Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of iHeartRadio and The Black Effect.
Hey y'all, what's up?
Welcome to another extraordinary week of checking in. Every time I press the record button, I automatically enter into a state of gratitude because again, I cannot do what I do without y'all listening and downloading episodes, sharing the episodes, and even interacting with me via social media about the episode.
So I'm really, really, really thankful.
I'm thankful for the folks that repost, and just thankful even to the guests that take time out of their day and schedule, because listen, everybody's got something to do, everybody's got something going on. So I really really am thankful when someone says, you know what, of course I'll come on checking in this week.
It's just me, and I'm actually.
Recording from probably my top safe place I am at Living Waters. It's a spot in Hidnight, North Carolina. Midnight, North Carolina. Yep, it's called hid Night, North Carolina. You fly into Charlotte and it's like an hour hour and a half drive from Charlotte, or you can drive, and there are many times I've taken road trips from Atlanta, and it's like four and like a four and a
half hour drive and I needed to be here. As we were kind of driving through these country roads, peace washed over me, anxiety melted off of me, and just to be in a safe space to rest.
This place changed my life.
There would not be a checking in book, a checking in podcast if it wasn't for Living Waters, if it wasn't for one of the retreats that is held here called Healing the Heart. And I quietly send people here just because of what it did for me. And you know, like I said, success did not heal the trauma that I buried, but it has allowed me to Success has allowed me to pay it forward. Meaning if something blessed me tremendously, if something changed my life, I have to
tell people about it. I have to send people here. It's kind of like when you had something really good to eat and you were like, trust me, matter of fact, it's on me. Go to this restaurant. I'll pay for it. That's how good it is. Like, that's what success can do for you. That's what success can do. So a lot of people, you know, I had a few things to say, you know, well, give me the success you got it heal my trauma. Trust and believe it will not It will only unearth some unhealed areas in you.
And like I said, what success did for me, it allowed me to find resources. And so that's why I have to tell people I have to do. Anytime somebody wants me to speak about mental health and healing, I'm there because I know the impact that it's had on my life.
So that's where I am.
I'm actually upstairs in one of the amazing quiet sitting areas record.
It's on maybe seventy acres of.
Land, animals, horses, we're just added. My dog is here running around with one of the other dogs, and so it's so pretty. And I don't come here because something is wrong. I come here before something does go wrong. I come here to rest. I come here because I miss being up here. There are lots of times I'm here serving volunteering, and I'm in the kitchen a lot of the times and people are like, wait a minute, aren't you Michelle Williams, And I say, yes, I am.
Would you like blue cheese or vinegarette? And they just crack up, because yes, that's This place means so much to me that I will be in the kitchen washing dishes or trying to spreadch the shredded cheese on the lasagna that's gonna be served later for dinner.
So I love it here. That's why I kind of wanted to.
Talk to y'all about I told y'all I'm here not because something is wrong, but because I felt like I needed rest. And I'm already gonna answer a question. Well, of course, Michelle, you can just take off and rest. You don't have a nine to five like I have.
Well, for you, I just want to tell you.
Can come here on the weekends. The retreats are Friday through Sunday. You can drive in after work, you can fly after work, and you can be here in time for dinner on Friday night and leave Sunday to be back in time for work on Monday. So I understand. But when I say rest, what are some forms of rest that a person can take who probably doesn't feel like they can just take off work during the week to rest. Now, there are some jobs who offer mental
health days. For some reason, the computer that I use is not turning on. But there are mental health days that you can take during the week.
To rest.
So I noticed the different ways that I rest, and when I mean rest, I don't mean just being in the bed sleep. But that type of rest is some of the most healing, rejuvenating rest you can ever take. Because your body is healing, your mind prayer for me is not racing, and I know it takes people probably an hour or to even when you're in a sleep position of sleep, your mind is still racing, so some for some folks, it takes a long time before you can even really get into an amazing state of sleep
and rest. But I kind of discovered a form of rest, which is maybe not answering your phone right away. When it answers literally you might have to send people to voicemail. A form of rest is like I'm not going to answer this message right away. You are allowing yourself to rest. There are certain times when I know I need rest, when I'm like, I can't answer this email right away. It's not an emergency. I'm going to rest my mind.
What is another form of rest? In music form, rest literally means there's nothing between this beat and the next beat, there's nothing between this note and the next note.
You rest.
It's a little squiggly line. If you can read music, you know exactly what I'm talking talking about. Rest, Take a beat, take a minute, take a second. Another form of rest is a decision you may make not to engage or try to be the problem solver for someone. Rest, rest your mouth, Rest the words that you know you can speak into a situation. You're gonna rest, You're not gonna try to fix it. My therapist said something to me so amazing. Do I want to tell it because.
She needs to? Yeah, I'm not gonna tell it.
She needs to patent license to trademark this this phrase that she said to me.
But basically the phrase.
That she said means, do not feel you have to be responsible or take on responsibility for what someone shares with you. So when someone shares something with you that's something tough that they're going through, if you're really an impath, you can feel what it's doing to someone you take on. If their heartbroken, you feel heartbroken. If they're sad, you get sad, And nothing is wrong with that. But I think what happens is when you just daily take it on.
When you daily then you start being fixated on someone else's situation. And sometimes people get so fixated on someone's situation. That breakdown that that person can have is because they've reached their capacity. They've overloaded themselves with another person's issue when they have already have something on their plate that they need to work on. Rest It doesn't mean you ignore somebody. It doesn't mean you dismiss what someone is
going through. You just decide to rest, meaning I've made it decision, and not to try to.
Be the problem solver, even if I believe.
That my solution is going to really make a difference in that person's life.
Rest.
Maybe give them the solution or the suggestion if they ask for it, or if they ask for the solution or suggestion and you're just tired and you need to rest, tell them, Hey, give me to end of day and I'll get back to you. But just know that I do have something that I think could work for you.
You just have to kind of take a beat.
So I'm here resting, I am here resetting, I'm here recalibrating. There's been so many great things going on, and I want to be able to steward it well. But I can if I'm I'm tired, I can't. If I haven't rested.
I can't.
I just literally it's the phrase when they say I can't, it's like I can't. So I wanted to rest before I do have a breakdown. I wanted to rest before I find myself in a state of depression.
And you know, you have to you have to be self aware, you have to know.
Yep, it's time for me to unplug, and it's time for me to go sit by the river.
It's time for me.
To unplug, and it's time for me to just sit on my sofa and watch my favorite television show. It's time for me to unplug, and it's time for me to just sit in an amazing jacuzzi or my bathtub with the bubbles and candles. You know what is best for you to rest, and if you don't know, you need to discover what's your safe space. So I have no problem with that. So I've been resting, y'all. I've been resting, and I missed going to London for the Renaissance tour. Had so much going on and I wanted
to be there. So now I'm like, Okay, the dates that I can make is warsaw and or Toronto.
And I'm like, I don't really consider. I'm trying to figure out if I've ever seen Be perform on tour in Europe, and I don't think I have. And you know, I really wanted to go. But y'all will see me. We're gonna, We're gonna be there, We're gonna be there. I'm I'm excited, I so much.
So many family and friends have gone, and I've just I really wanted to be be in London for sure, because London was the first place that I toured internationally with Destiny's Child. I'll never forget we did a performance at Shepherd's Bush and I'll never forget getting out of the mini van and someone had my name on a poster board.
So London just it has a very, very very special place in my heart.
So that's why I really wanted to go to London. So I am nearing the end of my rest because I'm gonna be in Washington, DC over the weekend doing something amazing at the Kennedy Center and tribute to Marvin gay And so I have been tasked to do about four or five songs of with various artists, Marvin Gaye and Tammy Terrell. I'm excited because I get to do a.
Song with Balao.
Now, when this upcoming week approach, I was like, I'm tired.
I've got to.
Really you know, I'm looking over the sheet music and I'm getting so overwhelmed, Like, Okay, I've got to learn these lyrics, right, I gotta learn the music. So I have to be in a state of rest so that when I have my performances Friday and Saturday, I'm giving it my all. I'm giving it my all. So we're gonna be rehearsing Thursday and then I think a show on Friday and two on Saturday or something like that. But yeah, auditions and all kinds of amazing things that
are coming my way. So I have to rest so that I can be the best that I can be. So I'm gonna pause, and I want you to reflect. Do you need to rest?
How do you know when it is time for you to rest? Do you wait till you've blow up and gone off on somebody, you're irritable, your edgy? How do you know when you need to rest? Maybe you're short.
With people and they're like, wait a minute, why are you being mean? And by the way, that those are symptoms of depression. Too, by the way, but sometimes they are literally just symptoms of lack of rest. You're doing too much, that's how you know. So just kind of reflect how can you rest well?
Michelle. I live with my siblings, or I live with my husband, or I live with my wife, I live with my partner, I live with my spouse, and it's a lot. As soon as I walk through the door, I've got to feed the kids, I've got to take the dogs out, I've got to do this, I've got to do that. I got homework.
I'm some of you are maybe studying for your masters or your bachelor's or a doctorates, and you're just like, I've.
Got so much to do, and you work full time.
Are there pockets where you can rest? As I'm walking around this lodge, there are so many live plants, and I'm walking around as we speak, I'm recording in a different way, a way I've never recorded before, and I'm just seeing these are.
Ways you can rest. Pouring water in the plants, doing something that kind of calms and sooths It takes don't take much for you to get a picture of water and water some plants. It doesn't take much for you to get a picture of water and water yourself. What does watering yourself look like?
Rest?
Maybe deciding you're not gonna try to be superman or superwoman for one day, but you are going to rest.
Why don't we take about thirty seconds starting now, a rest. You are in a safe space as long as you're listening to this. To rest, you don't have to solve problems right now.
You can rest. You have no worries. Right now, you can rest. Your prayers will be answered, you can rest, continue resting. My body knows, like.
Even the breath that just came out, I've trained my body to just exhale. Many times friends have said, girl, what are you doing. It's like my body knows when it needs to exhale and knows when it needs to inhale anxiety and exhale peace.
In hell, the worry, exhale peace. Yeah, I'm resting, and I want you guys to rest as well. So many people are on summer vacation. Kids are out of school, and hopefully you know you are deciding to take a vacation somewhere be buy some water. There's a particular other place that I love.
To go to as well, And it's like immediately when I stepped foot and I see the ocean, I can just ooh go into a state of rest.
So I hope y'all have kind of enjoyed this unique.
Episode of checking in as it relates to rest. This episode, if I'm really being transparent and honest, is a little later than normal.
It's a little late in being uploaded.
Because I needed to rest, y'all, and so I wanted this episode to be truly honest and so organic of the state that I'm in as it relates to rest. And that's one of the reasons why I ended up in a treatment facility for depression because I didn't rest. I thought rest was weak. There's this say that says, while you were sleeping, I was grinding. Well, baby, I have no shame in taking a nap because I know me. I know that I'll go go, go, go go. It's
like an energizer, bunny, raise your hand. If you can relate, you'll go go go go, go, go, go, go go go.
And then you need to be recharged. And then you look around.
You don't have nobody to recharge you, so you've got to recharge yourself. And I totally understand deadlines and I was thinking, you know what, I'm not gonna do an episode today. But it's like, girl, you have a weekly show. Can you imagine if Oprah?
And then we're like, no, I'm not going to do a show today.
Girl, you got to do a show. It's too early to be doing reruns, So do a show. But you gotta rest.
You have to rest, You have to rest. So that is just what has been going on.
I'm very excited about again, everything that's coming my way, this show that's coming up this weekend, and y'all, I need an idea for my birthday. My birthday is July twenty third. I will be Lord, can I believe? Guess how oh I'm gonna be?
I have to rest and accept that I will.
Be turning forty four. What should I do for my birthday? The cool thing about my birthday this year is that it's July twenty third, in the year twenty twenty three.
How cool is that? So I've got to do something amazing. It's got to be amazing.
I'm not someone I didn't when I turned forty. I almost didn't do a birthday party because you know, I was like, everybody's schedules are so busy and this I have to get out of this.
I was like, is anybody gonna come to my birthday dinner? Ain't that horrible? I need counseling about that.
Actually, I think we did do a counseling session where I had a fear of how I show up for everybody else? But I have this fear that no one's gonna show up for me.
Ain't that horrible?
There are certain ideas that I've had, but I've been afraid to do them because I'm like, is anybody going to show up to it?
Right? Does anybody ever feel that way?
But it's like, this is a god given idea, and I know I'm supposed to do it, So it's like, I don't know if I have a god given idea, and then I'd be embarrassed when I presented. I don't think God would embarrass me. I just I just yeah. So I'm excited to do something pretty unique this year for my birthday. So if y'all have any ideas, let me know.
All right, so I do.
I definitely want you guys to be intentional about resting. Okay, wait a minute, I think I gotta left. This is real time y'all. A tractor has gone by. They are They said it was heyday today, meaning they had to reel in the bills of hay. And so I'm on, y'all. This is literally kind of like an amazing house that sits on a land and a farm. So I could not wait to get up here to record, to tell y'all where I'm recording. So and I knew y'all might hear a tractor. I was afraid that you might hear
a goat. I've taken a few pictures. I don't know if I've posted a picture or two while I've been up here at the retreat. But hey, I want to invite you to a retreat. Okay, I want to invite you to a retreat here at Living Waters.
Okay, just google Healing the Heart Retreat, and you have to get here pretty soon.
I hope to maybe in twenty twenty four do some of my own.
But if you cannot wait until twenty twenty four, and you know your soul needs rest, you know your heart needs healing, I'm telling you. I'm telling you come here now. I told a pastor de nice Box, I said there would be no check again if it wasn't for healing the heart. This place just blew me away. You know. Am I still in therapy? Yes?
Was I going to therapy before I came here to Healing the Heart? Yes, But it gave me so much perspective and tons of answers that I've never received in therapy. If I had one hundred and fifty questions when I got here, I probably got three hundred answers.
That's how much this place has changed my life.
I want at least one person to promise me you're gonna come to this retreat.
It's called healing the Heart. You have to come.
You have to come, Okay, and again, assure me that you are gonna rest this week.
Okay. You're not gonna entertain every phone call.
You're not gonna entertain somebody else's baby mama or baby daddy drama.
You're not gonna entertain somebody else's workplace. Shenan. Again, You're gonna rest.
We are in a state of information overload, even.
What you eat.
Oh yes, rest from social media for like a day or two. I do it all the time, and I know sometimes it makes me go days maybe without posting something.
But I promise you your social media page will still be there should you decide to rest.
All right, you don't have to know everything that's going on, you really don't. I don't have to know everything that's going on, especially if does it affect my pay why am I worried about it? Then you can go without social media for a day. Social media is so important. I've met some of the most beautiful souls. I've been able to stay connected with so many of y'all who
have supported me even before there was social media. You know how we used to connect when y'all would be outside the door waiting on us to come out, and we'd be like, oh my gosh, hey, we'd hug and exchange gifts or y'all would so. But now I love how social media allows me to stay connected to those who have been just so amazing to me for twenty plus years. So I'm not saying just disconnect from social media, but try it for a day and rest. Rest, rest, please,
and just watch amazing, inspiring television. Some of my favorite shows are like home renovation shows or when people are beach house hunting, you know, and I'm hoping they choose the one that I think that they should choose right. So it's things like that that are so exciting, exhilarating and inspiring, and I think we need to rest, you guys, I really, really really think we need to rest.
So thank y'all so much.
For being with me today on this episode of Checking In as it relates to rest. If you haven't heard me say anything else important, I'm gonna stand Tinto's down when it comes to rest.
All right, all right, Well, I will see y'all soon.
And if y'all are going to be in the Washington, DC area, I want to see you at the Kennedy Center. Luke James, Emily King, Belaw so many amazing, amazing artists with an amazing orchestra.
All right, okay, I'll see y'all soon. Oh and y'all saw that I announced that, Yeah, i'mnna be on the Terill Show. I was so nervous.
He's been asking me for Oh I'm am ashamed going on three years, and I was so fearful of going on the show because I felt that I was so I'll even say that I was so I've been far away from my catalog of music. Y'all will see on the show. That's how far away from my catalog of music because he would say something and not be like, what is that? And he's like, that's in your song so and so, and I'm like, oh, yeah, I did,
Oh I did say that. Oh I even songs that I wrote, and I'm like, oh, that's what it was.
But He's had so much any.
Great artists and vocalists on the show, and I was just having a moment like, am I gonna measure up to all these amazing vocalists that he has on the show. So guess what I said. I can't keep making excuses. I've got to go on his show. And I'm so glad I did. I can't wait for y'all.
To see it. Okay.
It airs June twenty ninth. All Right, all right, continue checking in. I'm excited for y'all's week of rest, your day of rest, weekend of rest, whatever it is that you decide to choose.
All Right, love y'all.
Bye.
Checking In with Michelle Williams is a production of iHeart Heart Radio and The Black Effect. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.