Change – Page 5 – Melissa Schlies

In Case No One Told You, The Rules Have Changed

I don’t need to tell you how much our lives have changed in the last month. How strange social distancing is or that now, going to the grocery store is like being in a sci-fi movie. All of us wearing our masks, and trying so hard to say six feet a part. But in all of this, I do feel like there is one thing I need to say. Friend, the rules have changed. Many of the ones we’ve followed daily for as long as we can remember, no longer apply. The expectations of others or ourselves that say we [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-04-13T12:16:58+00:00April 13th, 2020|Categories: Anxiety, Change, Fear, FOMO, Habit Making, Hope, Social Distancing|Comments Off

Five Ways to Approach Your Pandemic Grief

In the corner of our living room right now, there is a big stack of boxes. It had begun to form over a month ago, when our plans looked very different. Now, they’re a daily reminder that our lives have been put on hold. Tony and I were supposed to move this season. No, we haven’t found a house (though we came very close to putting an offer on one). But before Covid-19, we’d been actively looking. And as the boxes in our living room can attest, we were already packing. We were READY to move. Only now, everything is [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-04-01T23:16:50+00:00April 2nd, 2020|Categories: Acceptance, Change, comparison, Conflict, Depression, grief, Health, Hope, Lead, Learn, Love, Love Learn Lead, Mental Health|Comments Off

A Social Distancing Survival Guide for Everyday (Free Download)

They say, you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. Right now, we’re all feeling the truth of this statement in a way we’ve never experienced before. It's amazing how much of our lives have changed in such a short period of time. Not only has the pandemic caused us to give up the majority of our social interaction for the foreseeable future, but it has also cost us many of the crucial components of our everyday lives. We’ve had to say a lot of goodbyes. Some forever, and some for an unknown amount of time. Some as [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-04-06T16:03:08+00:00March 30th, 2020|Categories: Acceptance, Anxiety, Change, Courage, Depression, Fear, grief, Habit Making, perseverance, Routines, Social Distancing Survival Guide, Uncategorized|Comments Off

Social Distancing: Five Tips To Working From Home

It’s a strange thing to find oneself at home interminably, when so much of your life has been at your job. If you live alone, all of a sudden everything is very quiet and still. If you have kids, it’s the opposite. And, if your home has become your work place, it is all the stranger. To do work in the place you rest feels unnatural, and terribly distracting. Yet this is where most of us have found ourselves this past week: Working from home. As I decided to pursue writing and life coaching a few years ago, this reality [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-03-18T23:19:26+00:00March 19th, 2020|Categories: Adulting, Balance, Change, Creativity, Health, Lead, Learn, Love, Love Learn Lead, perseverance, Preparation, Routines, Social Distancing|Comments Off

Five Podcasts To Help Us Step Into Our Creativity

When I first became a youth pastor, I felt like what Shonda Rhimes calls the F.O.D.—the “First Only Different.” I was the only female minister in our department. When I went to our network meetings with other youth pastors in the area, again, I was the only woman. And often, the only single person in the meeting. Don’t get me wrong, I met and worked with some great guys at those meetings. But, spending two hours of each month listening to men talk about balancing fatherhood with ministry—didn’t exactly help twenty-three-year-old me navigate being a woman in the field. I [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-03-11T23:58:07+00:00March 12th, 2020|Categories: Change, Creativity, Friendship, Lead, Learn, Love, Love Learn Lead, perseverance, podcasts I love, Success|Comments Off

Common Place Friends: Why Some of Our Friendships Don’t Last

A little over eight years ago, Tony and I left our church. It happens all the time. People leaving their church. A person, couple, or family decides they don’t fit, realizes they aren’t growing spiritually, or they get hurt by the leaders or other congregants, and they leave. Sometimes it’s messy, all the time it’s sad. For Tony and me, it was both. The fact that I’d worked at our church for over seven years, meant it came with its fair share of hurt and messiness. But then add in the fact that we each came to the church as [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-02-24T11:57:19+00:00February 24th, 2020|Categories: Acceptance, Adulting, Change, Friendship, grief, Habit Making, Relationships|2 Comments

Six Rules For Fighting Fair In Marriage

Here is the thing they don’t tell you when you get married: some of the rules of your relationship change along the way. Or rather, you and your spouse keep changing so how you handle crisis and times of stress isn’t always the same. Even if your marriage is good, you can hit a rough patch and be completely blindsided. It is kind of like being on a long road trip with each other. Sometimes, you or your spouse can handle getting lost and even losing a tire with complete patience and grace—for an entire stretch of your journey. But [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-02-18T16:04:59+00:00February 20th, 2020|Categories: Adulting, Change, Conflict, Lead, Leadership, Learn, Love, Love Learn Lead, Marriage, Relationships|Comments Off

Confession: I’m a Bad Neighbor

Last week, while I was working in our apartment, I started to hear these loud noises coming from the down stairs unit. At first I heard the pounding of a hammer. Then it sounded like the cabinets in the kitchen were being ripped out of the walls. I peaked out the window to find two maintenance vehicles parked outside. I shrugged my shoulders, and figured something went wrong with one of our neighbor’s appliances. Then, I went back to work. The next morning, I got a text from Tony: “Did you know our neighbors downstairs moved out?” I told him [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-02-06T00:20:34+00:00February 6th, 2020|Categories: Adulting, Change, Conflict, Friendship, Hope, Lead, Learn, Love, Love Learn Lead, Relationships|Comments Off

What The World Needs Now

A couple of weeks ago, I sat on my couch with my closest friend. With mugs of tea and coffee in our hands, she asked me about my writing. As January was rather busy and hard, I shared I didn’t know what I’d write about on the blog this month. Then offhandedly, I said: “Probably something about relationships as it is February.” Then I added, “But that feels so cliche.” As this is the month of Valentine’s Day, it is kind of the “month of love.” Yet joining the chorus of other bloggers and online magazines sharing tips on how [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-03-26T16:41:26+00:00February 3rd, 2020|Categories: Acceptance, Calling, Change, Conflict, Friendship, Hope, Relationships|2 Comments

Just What You (May) Need to Hear

It is the second to last day of January. How did that happen? I don’t know about you, but 2020 has already thrown me a few surprises. Some good, some really hard, and more than a few I am not ready for—yet here we are. And as much as my planner self hates to admit, there are only a few things we actually have control over in life. We can fill out our Start Here: Dream Planners, and come up with brilliant strategies for how we want to approach 2020. But that doesn’t mean everything is going to go to [...]

By Melissa Schlies|2020-03-26T16:40:25+00:00January 30th, 2020|Categories: Adulting, Balance, Change, Freedom, Health, Hope, Lead, Leadership, Learn, Love, Love Learn Lead, Mental Health, podcasts I love|Comments Off

Five Ways to Approach Your Pandemic Grief

Five Podcasts To Help Us Step Into Our Creativity

Common Place Friends: Why Some of Our Friendships Don’t Last

Six Rules For Fighting Fair In Marriage

Confession: I’m a Bad Neighbor

What The World Needs Now

Just What You (May) Need to Hear

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