Can Rest Be a Sign? (I Slept Through the Answer)

A Slow Sunday Publication

Meet me

Meet me as we dive deeper into hidden truths, as we sit in silence on a Sunday that we take a little slower than summer would ask of us.

This morning feels softer somehow, like I’m arriving inside myself after a long stretch of being somewhere else. And as I sit here now, coffee in hand, I’m thinking back to yesterday when I let myself sleep in.

It wasn’t planned. I just turned off my alarm quietly, without announcement. It felt like slipping out the back door of a room I no longer needed to be in. I didn’t know how far my mind needed to travel. Didn’t realize how long my body had been quietly negotiating all the motion I’ve been in.

I slept. Hard. Long.

Messy-dreamed and bladder-woke. I stumbled to the bathroom with half my soul still somewhere else. Came back to bed, not to keep sleeping, but to come back into myself. Back into the soft, slow hum of a body asking to be met, not scheduled, not steered, just met.

There are mornings when you wake up and realize your soul’s been somewhere you haven’t caught up to yet.

And as I laid there, somewhere between sleep and waking, I realized something quiet and true: I process life in my sleep. I always have. It’s why I’ve built a bed like a sanctuary. Why I care about sheets, softness, and sound. Because my deepest truths don’t arrive in journals or voice notes. They arrive between 2 a.m. and 7. They arrive in fog. They arrive in sleep as ceremony.

Rooted Revelations

It’s been a season of motion. Not subtle. Not metaphorical. Actual, relentless motion.

It started when I let myself consider moving, three hours away, into a new town, a new life rhythm, and the uncertainty that comes with reshaping your roots. That one thought set off a chain of rearrangements. Packing, sorting, making decisions before clarity had arrived. Running a business. Keeping my word. Trying to stay connected while my internal compass kept spinning.

Then came the travel. Two trips, back to back, before I’d even had a chance to nest in the space I’m in now. No real pause to land. No space to feel at home.

And then… my body crashed.

I was sick. Fever-sick. Heavy, ache-in-your-bones, lose-track-of-days sick. The kind of illness that clears the slate whether you’re ready or not.

For someone who builds sanctuary in her surroundings, who breathes better when the corners are cozy and the rhythm is her own, this last stretch has been wildly disorienting. I’ve been trying to find ground without ever really stopping to feel it.

That’s why yesterday’s sleep hit like a recalibration. Not a nap. Not rest. A full-body override.

It wasn’t a choice I made. My system chose stillness for me. My dreams worked out what I hadn’t been able to. And I woke not just groggy, but different. Softer. Emptier in a way that felt good.

I don’t need to name what I let go of. Only that I did. And that my body knew what to do with it.

Wild Sounds

Sometimes the loudest shift is the one you didn’t realize you were resisting.

I’ve lived in Washington for seven years, minus the stretch where I roamed the country thinking home was a location. It wasn’t. Home is where your people are.

In the beginning, I made a few friends. But I’ve worked only from home since 2018. I wasn’t out in the world much, by design. And when the lockdown years came, I leaned in deeper, focused on work, and launched the last of my kids into their lives.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I stopped knowing people. Stopped being known.

If you’ve ever realized how long it’s been since someone knew your name without needing something from you… you get it.

Now I’m in a new town. Smaller. Slower. Different from anywhere else I’ve lived in Washington.

Here, people say hi. They smile. They ask about your dog. Sometimes they knock on your door with fresh-picked lettuce.

It’s refreshing. And disorienting. It’s the wild sound of neighbors. Of being seen—not for what you do, but simply because you’re here.

I’m still learning how to receive that. Still figuring out what it means to belong somewhere before I’ve built anything. But something in me is exhaling. It’s not loud. It’s not intimate yet. But it’s real.

And it’s happening.

Reverie

You don’t have to earn your way back to yourself.

Being alive isn’t about a perfect morning or a sacred routine. It doesn’t ask for a journal full of insights or a ritual that proves you’re here. You opening up more, being more, and allowing more happens quietly.

It’s in the way the fog doesn’t lift right away after your eyes open. It’s in the strange dream that lingers while you’re standing barefoot in the kitchen, still waking. It’s in your body and how it moves slower than your mind—and you let it lead for once.

You come back to yourself in those subtle shifts you don’t rush to name. The unexpected knock at the door. The breath that softens without effort. The kind of breath you don’t realize you’ve been holding until it releases itself. The quiet that doesn’t feel threatening anymore.

This isn’t because everything’s fixed, but because something in you is finally safe enough to stay present.

To allow yourself to feel.

To feel your body from the inside out.

To feel alive.

And I see you.

Good Luck Vibes

Being reminded of our blessings is as essential as drinking water. It lets us know that even in solitude, we are never truly alone.

In the business group I meet with every other week, the theme this time was receptivity. We explored what it means to receive—not just materially, but energetically. Through the prompts and the sharing, what came through for me wasn’t something new. It was something I’ve always known, just needed to remember again.

That life—this life—isn’t random.

That someone, something, somewhere out in the ether is always catching me right before I fall. That the Universe, or whatever name you give it, has my back.

Not always in big, cinematic moments. But in the quiet, precise ones. The kind of moments that don’t announce themselves as miracles but still shift something real when you notice them.

Maybe the luck wasn’t in what happened but in what held you, quietly, all along.

A full night’s sleep that reset my system. A body that did the deep work I hadn’t gotten around to. A neighbor showing up just to give. The feeling of being thought of, even when I wasn’t reaching out.

That’s what receptivity looked like for me this week. Not striving. Not efforting. Just letting in what was already here.

So if you’ve been wondering if you’re supported… you are.

Even now. Especially now.

That’s the real good luck. It’s just been waiting for you to notice.

Kissed by Stillness,

Michelle