your phone. Take a breath. Step outside or simply look up from what you're doing. Give yourself permission to be somewhere fully — even for five minutes. Not to be productive. Not to achieve anything. Just to be present. This is where everything begins.
02
Notice.
Look at the light. The colour. The texture of the most ordinary things around you. Your daily creative prompt gives you something specific to notice — a doorway back into the present moment. The world is extraordinary. We have simply stopped seeing it.
03
Create.
Make something small. A photograph. A sentence. A sketch. A poem. Something baked. A corner of your garden tended. The act of making — any making — activates the right brain and gives the anxious left brain somewhere to rest. You don't need talent. You need playfulness. The rest follows.
WHO THIS IS FOR
For anyone who has
forgotten they are creative
You don't need to be an artist. You don't need a camera, a studio, a talent, or a reason. You need fifteen minutes and the willingness to look at the world differently.
Your Daily Pause is for:
— The person who moved somewhere new and is still searching for belonging
— The parent who has lost themselves in the beautiful chaos of early motherhood
— The professional whose days are full but whose life feels empty
— The teenager navigating anxiety and needing a quiet daily anchor
— Anyone who feels guilty for being unhappy when their life looks fine from the outside
— The creative who has gone quiet and wants to find their way back
— The elderly person who wants a gentle daily practice, a sense of community, and a renewed feeling of purpose
— Anyone who simply wants to feel more alive in their ordinary life
"Creativity is not a talent reserved for artists. It is a human need — as essential as sleep, as nourishing as food, as necessary as breath."
MAJA KERIN — FOUNDER, YOUR DAILY PAUSE
What you'll receive
01
A quiet note in your inbox
Not a newsletter in the traditional sense. A pause. A reflection on creativity, light, and what it means to truly notice the world. Something to read slowly — that reminds you of what matters. Thoughtfully written, never rushed.
02
The tools to pause — by yourself
The heart of Your Daily Pause is not the emails. It's what happens between them. Inspiration, prompts, and gentle guidance to help you build your own creative practice — so that the pause becomes truly yours.
03
A growing community
As Your Daily Pause grows, so does the community around it. Creative challenges, conversations, and one shared belief — that a daily creative pause can change a life. Because it changed mine.
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