Intimately Worded with Michelle

Tag: lovegives

  • Sunday Finds

    Today I started walking the Greenway again.

    It’s Fall, baby. 🍂

    The Inbetweenđź’•

    There was something about the cooler air that made me want to get outside and move my body again. I discovered that I can walk a half a mile without sweating—which feels like a small victory worth celebrating. These knees of mine were still screaming a little, but the walk felt good. Not because I went far. Not because I burned a certain number of calories. It just felt good to move, breathe, and be outside.

    And maybe that was the point.

    Autumn is Nature’s Canvas

    I came home and hung a mirror that has been sitting in its little corner since we moved three years ago.

    Three years.

    I finally decided the mirror had waited long enough.

    I also created my little greenhouse for my houseplants, giving them some extra love and attention. I arranged them, watered them, and turned on the humidifier because apparently my plants have entered their “we require a climate-controlled environment” era.

    And I happily obliged.

    I drank my 60 ounces of water, too.

    All of it sounds so ordinary.

    But lately I’ve been thinking about the in-betweenness of life.

    The spaces between the big things.

    The places where nothing particularly Instagram-worthy is happening, but life is still happening.

    There is the work I love. The clients I care for. Transitional Pathways continuing to become something more tangible than the idea it once was.

    There is Let’s Circle Back, the podcast work that I am building with my co-host and author friend, E. There is something special about creating with someone who has become a friend along the way—about the conversations that happen before the recording, after the recording, and sometimes nowhere near a microphone at all.

    There are ideas we’re still shaping.

    Conversations we’re still having.

    Things we’re still becoming.

    And then there is everything else.

    The walk.

    The water.

    The plants.

    The humidifier humming quietly in the background.

    The mirror finally hanging on the wall.

    The quiet.

    The solitude.

    The ordinary rhythms of taking care of myself.

    I have been working so hard to work smarter, not harder.

    Trying to figure out how to organize my life, my work, my dreams, my responsibilities. Trying to build Transitional Pathways, show up well for my clients, create, write, prepare, podcast, pray, grow—and somehow do all of it without running myself into the ground.

    Yet somehow, it still feels like everything is hard.

    And today I had one of those quiet realizations that makes me smile.

    Maybe I don’t always need another strategy.

    Maybe sometimes I need the basics.

    Take care of myself.

    Love the work I have been called to do.

    Drink the water.

    Take the walk.

    Hang the mirror.

    Tend to the plants.

    Cultivate solitude.

    Make room for God.

    There is something divinely funny about how God works.

    I can spend so much energy trying to figure out how to accomplish the God stuff—the purpose, the calling, the next thing, the bigger thing—and then I find myself accomplishing more simply by caring for the woman who is living this life.

    Maybe the work isn’t always in the doing.

    Maybe sometimes the work is in becoming well enough to receive what comes next.

    Today, I didn’t feel particularly productive.

    I just felt cared for.

    And maybe that is its own kind of productivity.

    My soul feels nurtured today.

    Cared for.

    Hopeful.

    There is a softness that comes when you realize you don’t have to force every good thing into existence.

    Some things grow because you tend to them.

    Some things change because you finally make room.

    Some things become visible because you finally hang the mirror.

    And some things—perhaps the most important things—God has been tending to all along.

    So these are my Sunday finds:

    A half-mile walk.

    A mirror finally on the wall.

    Plants getting extra love and a little humidity.

    Sixty ounces of water.

    The joy of creating something meaningful with a friend.

    Conversations becoming podcasts.

    Ideas becoming things.

    A little more solitude.

    A little less striving.

    And a soul that feels good.

    Maybe this is what I’ve been looking for in all my attempts to work smarter.

    Not a better way to do more.

    A better way to be while I’m doing it.

    I think I’ll call that a pretty good Sunday.

    Staying present,

    Michelleđź’•

    ©️Intimately Worded, Michelle.

  • Sacred Spaces

    Making Room for What’s Next

    Blackberries, Summer, Better.

    I didn’t do anything I planned to do today.

    There. I said it.

    I had plans. Things I wanted to accomplish. Things I thought I should get done before Sunday ended. Instead, I did some notes. I went to church. I took my daughter to the mall. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I took a Sunday nap. A good one.

    And when I woke up, I realized something: today was gentle.

    Nothing was wrong. Nothing was behind. Nothing needed to be rescued. It was simply a gentle day.

    And perhaps I needed one.

    I have been thinking a lot about the things I’m releasing lately. The commitments that no longer feel aligned. The expectations I’ve outgrown. The things I once thought I needed to carry simply because I had been carrying them for so long.

    There is something strange about releasing things that aren’t necessarily bad. Sometimes a thing doesn’t have to hurt you for you to let it go. Sometimes it has simply completed its assignment.

    A season ends. A responsibility runs its course. A relationship reveals what it was meant to reveal. A dream changes shape. A version of you that worked beautifully in one season no longer fits the woman you’re becoming in the next.

    And I am learning not to argue with that.

    I’m learning that making room for what’s next isn’t always about adding something new. Sometimes it begins with clearing the room.

    I’ve been doing a lot of “all the things” lately. Work. Writing. Building. Creating. Planning. Recording. Dreaming. Making decisions. Reconsidering decisions. Imagining what my life can look like from here.

    There is excitement in it. But there is also a responsibility that comes with creating a new space: I have to decide what gets to come with me.

    Everything cannot.

    Everyone cannot.

    Every commitment cannot.

    Every old expectation cannot.

    And perhaps most importantly, every version of me cannot.

    Some things belong to the woman I was. Some belong to the woman I am. And some things are making their way toward the woman I am becoming.

    I don’t want to rush that woman.

    I don’t want to fill every empty space simply because an empty space makes me uncomfortable. I don’t want to mistake stillness for stagnation. Or rest for laziness. Or a pause for failure.

    Today reminded me of that.

    I had things to do. Instead, I had church. I had my daughter. I had an ordinary afternoon. I had a nap. I had a gentle Sunday.

    And maybe that was enough.

    Maybe there are seasons when the most productive thing we can do is stop trying so hard to produce. Maybe sometimes God is doing some of His deepest work in the spaces where we aren’t doing anything at all.

    So tonight, I’m thinking less about what I didn’t accomplish and more about what I’m making room for.

    More peace. More intention. More creativity. More meaningful relationships. More rest. More space to hear myself think. More courage to say no without writing an entire dissertation about why. More willingness to let something end without needing to turn the ending into a tragedy. More trust that I don’t have to know exactly what’s coming to make room for it.

    I think that’s where I am.

    Not starting over. Not reinventing myself. Just clearing some space.

    Releasing what has run its course. Being honest about what no longer belongs. And becoming increasingly protective of the space I’m creating.

    Because I have a feeling something beautiful is going to need room.

    And this time, I don’t want to be so busy filling the space that I miss what is trying to enter it.

    So tonight, I am not disappointed about the things I didn’t get done. (Even forgetting to publish.)

    I’m grateful for the gentle day.

    Maybe it wasn’t a detour from what I needed.

    Maybe it was what I needed.

    And maybe making room for what’s next begins exactly here: with allowing today to be enough.

    Being brave, M.

    ©️Intimately Worded, Michelle.

  • Clear the gray matter…and smile.

    A person may not have any clue how to care for you. I think we get all inside out about things because we want them to care, to love us back and they simply can’t.

    …it doesn’t make them a bad person nor you inadequate, they just don’t know. The care and the love is indicated when they want to make the time to educate themselves about you. I know it sounds simple enough yet it isn’t. Life can weave things so much so that we damage the simplicity of hope. Oh how we build, subtract, add, wish, become and expect this one person to be our ultimate life changer and when he/she fails… we assume we fail. That just isn’t the case.

    When we rethink and put all the past experiences, the thought processes of “if I would have,” “if I could have only,” and “I should have,”  into an over-thought perspective there isn’t any value gained. Personally, anyone who doesn’t want to better themselves to be an active part of our lives is not quite deserving of our wishful thinking. Do not take a positive newness, an exceptional potential and ruin it due to an inability to get pass the past—-this applies to every aspect of life.

    Clear the gray matter. Life is so much more when we move forward without hinges.

    “Proven throughout time, without reprove….Love gives.” ~Michelle Tillman

    “You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” ~Thomas Merton

     

    My own cup of tea!