Category: life (Page 6 of 10)

Let’s all be brave

June 4, 2015 / Michele Minehart

You know what’s brave?

Showing up. Sometimes that’s the bravest thing you can do.

Letting your outsides and your insides match – that’s brave. So few people live lives of integrity. (Literally, integrity comes from being fully integrated.)

So is stepping on a battlefield on behalf of people you don’t know or potentially don’t even like.

Loving your son while burying your toddler – that’s brave. Excruciatingly brave.

It’s brave to move home.

It’s brave to let your 25 year old son venture to a South American country with no plan.

Writing a blog post, saying you’re lonely – that’s brave. One of my bravest friends did that and all of a sudden I realized how safe I was with her.

Admitting to your closest friends that something isn’t right is brave.

You can be brave to avoid a drink, a party, a person.

You’re brave when you love your husband, even when you don’t feel like it. Even after he has hurt you.

It’s brave to divorce. It’s brave to stay.

But you know what’s not brave? Calling people a coward. Making a contest out of bravery. One upping and condescending. Neither of those things take guts – they simply hide the cowardice.

To believe that one person’s bravery shortchanges another is to believe there’s a quantifiable, limited amount of brave in this world. There isn’t. It’s a lie we tell ourselves as we pit ourselves against others. To do so is to live by what Brene Brown calls Scarcity Culture and it simply isn’t true.

May we each do something brave today. Celebrate it. And don’t hold it to the measuring stick of another person’s brave thing. Instead, celebrate their bravery, too. We can all do brave things.

When hard things are good things

April 21, 2015 / Michele Minehart

JJ and I have an amazing opportunity in front of us. We get to move home, close to family, where he can teach in the local schools, as he had hoped those years ago when he decided to change careers into education. We’re excited – only as the stars perfectly aligned did this become a reality. This is a good thing.

Yet, it’s a hard thing.

It’s hard to leave. My friend dropped by with chocolate – and later with cilantro – when she knew I was struggling. I have to leave thoughtful people like this! It’s totally unfair. Our beloved school is only a Troy campus. Our church family. Our small group. My yoga studio. My work.

It’s hard to pack. We’re painting, de-cluttering and staging a house to put on the market with 4 nosy young children. This isn’t just hard, it’s nearly impossible.

It’s hard to find a new home. The size of our family makes us a tad needy in the space department. The size of our income makes us a tad needy in the budget department. And now that I’ve been surrounded with these delightful people who know about beautiful things, I want all of the beautiful things. In fact, I just hung up curtains in my bedroom tonight. DO YOU KNOW HOW FINISHED A ROOM CAN FEEL WITH A SET OF CURTAINS? People, this is valuable information that needs to be shared. Buy all the curtains! Even the cheap ones from IKEA that need hemmed! Hang them on an inexpensive IKEA rod and do a happy dance at the beauty of a properly clothed window!

I digress. Back to the hard things. (Although, cutting in a straight line to hem curtains is HARD for me.)

Part of me, in my early morning festering of woe, wanted to throw in the towel. Should JJ rescind? We could just stay. We can be in a house, with a yard, right here. (WITH BEAUTIFUL CURTAINS, let’s not forget.) Perhaps we made the wrong decision. This is too hard – if it were good, it would be easy, right? Things would happen with rainbows and butterflies and the occasional unicorn. Prices would drop, water softeners would be included in the price and the next 3 months would consist of mimosas with the ladies I love most. That’s how we know when we’re doing the right, the best, the good thing. Right?

Where did we come up with such a philosophy of life? That once a decision starts to cost us something, we’re doing it wrong? If it’s hard, it’s also bad? These are terrible guides into life. Everything in my life that is worth anything to me has come with a cost. Being married, mothering children, often even my work – they all tend to be hard. But they are good. Beautiful, even. They’re my best offerings to my world. If I took steps away every time it gets a bit challenging, I would be halfway around the world by now, drinking Italian wine and reading old books by the sea. But that’s not good, it’s just easy.

So my mantra now is good things can be hard things. They’re not mutually exclusive. The Easy Button that Staples wants to sell us only rescues us from buying printing supplies. If we start using it with the rest of life, it could end up quite boring. It’s only through engaging challenges that we find out it’s true worth.

The circle of life

January 13, 2015 / Michele Minehart

This is normal in most homes, right? (Also, I asked my children permission to publish this.)

Sunday mornings in our house equate to an extra cup of coffee for mom, dad cooking bacon and eggs, perhaps a show for the kids while we wake up slowly. Then the shenanigans: showering all the little ones and getting ready for church. So it shouldn’t strike me as odd that they started stripping down to race around the house. (Note for future homebuyers who want/have kids: buy a house with a loop. Ours can run through the living room, office and kitchen and make a full circle. This is paramount for entertainment purposes.)

As they were enjoying some Nudie Races, I hear one of them begin to get upset that she’s not in the front. Well, my dear, I tried to explain. It’s a circle. There’s really no front or back. It depends on your attitude if you’re ahead or behind the others.

Oh, friends. What if we lived like this? What if we believed that we’re all making another loop around the sun, instead of believing we must climb to the top first? What if we realized that “ahead” or “behind” can be a tad more relative than we like to believe?

Perhaps we could just approach life like a Sunday morning, plenty of time to run around, never knowing exactly who is in front or behind. Those of us who like to take it fast can run. Those who get winded easily will walk. We wave and giggle as someone passes by and perhaps see one another as inspiration to keep moving, not someone to catch.

Category: life (Page 6 of 10)

Let’s all be brave

When hard things are good things

The circle of life

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