Nestled in the Pause #6

Five gentle invitations, inspired by creativity and my love-themed Kitchen Table Gathering.

Hello, I’m really happy you’re here.
This is a quiet corner where I explore what it means to live with more heart and less hurry - through stillness, creativity, and connection. I’m someone learning, right alongside you, how to pause long enough to listen for what truly matters. Pull up a chair. There’s space for you here.

On Friday evening, five beautiful souls joined me around the Kitchen Table.
This week, the creativity they carried, shapes the pauses I invite you into.

The theme for our creative invitation was Love Set Free.
I opened our practice with these words.

When we offer something with no expectation, with no name attached, or no outcome to manage, we often feel lighter. We’re reminded that we’re part of something larger, something shared.

This is love, given freely, and in the giving, quietly returned.

This small act of giving is about trust.
Trust that what you create will meet someone right where they are.

There’s something deeply heartwarming about offering love anonymously, and trusting that it will land where it’s meant to.

Tonight, we’ll be creating a message of love meant to be sent out into the world. How you do that is entirely up to you. You might place a note in a bottle, write a note, paint a message, create something small to leave somewhere, or you may choose to keep it for yourself.

There’s no right way. You will know what feels right for you.

As you make your message, let it be kind.
Let it be enough.

We gathered with simple materials - most found right in their homes.
With open hearts and busy hands, each woman spent time creating her own unique message.

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One woman wrote to a dear friend she lost a few years ago.
She sealed her message in a bottle to place on the memorial bench where she still feels close to her.

She also folded a paper heart around her words, a small envelope to keep in her own memory box.

What she made was born from memories and grief,
but the act itself isn’t only for loss.

These small containers can hold apologies, gratitude, hope, forgiveness-
anything the heart needs to say but doesn’t quite know how to deliver.

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Another woman filled a bottle with rose quartz and rose petals.
On the outside she wrote: This message is meant for you.
Inside, a reminder for whoever finds it -
that they are enough, and always worthy of love.

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One woman wrote a letter she’ll never send-
I would like you to be in my world more.
She called it a reverse message and plans to burn it.

Some messages aren’t meant to be delivered.
They’re meant to be acknowledged.

This wasn’t gratitude or kindness.
It was a quiet admission of longing - words that needed to exist even without a response.

By folding the paper and burning it, she isn’t sending it away.
She’s allowing herself to tell the truth safely.

Sometimes we don’t need the conversation.
We need the honesty.

The release becomes the relief.

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Another woman cut out paper hearts that will become cards -
one for a family member going through chemotherapy,
another for a friend waiting on test results.

A simple shape, a few caring words,
something held in the hand that quietly says I’m with you.

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Another woman shared she had recorded a podcast about Valentine’s Day.
About love in a wider sense.
She never shared it.
It felt preachy, she said.
Like telling instead of sharing.

She wrote a love note at our gathering.
It inspired her.
She suddenly knew exactly where those words belonged.
She released them into the world the next day on her podcast.

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I’m still nestled in the softness of Friday night.

And I think that’s the real gift.

Love doesn’t end when the gathering ends.
Or when Valentine’s Day comes to a close.
It simply changes hands.

Art therapist Shaun McNiff writes,
“Art heals by giving form to what cannot be spoken.”

Friday evening nothing was solved.
Grief didn’t disappear.
No distance closed.

But something softened.

Sometimes healing isn’t resolution -
it’s expression.

If your heart needs somewhere to place its words this week,
may these creative offerings help you pause.

PS: I started this newsletter by saying that there’s something deeply heartwarming about offering love anonymously, and trusting that it will land where it’s meant to. I have a story to share about exactly that.

Following the gathering on Friday evening, I hung a small red gift bag on a tree outside our condo. Inside was a message in a bottle:

You are more loved than you know.

The very next morning I witnessed who found it.

A neighbour, living with dementia, walking arm-in-arm with a friend who helps her walk her beloved dog while she waits for placement in a care home.

I stood there with tears in my eyes - the message somehow reached exactly where it belonged.

Maybe that’s the quiet trust in giving things away. Love often knows where it’s going long before we do.

If you feel moved, I’d be grateful if you like this post with a ❤️, share a thought in the comments, buy me a coffee, or pass it along to someone who might enjoy a pause. Each small gesture helps this quiet space reach others who may need it.