When Everything Stops: What I Learned from the Power Outage in Spain

For the past few weeks, I’ve been working remotely from rural Andalucía while my husband Mike focuses on building our dream home - a project we’ve been dreaming about and slowly bringing to life after two decades.

Thanks to Elon Musk’s morally dubious but undeniably effective satellite internet, I’ve been able to run my business from here with surprising ease. Coaching sessions, writing, researching, planning… everything was flowing. Until it wasn’t.

One windy Monday lunchtime, the power went out. And then, so did the mobile network. No phone. No internet. No signal of any kind.

And that’s when it all came to a halt. 

But that’s kinda normal here in the ‘campo’ we sometimes get a power cut that last for 30mins or 1 hour.  But after 2 hours… I was frustrated - of course I was. I had things to do. A website to update. A book to write. A coaching offer I was refining. I told myself, “It’s fine, I’ll use the time for yoga.” But wait - no internet.

“OK then, I’ll research how to add weights to the outdoor kitchen curtains.” No internet.

 “Maybe a podcast?” Er, no.

No WhatsApp messages, no checking the news, no calling family or friends. No contacting clients to warn them our session may not go ahead. It wasn’t just a power cut. It was an enforced pause. And I was not good at it.

I’d love to tell you I leaned into the experience like a zen master. But the truth? I couldn’t settle. My nervous system, so used to constant stimulation and productivity, didn't know what to do with itself. It was deathly quiet.

The flies buzzing around suddenly became really annoying. I felt like I was in that episode of Breaking Bad where they obsessively try to catch a fly in silence. I became oddly aware of everything - but not in a good way.

This was my first real encounter with just being - stripped of all the props I usually use to feel productive or purposeful.

I even started to feel guilty for not doing more. Sound familiar?

When I couldn’t bear the not knowing anymore, I walked to my nearest neighbour down the track. No, they didn’t have power either. In fact, their mobile network dropped a little after mine and they’d heard that the outage affected the whole of Spain and Portugal.

That’s when it stopped feeling annoying and started to feel sinister. Was this a cyberattack? Had something serious happened? There was no way to know. I couldn’t even call for reassurance. I had to sit with the uncertainty.

As someone who likes to know, who likes to plan, this was deeply uncomfortable. But it was also an invitation to trust. To trust that things would work out. To trust that if I needed to respond, I would.

And eventually, I did what I rarely do in the middle of the day: I had a nap. 

Then after that, In the absence of tech and structure, I did three things:

1. I scrubbed the mosaic grout in the bathroom shower - a job I’d been putting off forever
   
   
2. I cooked a chicken curry on our gas stove, using a recipe passed down from my friend Molly’s mum and shared with with hubby and friend.
   
   
3. We sat outside by candlelight and watched the sunset over the valley in stillness - with no artificial light and no digital noise
   
   

And it was… beautiful. Weird, uncomfortable but beautiful and I realised that I was so lucky to be where I was right now despite the uncertainty.

This wasn’t a pause I chose. It was a pause enforced by circumstance. But like so many things we resist, it had wisdom to offer. Here’s what I learned:

• Pausing isn’t peaceful at first - especially when your nervous system is addicted to doing
  
• Pausing brings new insights - at deeper levels
  
• What we worry about isn’t usually what undoes us - we stress about emails or deadlines, but sometimes unexpected is what bites us in the bum.
  

I’ve spent years exploring burnout, stuckness and the disconnection that so many of us feel in midlife. And one thing is clear:

We don’t just need rest. We need space to hear ourselves again.

But most of us fill every gap. We call it multitasking. We call it being efficient. But often, it’s just fear in disguise.

Fear of stillness. Fear of hearing the truth we’ve been too busy to face. Fear of realising we’re not quite where we want to be.

That’s what happened to me during that power cut. Not a breakdown, not a breakthrough - just a slow, slightly uncomfortable, utterly necessary reconnection.

So… what?

The experience reminded me why I do what I do.

Because most of us don’t need to burn everything down. We just need to stop long enough to notice what’s not working - and begin to imagine what might.

That’s the space I create in my coaching. Space to reconnect to what's really important.

In a world that pushes us to do more, faster - choosing to pause is an act of quiet rebellion.

It’s also where your next chapter begins.