Melissa Schlies – Page 3 – Melissa Schlies

Love Learn Lead April 5, 2018

It seems almost unfair that the grey skies of winter often give way to the rainy days of spring, before the sun finally warms our days more consistently. Conversely, last week, I saw a friend who lives in the desert out west. She told me that other than a few weeks a year, every day is sunny where she lives. And I wondered, would I miss the rain, if I lived in the desert? Important things happen in the rainy, in between months. Here in the Northeast, it is when the first plants of the season begin to take root. [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2018-07-16T19:28:37+00:00April 5th, 2018|Categories: Hope, Lead, Learn, Love, Love Learn Lead, perseverance, podcasts I love, Uncategorized, Waiting|Comments Off

When It Rains, It

April is known as the month it rains. “April showers” and all of that. But I have found, it doesn’t have to be April to have a string of rainy days. Or, that it even needs to be raining for it to pour. Life has a way of happening all at once. Sometimes, the big and wonderful things seem to gush into our lives at one time. Like the year I started dating my husband. I fell in love, went to two glorious foreign countries, climbed a mountain, and got engaged by Christmas. It was a fantastic year. Only, it [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2018-07-16T19:32:22+00:00April 2nd, 2018|Categories: Uncategorized|4 Comments

Love On April Fools

B&B hosts tell the best stories. If you’ve been reading the blog for a while, or if you follow my Instagram, you know I love to travel. For me and Tony, it’s probably our favorite thing to do together. Early in our marriage, we discovered we really enjoy staying at Bed and Breakfasts. AirB&B or traditional B&B’s, we are in. And on our travels, we’ve had some incredible hosts. One of our favorite’s, we’ll call her “V,” we met in Northern Ireland. We stayed in her charming B&B for a few days, while checking out Giant’s Causeway, Dunluce Castle, and [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2018-03-29T06:30:19+00:00March 29th, 2018|Categories: Courage, Faith, Freedom, Lead, Learn, Love, Love Learn Lead, Story, Uncategorized|7 Comments

When Our Story Is Too Small

When I was a kid, I was always telling stories. I had a BIG imagination. With my friends or sisters, we’d create these elaborate, imaginary places for us to live. Then we’d create some sort of conflict or drama to work through together. Whether imagining life on a ranch (I loved horses), or as singing and dancing pop stars, we were never bored. Oh, what childhood looked like before technology. But the interested thing about our imagination, is that it doesn’t leave us when we become adults. We just seem to use it for different things. Sadly, it’s often the [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2018-07-16T21:17:26+00:00March 26th, 2018|Categories: Courage, Fear, Hope, Identity, Story, Success, Uncategorized|Comments Off

Love: Storytellers I Love

Art has a way of bringing truth in through the backdoor. In other words, if I was to tell you something uncomfortable, yet true, I could say it to your face. Say the words as clearly as can be, and you could choose to ignore me. Or I could write my message in big letters on cardboard, stand on the corner outside your house, and yell at you as you passed by. Chances are though, it would only shut you down. But if I painted you a picture. Sang you a song. Told you a story. Rather than reason with [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2018-07-16T21:21:43+00:00March 22nd, 2018|Categories: Courage, Hope, Lead, Learn, Love, Love Learn Lead, Story, Uncategorized|Comments Off

The Story We Have To Stop Telling

When I was five or six, I heard a word I didn’t understand, said in a movie. But it sounded cool. So one day, I went up to my parents and I used the word. Like it was the most natural thing in the world, like I knew what it meant. In under a half a second, my mom grabbed me, pulled me into the bathroom, and put soap in my mouth. She explained to me, while bubbles started seeping between my lips, that I should never say that word. It was a bad word, and I should never speak [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2018-07-16T21:26:56+00:00March 19th, 2018|Categories: Friendship, Relationships, Story|3 Comments

Learning to Tell Your Story

There is this part in Brene Brown’s book, Rising Strong, in which she shares a phrase that helps her deal with conflict. Whether experiencing tension with her husband, friend, or a co-worker, this one phrase helps her open up a healthy and calm dialogue. The phrase begins like this: “The story I am telling myself is…” In other words, if someone does something that feels hurtful or unexpected—rather than blowing up at the person—she examines her story. You know, the story we all tell ourselves when things like this happen. Stories like “He didn’t call me, he must be mad [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2018-07-16T21:37:58+00:00March 15th, 2018|Categories: Change, Courage, Health, Lead, Learn, Love, Love Learn Lead, Mental Health, Story, Uncategorized|Comments Off

Spring Cleaning & Telling Stories P. 2

For the first part of this post, click here. I remember the feeling of the cold medal chair frame in my hands. I was holding onto the sides of the chair as if to keep me from running out of the room. I had just told my life story. People I barely knew were weighing in. They were told to. It was part of an exercise for our counseling class; each of us had to tell our story, then share what we observed in each other’s. Not a big deal. I didn’t have a tragic or sordid past. I had gone [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2018-07-17T00:31:20+00:00March 12th, 2018|Categories: Change, Courage, Freedom, Health, Hope, Mental Health, Story|3 Comments

#metoo

“It’s not the lips of a prince that will save us, but our own lips speaking.” —Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds Over the past year, the victims of sexual assault and harassment were finally given a microphone. Where so many, for so long, were silenced, a collective sigh was felt as finally truths were spoken. Light was cast on not simply one-time offenses, but rather repeated patterns of abuse and misuse. And men who were made gods in our culture, toppled from their pedestals. Suddenly oblivious men posted on social media that it wasn’t safe to be a [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2018-07-17T00:38:05+00:00March 8th, 2018|Categories: Freedom, Health, Lead, Learn, Love, Love Learn Lead, Story, Uncategorized|Comments Off

Spring Cleaning & Telling Stories P. 1

Though as I write these words winter is still heavy upon us, today I want to talk about spring cleaning. Despite the fact that it snowed yesterday, beautifully covering cars, trees, and grass— then rained, turning everything to slush—I want to think about warm weather. I want to think about opening windows to let fresh air and sunshine pour in. And I want to talk about the surprising things you find, when you’re cleaning for the first time in a while. Like when I used to find twenty dollar bills neatly folded in my coat pockets. Hasn’t happened in more [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-04-13T18:54:20+00:00March 5th, 2018|Categories: Change, Courage, Health, Mental Health, Story|1 Comment

About Melissa Schlies

Love Learn Lead April 5, 2018

When It Rains, It

Love On April Fools

When Our Story Is Too Small

Love: Storytellers I Love

The Story We Have To Stop Telling

Learning to Tell Your Story

Spring Cleaning & Telling Stories P. 2

#metoo

Spring Cleaning & Telling Stories P. 1

ABOUT ME

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