This was the title to chapter 16 of the book that’s been hovering on my nightstand for the last few weeks and it got me. Mrs. Freeman had me at the title.
As some of you know, we’ve been doing some revitalizing over here at Help You Dwell. To be honest, we had some pretty major leadership shifts that rocked my little world. Back in May, our sweet Katie Martin, HYD’s first ever employee, left our team as she and her husband prepare to relocate to London next month. We are beyond thrilled for this incredible opportunity for them but my heart still aches a little in losing one of my favs from our crew.
Soon after, the organizer of the organizers, Kellye, our office admin, had an awesome opportunity to reunite with her family up in Virginia after a long time away and made the move back home. She was such an incredible asset to our team in creating systems and smart, efficient ways to communicate with the team and clients and did it all with such grace and love like few people I know.
Then in mid-July, sweet Ada Jane joined the world and Caroline became a mama of 2 under 2 and clearly has her hands very full. Thankfully everyone is doing so well and Hank is slowly learning that Ada isn’t going away and from now on he’ll have to share his mommy & daddy. : )
And just like that, summer came and my kids were home from school and I was steering the HYD ship by myself. Or trying. It wasn’t going so well.
In the 5+ years that HYD has been serving clients, none of us have ever done it alone. Caroline and I had each other from day one, so I had no practice in making decisions without a partner. I have no doubt that “it takes a village.” But here I was flying solo and our lovely clients still needed us and all my incredible organizers and packers still were eager to get into homes and work their magic.
By the time July rolled around, I knew something had to change. I had some big conversations with God at this point about how to best care for HYD and for myself. With the counsel of dear friends and family, we decided to rest. HYD took a short and sweet break from taking on new clients, from marketing, social media, presenting, blogging, and just reflected.
We chose our absence, as Emily P. Freeman, so eloquently talks about in her book, The Next Right Thing. She articulated exactly what I knew to be true as we pulled back the reins and chose to be absent for a bit.
“Choose your absence so that your presence will have more impact.”
These last few weeks of stepping back from HYD have been a gift. Personally, I’ve been much more present with my own life in lots of ways, but what has been such a wonderful surprise is that I’ve also been able to see how much more HYD has to offer. Help You Dwell is its own entity. Caroline and I have always felt that the company was given to us to steward and share with others. That’s one reason we’ve had over 20 folks work for us over the last 5 years. It’s a service to share, share with employees and share with clients. It was never meant for just us.
I’m not sure I would have come to this realization had we not chosen our “absence.” This season of rest has created a great joy and excitement in me to continue growing HYD in a way that allows more people to find order and peace in their homes, their workspaces, during the moving process, or through a transition of losing a loved one or an estate transition. HYD’s current team of organizers and packers is incredible. The life experience and creativity paired with the work ethic and servant hearts of these ladies still blows me away. There is work to do and HYD is ready to do it.
So here we go, again. It’s a reset for HYD. Thanks to so many of you who have been here all along and to those of you who just discovered HYD. We look forward to helping you dwell.
Much love —
taryn
