Herding Cattle, Momentum & Micro Movements
Not broken, just untended. Notes from a city girl in a cow pasture
5am on a Wednesday
How many times have you sat with the anxiety, the fear that you’re failing at the thing that is important? I typically have this written and scheduled to publish before Tuesday even arrives. This week? It is about 5am on Wednesday morning, and I am sitting in my Ladies Lounge. My home office. The room I designed to be an exhale, after reclaiming the room that served as my boys’ playroom for the longest time.
I have both a glass of iced water and a fresh, piping hot cup of coffee. I’m sitting at my desk, not even sure where to start. Dawn is only starting to break, and it is still barely light outside. There is no sound in the house. No TV playing, no movement. Just the sound of my keyboard clacking.
Everyone else is still asleep. Not me and my Lola girl. She is snuggled up on the floor behind me. Every so often, if I move, she lets me know how unhappy she is that we are up so early, and how I am adding insult to injury by refusing to be still.
I am really behind on this blog, and I was right up against the goalpost for publishing the corresponding podcast episode, too. Weirdly, though, behind is not even real for either one.
The Made Up Rules in My Head
My podcast hasn’t built a lot of momentum. YET! There is no specific deadline for sharing this article here on Substack or on my website. But I am trying to be consistent. I am trying to deliver what I feel is appropriate.
That rigidity, along with the all or nothing mentality I have shared a bit about before, are made up rules in my head. I cannot be the only person who holds themselves to these standards. Sometimes I think it is a blessing. But I am starting to wonder if all of these self imposed rules and guidelines are more of a curse.
I have spent years fighting with my own set of rules. Take social media, for example. If I do not post a coffee chat reel on Monday, Wednesday AND Friday, I feel like I missed the opportunity. This week I didn’t even post my static content. And trust me, I am beating myself up for missing the teaching moment, the journal prompt, and the permission slip.
I know that I am human, but my mind jumps to the worst possible thing. That loss of momentum. That one thing I needed to let go of so I could focus on the whole? Well, it is going to cost me. Or worse, it means that I am not good at this. I am not capable. Maybe I should give up.
Another one I have shared is walking. In my mixed up math, a half hour walk is insufficient. If I don’t complete the full loop, I shouldn’t bother. I know that isn’t true. But I get bogged down with those rules.
I had the same thing with makeup. I cannot just do my skincare and a little lip gloss or mascara. For me, it is a full face or nothing. I find I operate in extremes more often than not.
Is your voice as critical as mine?
After all, this work is something I am extremely passionate about but not yet paid to do. It’s something I enjoy, and yes, I am using it to build my business. But it is also somewhat cathartic. It’s like releasing the rest of the thought. It’s sharing all the minutiae that doesn’t fit in the podcast but that I still want to share. I am, after all, a long winded storyteller at my core.
So I am feeling anxious because this writing is late. Late? Well, in my mind it is late, due to my own internal, self imposed deadline.
I almost pruned this very essay. Since I couldn’t upload it on my self imposed timeline, I figured I should just skip it. Prune it out and let it go. Instead, you see, I am finding that writing these essays as a deeper reflection of the podcast lets me share more of my life and more of my experience. It lets me share a bit more intimacy and connect with you in a fuller way.
But more than that, it lets me look at my own life as truthfully and reflectively as I am encouraging you to look at yours. The podcast is a quick reflective mirror. This somehow feels more personal and more complete.
Whether you tune in to the podcast, read the article, follow me on social media, or all of it, I hope that sharing stories and insight from my ordinary life has encouraged, pushed, and helped you to start living the best possible version of yours.
Momentum, and the Milestones I Never Celebrated
Last week we talked about filtering feedback, using the four gates both when you receive feedback and when you deliver it. This week, we are talking about momentum.
If you missed it, here are the four gates. When you are delivering feedback, or filtering feedback you have received, ask yourself:
- Is it true?
- Is it kind?
- Is it helpful?
- Is it necessary?
You can read the full post on my website or on Substack.
You don’t have to accomplish everything at once. I so need to remember this regularly. Small micro movements in the same direction eventually become a lot.
Take my weight loss. I was determined to get to the finish line, my goal weight. The weight I felt would change my life. I have shared that the weight loss journey was the catalyst that showed me I was never broken. There was no reason I needed to wait until I was a more appropriate weight to use my voice. To live my life fully. To take up space.
But I didn’t stop along the way to celebrate when I stopped needing plus size clothing and could buy regular sizes. I was still overweight. I was still insecure about taking up space. I was not using my voice.
I remember sitting in the dressing room at Target with several different pairs of non plus size jeans, trying to determine what size I was currently wearing. Most of my before clothes were stretchy, you know, leggings and T shirts. By the time I allowed myself some new clothes, clothes that actually fit my current body, what I had been wearing was sloppy and well beyond just oversized.
So I started with the largest non plus size they had. A size 14. They fit. But they were too large. So I skipped the 12 and went to the 10. I put them on and they zipped fully. They buttoned without the whole wriggle and jumping I had become accustomed to, because even though I should have, I refused to size up. But those 10s, they fit.
Just a few days later, I met up with my sister in my new jeans. Size 10. Not the 20s that I had worn for as long as I could remember. I was wearing a size XL T shirt and those size 10 jeans. She couldn’t believe the difference. I couldn’t believe it either.
But then, and even now sometimes, I still catch myself gravitating to the plus size section. I catch myself folding clothes from the dryer and questioning if that really fits me. Of course it does. I washed it because I had worn it earlier that week.
Now, here I was, half the size I had been before, and I didn’t celebrate. I didn’t take the pictures. I didn’t share it or shout it out. I just criticized myself because I had (and still have) a lot of loose skin on my belly, and because I didn’t reach this threshold by my birthday. I was two weeks late.
For the first time in more than 25 years, I was not in plus size. Instead of celebrating that, I chose to berate myself because I had, once again, missed an arbitrary deadline I had made up in my head.
I for sure didn’t celebrate when I weighed below 200 pounds. For almost all of my adult life I had weighed over 200 pounds. Breaking that threshold should have been a huge celebration. I should have relished that achievement.
Those are each significant milestones. They are worthy of celebrating. However, they are NOT the reason that I now take up space. That I am no longer a wallflower in my life. The entire time, I was just as worthy.
That is a real lesson to swallow. That just because I was in a larger body, I somehow believed I was less worthy. So many of us get caught in that trap.
I missed the opportunity to recognize the commitment I had made to myself. The effort I was putting into becoming a healthier me. All of the work that was slowly moving me closer to improved health, a healthier weight, and to the me who allows herself to show up and share the real me. I could have done that before. But I felt I was not able to. I felt I was not worthy.
I still catch myself having these same thoughts and struggles even now. But I work really diligently to quiet that voice and keep moving.
That is what actually led me to create The Bloom framework.
I was sitting on my back porch one day in the winter, enjoying a cup of coffee while my husband was at the deer camp. I looked across the yard and saw the oak tree we planted a few years ago. The tree was completely bare. Gray branches reaching up to the heavens, a stark contrast to the blue sky. And I thought to myself that anyone who didn’t know better would assume that bare tree was dead. That there was nothing living there.
Instead, though, I knew it had shed its leaves to conserve energy to get through the winter season.
That brought me to two of my five pillars: Roots and Seasonality.
Roots. The oak tree had shed all of its leaves to protect its core. To save energy, to go deep within itself, and to use its roots to maintain its health.
Seasonality. Recognizing that this was not the season for a beautiful crown of leaves. The weight of them icing over would likely damage the branches and tear them away from the trunk.
Today, at the end of summer, that oak tree is full and lush. It is the end of September, and where I live that means the beginning of fall. So in the next few weeks, that oak will start the process of shedding its leaves all over again…
So when these thoughts come up, and they come up often for me, I ask myself: What might need additional care right now? Am I forcing a full bloom when my current capacity is at bare?
That is what keeps me going. I hope it will do the same for you.
Which brings me to the point of all this.
You do not have to complete the transformation to be moving.
Choosing the Weekend
As I shared, my husband had a serious health event a couple of weeks ago. He is doing so much better, but he is far from being back to 100%. He may never be back to that again.
I am still playing full time nursemaid as he continues to recover. Cooking three meals a day. Taking his blood pressure throughout the day. All on top of everything I regularly do in a normal, standard day. I am so fortunate that my corporate job lets me work from home, so I have the flexibility to step away and check on him several times a day. I don’t take that lightly.
He is a heating and air conditioning contractor. He is self employed and has run his own successful business for the better part of our marriage. I have always admired his commitment to his customers. When they call, holiday, vacation, date night, he goes. It has always been part of our dynamic, and we have always accepted that.
But the doctors were explicit with him. He could do nothing. No driving, no working, nothing for a minimum of two weeks.
Listening to him on the phone with his customers, trying to explain that he was not able to come this time? Well, it was excruciating. On the first call, he literally said, “Let me see if my son can drive me.” No, sir, you are NOT going. I insisted he call the customer back and state simply that they could call someone else, or they could wait for him to feel up to it.
He has been at work a little this week. The first day, he came home exhausted after one quick service call. So we are limiting his time to a few hours a day, and ONLY if he feels up to it. He is simply not ready for hot work.
He is, of course, concerned he will lose customers or that his business will suffer. Reminding him that he might not be here at all is difficult for me to say, and I am sure just as hard for him to hear.
But he did push back this week. He told a customer that he would complete the attic work, but it had to wait until cooler weather arrived, and it would take two days, because he was not willing to push himself.
His recovery is another example of this same lesson. Seeing what he and his body can tolerate. Stopping when it is too much. Trying again the next day, or later. Finding a new way to complete the goal.
This weekend, I made the decision to leave all of my work behind. The weekend chores, the grocery store run, the Friday evening run club. Recording the podcast, planning the social media. The weekend list goes on and on. I left every bit of it behind.
Instead, I went with my husband to the hunting camp.
There were a number of reasons. It is about a two hour drive, and I wasn’t sure he was ready to drive that long. Alone. I also did not want him to push himself, to do more than he should, and in doing so put his healing and his recovery at risk or set it back.
But I also wanted to spend some additional time with him. To support him in a way I don’t usually participate in. It was important to me to spend time with him.
This is such a dynamic. I love my husband. I enjoy spending time with him. But there is something I have come to enjoy about hunting season. The freedom. I can stay up late. I can have girl dinner. I can sleep in. I can drink coffee on the back patio with a book and not have to consider anyone else’s plans. That has become a quiet luxury.
The weekends he goes to camp have also become the weekends I fully devote to my business. I take the time to preplan, create outlines, and do so much of the heavy lifting.
So choosing to go with him was literally saying no to the business this weekend. It was saying no to a weekend without considering what my partner might want to do, or what he might need or want from me. It was taking on a commitment when I usually have commitment free time.
There was a part of me that did NOT want to go. I just wanted to stay home, in my space, with my things. I did not want to pack up everything I might need for a quick weekend.
A City Girl at Hunting Camp
I don’t usually enjoy spending time at the camp. It is cramped. The kitchen is tiny. I have to pack everything: clothes, toiletries, but also groceries, coffee, every single thing I will need while I am there. And then it’s dirty. It sits in a pasture, with all that goes with that. I am a city girl through and through. Or maybe I am a bit more high maintenance than I am willing to admit. Some of that may be true.
So we drove up after I finished my corporate job on Friday evening. We arrived late and had a quick dinner. We watched a bit of TV, cleaned a bit, made the bed, and got the camp ready for the weekend.
On Saturday we slept in a little. Then I cooked a full breakfast: homemade biscuits, sausage patties, grits, and scrambled eggs.
We spent the better part of the day riding the hunting lease, checking his feeders. The ride was dusty and dry. We have pretty much been in a drought this summer, both at home and at the camp.
He made it a point to tell me to keep my legs in the vehicle, several times, like I was a toddler. Then he would get out and walk around stomping, to make sure there were no snakes, before he would let me get out of the buggy. My protective husband. I was there to make sure he didn’t overdo it, and he was still making sure I was safe.
We changed batteries, adjusted timers, swapped SD cards in the cameras, sprayed the stands with wasp spray, and the list goes on and on. We had a full but generally easygoing day.
I am not a hunter. I don’t mind sitting in a stand. Well, only if the weather is not too hot or too cold. Okay, okay, maybe I am a bit high maintenance. I love being out in nature. I am not likely to shoot an animal, but if I get the privilege of seeing one, I enjoy just watching them. So spending the day in the woods, outside in beautiful 80 degree weather, was perfection.
I did, however, wonder aloud several times: how many stands does one person need? I mean really? Really? He tried to explain that each catches the deer from the creek or a food plot or a good vantage point. But I still do not understand. I guess he could ask me about how many pairs of shoes or purses I need? Ah well. That is a problem for another day!
We cooked a good dinner, watched some college football, and went to bed early. We were tired, and we had spent a nice day.
On Sunday, I cooked breakfast again, this time just eggs and sausage. We packed up a bit. It was a generally slow day. We made a few lists of things we needed for the next trip and started getting our things together to leave.
Then I went for a run walk. Did I say how amazing the weather was there? Here at home we are still in the 90s with ridiculous humidity.
I chose to walk on the narrow road instead of at the farm. The walk there is so different than at home. It is hilly, whereas at home it’s flat. About halfway through, I realized I hadn’t even turned on a podcast or my music playlist. Instead, I just enjoyed the sound of my feet pounding the ground, the birds, and the gentle mooing of the cows.
I don’t get to run near water, so I ran to the creek and stopped for a few minutes, just because I could. I am already looking forward to visiting the creek over the winter. But I will need to confirm it is safe, since there are neighboring leases and I don’t want to be mistaken for a deer!
Playing Cowboys
Before we left, we got to play “COWBOYS.” And no, this Saints fan isn’t cheering for Dallas!
The family we lease our hunting camp from has several hundred head of cattle. (Calling you back to why staying in a pasture can be a lot for this city girl!) All weekend they had been working the cattle, separating the mommas and the babies to wean them.
So, we got to help. Well, I didn’t help. I rode shotgun in one of the side by sides while they, you know, the ones who knew what they were doing, worked to get the cows from one field to another, and eventually into the pen. It was a lot of work. It was a coordinated circus. One I thoroughly enjoyed.
The dust that kicked up. The adrenaline when the herd was stampeding in the WRONG direction. Yeah, not so much! The sound of the herd running. The stomping on the ground. More dust. The four wheeler, the side by sides, the horses. It was a real circus.
Then we would freeze right where we were, to make sure we were not trampled and that none of the cows were injured either. It was a delicate dance. Watching the cows look at us as we tried to herd them. Some ignored us and turned away. Others looked on with curiosity. And then, as if by magic, one would start to move, and they all just followed suit. It was a lot like shepherding toddlers.
What kept happening is we would get the cows moving in the right direction, toward where we were trying to get them. And inevitably, one of them (because they’re smart!) would get by and head back away from the rest. And then they all would start to follow that one.
Momentum. Once one moved and found an escape path, they all moved. It was wonderful when that momentum was working in our favor. But when it was the opposite of what we were trying to do, it created a challenge, and we were back to square one.
This went on for a few rounds. Eventually, we stopped so as not to stress the animals any more.
After a few hours of tinkering at the camp, we went back and finished, and were able to get the remaining cows separated. I believe the cows were as eager as we were to settle completely for the day and be finished with all the nonsense.
Ironically, that is the same thing we are trying to get my husband to do. Stop for a bit. Rest and care for himself, so that his body can heal. So that he can continue to do these things and have the full life we all deserve.
What Counts as Progress?
How does this show up in your life? Have you ever said something along the lines of: I will start a new diet on Monday. Then at 3pm you grab a snack without thinking and, whoops, I will start again next Monday.
I will go back to school when? When things settle down, I will… fill in the blank.
News flash: things aren’t ever going to slow down. It just doesn’t happen. Not in life.
Something I am really trying to do is get comfortable in the messy middle. Today, I didn’t do the full makeup. I added a swipe of mascara and a little lip gloss, and I went with it. Weirdly, my husband commented that I looked nice today. That is me trying the same thing, and rewiring that made up rule in real time.
Sometimes the micro movement is saying no to something so that you have the capacity to say yes to the thing you really want. It’s making the appointment to talk about options. Opening the document. Resting instead of proving something. Admitting what you want when it terrifies you, especially then. Having one uncomfortable conversation. That’s micro movements.
For me, I have been honest with myself about my debt. I actually wrote down every credit card I have. What the balance is. What the interest rate is. I am determined to get out of this hole. Then I plugged that data into Excel, and I am finessing my budget to find ways to attack it. It’s messy and ugly, but I have a full picture. Ironically, it is bad, but it isn’t quite what I thought.
So my friends, ask yourself: What’s one small thing you’re doing differently this week? Remember, you don’t have to do it all. Just a micro movement in the right direction is enough to start that momentum. Then do the next micro thing to keep it moving.
Ask yourself: What counts as progress?
What if we’ve been measuring progress by completion?
What if making the phone call counts?
What if deciding counts?
What if trying and realizing, nope, this isn’t for me, counts?
What if resting before you burn yourself to the ground is movement?
What if some seasons of blooming look almost completely still from the outside?
Dormant Isn’t Dead
I made a decision to invest in my marriage this weekend. As a result, I didn’t tend to anything else. I started this week tired, but feeling accomplished.
This isn’t to say that you cannot have it all. It is to say that the biggest part of life is prioritizing with ruthless precision. What stays and what goes. Pruning things now doesn’t mean they’re gone forever. Maybe they’re just meant to pick back up later. Being dormant isn’t the same thing as dead. Unless you want it to be.
A full life requires ruthless prioritization, not perfect balance.
Not ruthless in a cold way. Ruthless in the sense that you have to stop pretending everything can occupy first place simultaneously.
Sometimes the marriage gets the weekend.
Sometimes The Bloom, the business, gets the weekend.
Sometimes the house gets ignored.
Sometimes the podcast gets recorded later than you wanted.
Sometimes you get the afternoon.
And choosing one does not automatically mean abandoning the others. You aren’t meant to bloom all the time. Pruning is not death. Dormant isn’t dead. Set aside is not abandoned. You can choose to set something down deliberately, or choose to cut back because another part of your life needs the resources right now. And later, you can tend that branch again. It will come back.
Unless YOU choose you’d rather leave it untended.
Because occasionally, pruning is deciding, “This does not belong in my garden anymore.”
Choosing is not failing. I didn’t neglect The Bloom this weekend. I prioritized my marriage. Everything doesn’t have to grow at the same rate, at the same time. Some things can sit dormant while you tend something else.
Pruning requires truth telling. Is this something I’m setting aside for a season, or something I actually want permission to release?
So here I am, sitting at my desk at 5am on a morning when I would much prefer to still be in bed. Why? Not because I believe in hustle culture and the “I can sleep when I’m dead” rhetoric. No. I am here because growing this business means showing up as myself, even when I am tired and over committed. If I am unwilling to put in the effort now, I feel I won’t be deserving of the end goal.
Remember that voice? It still pipes up, even here. Even now. I remind myself that this work feeds my soul, and I want to remind all people that they’re not broken, they’re untended. That is what we do together here.
So instead, I chose to prune away the made up rule that I needed a full face, and I gave myself an additional twenty minutes to devote to my business. Time that I know future Melinda, and if I can be completely transparent, I hope you, will appreciate too.
Your Turn
What are you exhausted from trying to keep alive at the same intensity as everything else?
Not, “What should you give up?” Just this: what’s one small thing you’re doing differently this week to move closer to the life you want?
Share yours in the comments. I’d love to walk alongside you.
Keep tending to what matters. YOU matter.
Melinda
This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.