Intimately Worded with Michelle

Tag: trauma

  • The Quiet Wins I Almost Missed

    Choose You, more.

    Sometimes the wins of a week don’t look like wins. There isn’t always a check deposited, a goal crossed off, a weight lifted, or some grand announcement that says, Look at you. You’re doing better. Sometimes the win is much quieter. Sometimes it is simply recognizing that you responded differently than you would have before. This week, I noticed a few of those quiet wins.

    I’ve been thinking about how much growth can happen in the small decisions we make when no one is watching. In dating, for example, I’m learning that patience has boundaries. For a long time, I could explain almost anything away. Maybe he’s busy. Maybe he’s figuring things out. Maybe I need to give it more time. Maybe this is an opportunity for me to practice patience. And sometimes, perhaps it was.

    But I’ve come to understand that I don’t have to spiritualize someone’s inconsistency in order to tolerate it. Poor communication can simply be poor communication. I can notice it without judging the person, decide that it doesn’t work for me, and deny access without bitterness. That feels like growth—not because I’m becoming harder, but because I’m becoming clearer. I don’t have to make someone wrong to decide that something isn’t right for me.

    There is a particular freedom in realizing that discernment and kindness can coexist. I can wish someone well and still close the door. I can be compassionate without making myself endlessly available. I can practice patience without abandoning my own standards. Perhaps wisdom sometimes looks less like waiting for something to change and more like recognizing what has already been revealed.

    Then there was Monday. I didn’t realize I was off until yesterday evening, and when I did, I smiled. It seems like such a small thing, but maybe that’s exactly why it touched me. There was a day waiting for me that I hadn’t planned for, scheduled, or tried to create.

    Just space. Room. An unexpected exhale. I’ve spent so much of my life being responsible, productive, available, and aware of what needs to happen next that discovering I had a day where I didn’t have to do any of it felt like a little gift. Maybe that’s part of what Soft Life means to me now—not simply having fewer responsibilities, but being able to receive moments of rest without feeling like I have to justify them. Sometimes grace looks like discovering that there is nowhere you have to be.

    And then there is friendship. I’m learning to appreciate friendship for exactly what it is: friendly, loving, accepting, expansive. There is a depth in being known over time that a stranger simply cannot replicate. A friend has witnessed versions of you. They have seen the becoming. They know some of the history behind the laughter. They remember who you were before you had the language for who you are now. There are places friendship reaches within us that a new connection cannot immediately reach. Period. And I’m learning not to minimize that intimacy simply because it isn’t romantic.

    Not every stranger needs to become a lover. Not every interesting conversation needs to become a relationship. Not every connection has to be pursued simply because there is potential. Some people are meant to pass through, some are meant to stay, and some relationships remind us that love doesn’t always have to be complicated to be profound. There is something deeply comforting about being loved by people who have had the opportunity to know you—and continue to choose you anyway.

    Maybe that’s why I’ve been thinking so much about something I said during the latest episode of Let’s Circle Back: God is in the pain. God is in the trauma. Even there.

    I’ve been sitting with those words because I don’t believe everything we’ve experienced was God’s desire for us. Trauma is traumatic. Loss devastates. Disappointment is deafening at times. Some things happen because we live in a complicated and broken world. People make choices that hurt other people. Systems fail us. Relationships end. Bodies become tired. Dreams change. Sometimes life simply hurts. But I do believe God is present there.

    Even there.

    He isn’t only present when the prayer is answered. He isn’t only present when the door opens, the relationship works, the money comes through, the career advances, or everything finally makes sense. He is present in the unanswered prayer, the disappointment, the trauma we are still learning to name, the boundary we finally found the courage to set, and the friendship that carried us when we couldn’t carry ourselves.

    He is in the unexpected Monday off. He is in the quiet smile. He is in the moment we realize, I’m different now.

    God is in all of our things.

    The beautiful things. The messy things. The ordinary things. The things we’re proud of. The things we’re still healing from. The things we understand and the things that still make absolutely no sense.

    Perhaps that is what I’m learning most in this season: His presence doesn’t require my life to be perfect. He meets me in the becoming. He is not waiting for me on the other side of everything I’ve struggled through. He is here, in the middle of it.

    And maybe some of my quiet wins are not evidence that life has finally become easy. Maybe they are evidence that I have become more aware of His presence within it.

    So I’m counting them.

    The discernment. The boundaries. The ability to walk away without anger. The unexpected day of rest. The friendships that feel like home. The willingness to let a connection simply be what it is. The growing understanding that choosing myself doesn’t require me to dislike anyone else. And the deeper knowing that wherever I find myself, God is there.

    Even there.

    Especially there.

    Maybe growth isn’t always becoming someone new. Maybe sometimes it is becoming more honest about who we are, more discerning about what we allow, more grateful for who loves us well, and more aware that we have never walked through any of it alone.

    Not the joy.

    Not the grief.

    Not the healing.

    Not the becoming.

    God is in all of our things.

    And for this week, that feels like more than enough reason to smile.

    Being brave,

    Michelle

    ©️Intimately Worded, Michelle.

  • Navigating Healing, Solo-Entrepreneurship & All the Feels

    Navigating Healing, Solo-Entrepreneurship & All the Feels

    Sunday is feeling like thriving, good hope and reset.

    Today, I moved about my day intentionally—honoring Sundays, my time, my work and my SelfCare. One facial mask and folded clothes from the dryer later, I bake brownies and I write. There is something sacred about slow Sundays when you are rebuilding your life from the inside out.

    Lately, I’ve been leaning into singleness again with greater determination. Soft, yet strategic boundaries. My time is valuable now in ways I understand differently at 55. Peace has become expensive and I no longer hand it out freely in exchange for inconsistency, confusion or potential.

    I’m also leaning into entrepreneurship with greater wisdom and patience.

    Building something meaningful alone is isolating. Lonely. Hard.

    There are no standing ovations for the backend work. No applause when you’re troubleshooting systems, learning insurance credentialing, waiting on support tickets, updating websites, responding to inquiries, writing blogs, managing finances and trying not to emotionally collapse under the pressure of uncertainty.

    People often celebrate the finished product without acknowledging the emotional labor of becoming.

    These past few weeks, I’ve been intentionally building my private practice. I established Transitional Pathways PLLC years ago, but this season feels different. More focused. More aligned. Less performative. I’m accepting insurance now, learning new systems, exploring growth and stretching beyond survival mode into sustainability.

    And if I’m honest, there are moments I sit quietly and wonder if I should have started sooner.

    Maybe at 32.
    Maybe at 40.
    Maybe before life happened the way it did.

    Sometimes SoftGirl. Sometimes dinosaur. ✨

    But healing teaches us something entrepreneurship eventually confirms: timing matters.

    Who I am now carries more depth, discernment and emotional clarity than the woman I was decades ago. There is less ego attached to success now and more intention attached to peace. I no longer want to build quickly if it costs me my nervous system, my softness or my relationship with God.

    So I’m learning to build slowly.
    Wisely.
    Honestly.

    I’m learning that entrepreneurship is not simply about money or branding. Sometimes it’s about trusting yourself again after disappointment. Sometimes it’s about believing your voice matters enough to take up space. Sometimes it’s about sitting with loneliness without abandoning your vision.

    And healing? Healing is realizing you can create a beautiful life while things are still unfinished.

    Today, I’m resting.
    Tomorrow, I’ll continue building.

    Both matter.

    — Intimately Worded

  • The Sacred Weight of Saturday

    Leaning in when it hurts

    Sacred Spaces

    There is a sacred weight that comes after a full week of holding space. Not heaviness in the sense of burden — but weight in the sense of responsibility. Reverence. Witnessing.

    As a trauma-informed therapist, my weekdays are filled with stories that require careful hands. Stories of betrayal. Survival. Attachment wounds. Quiet resilience. Women untangling patterns that have lived in their nervous systems for decades. Couples learning to speak without armor. Individuals confronting memories that once silenced them.

    I hold tears.

    I hold silence.

    I hold breakthroughs that tremble on the edge of becoming.

    And when the week ends, I can feel it in my body.

    The sacred weight.

    The Saturday Morning Ritual

    This morning, I woke up thinking about healing.

    Journal prompts floated through my mind.

    Therapeutic tools. Conversations that are still unfolding in my clients’ lives.

    When you are called to this work, it does not clock out at 5:00 p.m. It lingers — not because of poor boundaries, but because you care deeply. Because people trust you with their most fragile truths.

    But Saturday arrives differently. Saturday invites ritual. The slow pouring of coffee. The warmth of the mug resting in my palms.

    The unhurried light slipping through the window.

    The deliberate inhale — not for grounding a client — but for grounding myself.

    This is not accidental. It is intentional decompression.

    Trauma work requires regulation. And if I teach nervous systems how to settle, I must model that practice in my own body.

    Saturday mornings have become my personal re-entry.

    I move from “holding others” back into “inhabiting myself.”

    Persona Work: Processing the Week

    There is a quiet internal processing that happens on Saturdays. Not clinical documentation. Not treatment planning. But persona work.

    I gently ask myself:

    What did I carry this week? What did I absorb? What stirred something in me? Where did I feel especially protective? Where did I feel tender?

    This is the part no one sees — the therapist tending to her own interior world.

    Because trauma-informed care is not just a framework. It is a posture. And posture requires alignment. Saturdays allow me to realign. To release stories that are not mine. To return prayers back to God. To loosen the subtle muscular tension that comes from being steady for others.

    The Permission to Pause

    But today… I pause.

    Because the same God who calls me to pour out also calls me beside still waters. If I only embrace the “pouring out,” I distort the calling. Rest is not indulgence.

    It is obedience.

    The joys of the journey are not only found in the breakthroughs. They are in the restoration. In the quiet laughter. In music playing softly through the house. In a walk with no agenda.

    In breathing deeply enough to feel my own soul again.

    •Saturday Selflove looks like choosing myself without guilt.

    •SelfCare looks like trusting that the world will not collapse if I am not actively fixing it.

    •Slow downs look like surrender — not striving.

    Making Room for Joy

    Trauma work can be sacred.

    But joy is sacred too.

    And Saturdays make room for it.

    Room for softness. Room for celebration. Room for delight that has nothing to do with productivity.

    I am learning to love what Saturdays bring.

    Not just productivity… but presence.

    Not just healing for others… but restoration for me. Not just discipline… but delight.

    Because restoration is not separate from purpose.

    It sustains it.

    “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want…

    He restores my soul.” — Psalm 23:1–3

    The sacred weight of the week is real. But so is the still water. And the joys of the journey are here too.

    And maybe Saturday is an invitation for you too.

    Not to do more. Not to become more.

    But to return.

    Return to your breath.

    Return to your body.

    Return to the quiet places where God meets you without performance.

    Let today be enough.

    Let rest count.

    Let joy be holy.

    Being brave,

    Michelle

    ©️Intimately Worded, Michelle

  • Sundays, Early Mornings & Friendship Loss

    Journey towards Better

    There’s something sacred about early Sundays — before the world fully wakes. It’s where truth sits quietly, waiting to be named.

    I know the world is on fire—

    yet what continues to amaze me is how these global flames mirror our internal ones.

    The ache, the quiet unraveling, the loss that comes not only from tragedy but from truth.

    Humanity feels lost.

    Personal and political beliefs now hold the power to alter the direction of our lives, our connections, even our sense of belonging.

    Recently, I severed a long-term friendship—

    one built on love, laughter, and shared seasons.

    It wasn’t over something petty or misunderstood.

    It was because of politics.

    Not politics as in policy, but politics as in morality.

    People often underestimate the depth of their words or the weight they carry.

    What I’ve learned is this:

    if an apology begins with “I’m not racist” but ends with unwavering support for those who harm and divide—then it isn’t an apology at all.

    It’s an attempt to seek comfort in the very space where harm was done.

    And I’ve decided I don’t have to comfort you through the ending of our friendship.

    My heart is fragile, still healing, still learning.

    But I am also living—intentionally, fully, and with boundaries rooted in love for myself.

    I love deeply, in both length and width.

    But I will not prove that love by tolerating hate, bullying, or dismissiveness disguised as “difference of opinion.”

    “Some endings are not betrayals of love — they are affirmations of self.”

    Sometimes I chuckle, not out of humor, but out of disbelief—

    because people truly forget how long we have been Black and hated.

    How long we’ve known the weight of racism—not as theory, but as lived experience.

    I have felt its ugly claws, tasted its unyielding rage, and recognized how ignorance allows it to thrive.

    And still, on early Sunday mornings, I rise.

    I pray.

    I breathe.

    I choose peace over pretense.

    Friendship loss hurts, especially when love still lingers in memory.

    But truth has a frequency that can’t be silenced, even for comfort’s sake.

    Reflection for the Soul

    This Sunday, take a moment to sit with the quiet after loss.

    Friendship, even when it ends, leaves imprints of who we were — and who we are becoming.

    Ask yourself: What does peace require of me now?

    Not the kind that avoids pain, but the kind that honors it, transforms it, and releases what no longer loves you back.

    May you find grace in your boundaries, rest in your truth,

    and gentleness in the parts of your heart still learning how to heal.

    Intimately worded,

    Michelle 🌿

  • Falling, Loss & Love

    It started snowing here last night. Snow falling is beautiful. I awake feeling healthy, well-rested. I love the light of the sun and snow. I smile; reflecting on my tasks for the day. I answer a few texts  and roll back over to snuggle, rest. I am learning to curb self-doubt, therefore, I am going for more writing opportunities. I have a writing project to edit and review. I need to blog and post/ podcast. Later it is Family time, celebrating Darius’ birthday.

    I read the news of Regina King’s son and my heartbreaks. Now, I’m just kind of stuck as a mother, as a woman…my soul is wounded for her, for our children, for humanity. We have our heroes and often we believe them to be untouchable, not perfect…different, untarnished by Life’s woes.

    Death is hitting everywhere it seems and often close to home. A friend lost his nephew last week. He told me, “I can’t stop crying.” My patients suffer with the loss of loved ones. Weekly, daily, I hear of death and I’m never comfortable with the trauma of it—be the loss kin or unknown. Grief, significant loss can plummet us and keep us stuck in so many emotional and mental ways. Learn to mourn, to grieve your way. No one gets to time stamp your grief—there’s no right way to do this. We love deep and different. The impact of our love ones hits different. Grief is complex and it will become different. Cry as much as you want or need too. Know that tears are a release, not a weakness, not of failure.

    Remember them well. Love does not cease…it carries, moves, heals us toward the unseen and unknown. Keep your Light. You’re not wrong in your love. Continue to love softly. We are all trying to figure this all out. May your days include you caring for your soul. I’m going to bake blueberry muffins, prepare some soup and love on the ones who love me. Time is short; love well.

    Intimately Worded,

    Michelle 

  • July: Healing Humanity

    Our 2020 has gut punched seemingly on a weekly basis. I’m proud of how we’ve endured and persevered. WordPress sent me a congratulatory notification two days ago stating that I have been blogging for 5 years now. Wow! I am appreciative for the courage to share my thoughts in such a creative process. Thank you to all who like, follow, share and comment. I value each of you.

    This year has had me in such a weird place that writing seems foreign to me. I haven’t been neglectful in writing—there just doesn’t seem to be an easy flow of writing to where readers will be empathetic to comprehend my soul pieces. I hope that makes sense. The political disconnect (truthfully it has always been there), CoVid19 continues, Systemic Racism (woundedly, it remains), Police Murders of Black Lives (#GeorgeFloyd) was not the first and the revolutionary resurgence of Black Movement. #BlackLivesMatter

    #Spiritual Wellness…I made major moves this week. I’m doing a lot more focusing on the things I want and requesting those things that I require. I expected some push back on this one request and I didn’t receive it. In a talk w/ a colleague, “Michelle I’m not sure why you expected push back. You are the most sought out therapist here. Look at your location. Every location I visit you’re the only therapist that remains booked. Yeah. No, you’re not going to get any push back.” 

    I looked at her strangely. I didn’t get the big head. I became even more humbled. There are times I have no clue where I am in all this. Oftentimes, I miss me. This week was a Monday’s Monday–every day of the week: I listened to a patient apologize yet defend their idea of “All Lives Matter while Black Lives do not matter.” (Actual words: “Black Lives do not matter.”) The more they talked to their Black Female Therapist, the more racist they sounded. I wrote three individuals out of work—mental health has become an issue for the majority; I was threatened “jokingly” while in session and I reported my first case of child abuse to DSS.

     This ‘work” just doesn’t leave me yet it doesn’t become a part of me either. It all causes me to pause and reflect. I move into gratefulness. I think who I am and how I am leads me toward the moments of difficulty, gives me strength and causes me to recognize where my strength comes from. I think if  I had the ability to shake it or become numb I wouldn’t be who I am as a therapist. I believe serving as a therapist has to be one of the most difficult things I had to do…and become. We’re always becoming, evolving; trying to be better than yesterday. This role as therapist is difficult while being purposefully rewarding; so many pieces of me are required. 

    In my personal reflection, I notice how we neglect ourselves to make ourselves available for other people. One previous Saturday, I woke up unsure if I was getting sick or if I was just worn out–mentally and physically. I was more apt to believe in the first option, that I was getting sick. In wearing these masks my face has begun to breakout, coupled w/ stress I think it’s natural to assume illness. I needed to rest and reset. I’m going to find my space in this. I’m committed to finding my space in this. I continue to make room everyday as well as set new boundaries. I am selfish with my peace.

    I pray that in our moments —those moments that we find difficult to get up that we move towards our wholeness. As we continue to be whole there is no stopping point of movement, of increase. We gain ground. Continue to gain ground. In your grounding: you may have to Reground, Reframe, Reset, Process, Breathe…Love Anyway. 

    Intimately Worded,

    Michelle