LiveMindfuLee

Last month, I went quiet. Not the polished, aesthetic kind of quiet.
Not the curated “taking a self care break” quiet. I went into the kind of silence that feels like a room after an argument. Air thick. Dishes unwashed. Windows closed. This past month was raw. Not poetic raw. Not Instagram grief. The kind that makes your eyes sting in the grocery store because a song comes on and suddenly someone you love is gone again.

I have been grieving two of my closest friends while simultaneously lighting birthday candles for family and friends. Mourning death in private. Celebrating life in public. Crying while cleaning my house. Laughing on the phone. It felt like emotional whiplash, like my nervous system could not decide which direction was up.

And in the middle of that, my body has been consistently ill. Not dramatic. Not cinematic. Just stubbornly unwell. The kind of illness that sits in the background and drains the color out of your ambition. So I did what I used to do when stress climbed too high in highschool.

I baked. Flour on the counter. Butter softening on the stove. Chocolate chips poured like tiny comforts into a bowl. Baking was once my self care ritual during extreme seasons. Domestic. Controlled. Measured. Sweet. It felt safe, but this time it slid sideways.

Grief plus exhaustion plus sugar became something less holy and more compulsive. I found myself reaching for cookies not because I was celebrating, but because I was trying not to feel the edges of everything. Old habits do not knock. They let themselves in like they still live there. And that was humbling.

It is strange how you can lead, serve, build, encourage other women, and still have your own quiet battles in the kitchen at midnight. I had to look at myself gently and say: this is not comfort anymore. This is anesthesia.

So now March is here. My birthday month. A threshold month. And instead of frosting and sprinkles, I am detoxing toxic white sugars/dyes. Not as punishment. Not as penance. But as preparation.

If I am going to eat, let me eat something that strengthens me. So I am eating the Word.

Not performatively. Not to quote it at anyone. But slowly. Like bread. Like honey that does not spike and crash. Letting Scripture sit in the empty places where sugar tried to soothe me.

There is something sacred about realizing that the pressure you feel is not coming from the internet. Not from your readers. Not even from your calling. It is coming from inside the house. Inside my own mind.

The expectation that I must always be happy. Always helpful. Always showing up at one hundred percent. Always the strong one. Always the resilient one. Always the woman who turned trauma into testimony and never looks tired doing it.

Who told me that? No one, really. I built that altar myself. This month I gave myself permission to step down from it. To be human. To be grieving. To be inconsistent. To be someone who binge watched Netflix and ate cookies and did not turn every moment into content.

And something surprising happened in the quiet. God did not withdraw. YAHWEH did not scold me for slowing down. He did not revoke my calling because I took a month off. He did not measure my faith by my output.

He met me in the unflattering middle.

In the messy kitchen.
In the tear stained pillow.
In the half cleaned closet.
In the birthday wishes.

I realized that hibernation is not weakness. It is biology. Creation itself pulls inward before it blooms. Maybe this month was not me disappearing. Maybe it was me shedding. Grief is ugly. Healing is not linear. Stress sometimes resurrects old coping mechanisms. Faith does not erase appetite. But grace covers all of it.

As I step into my birthday month, I am choosing gratitude. Not the loud kind. The quiet inventory kind.

I am alive.
I am still here.
I am loved by God.
I am allowed to grow.

I am preparing to come back out of hibernation, not as the woman who performs strength, but as the woman who understands her limits.

If you feel the pressure to always be the stable one, the smiling one, the capable one, let me whisper something to you:

You are allowed to fall apart in private and still be called. You are allowed to grieve and celebrate in the same week. You are allowed to confront old habits without condemning yourself. You are allowed to go quiet. Sometimes, the most spiritual thing you can do is admit that the pressure is coming from inside your own house and start rearranging the furniture.

This month, I am choosing to rearrange.

Less sugar.
More Scripture.
Less performance.
More presence.
Less proving.
More gratitude.

If you have been in a loss of purpose funk, maybe you are not lost. Maybe you are in hibernation too. And maybe God is not asking you to emerge polished.

Maybe He is asking you to emerge honest.

March is my birth month and it is starting with a blood moon, and healing what a great symbolism for letting go of the past, being washed in the blood of Jesus, and beginning again onward towards His will.

I hope that by sharing parts of my story it helps even just one person realize that God is ready to meet them where they are and help them through this journey even the hard and scary parts.

With so much Love,

Brittney @livemindfulee