I’m very comfortable with the fact that, by a lot of modern standards, I am probably pretty uncool. I’m usually not in the loop with whatever everyone is watching, wearing, listening to, talking about, buying, or treating like essential knowledge, and I very much enjoy being a little outside of it.
Long walks where my thoughts can stretch out. Tea and other warm beverages I actually do sit down to drink slowly. Mornings with God. Beautiful food, flowers, sunlight, writing, conversations that mean something with plenty of silliness woven in, and stretches of the day that haven’t already been spoken for before I get there. I’ve learned that I feel very different depending on what I’ve been consuming, who I’ve been around, what I’ve been listening to, and how much room I’ve left for my own spirit to remain present. I pay attention to that more and more, for myself and for the way I want to be in service to others.
I’ve had to do this with reading too. I can get very caught up in mindset, spiritual growth, personal development, all the books asking me to examine, heal, understand, or grow through some part of myself. I genuinely enjoy that kind of reading, which also makes it very easy for me to overconsume it and keep myself in this constant go-go mode, always processing, improving, working on something, and accidentally leave very little room for the books that I love that let me disappear into an old bookshop, follow a bit of folklore, wander through somebody else’s century, or spend a few hundred pages inside a world that asks nothing from me except to enjoy it.
And it brings me close to parts of my childhood I really loved. I was the kid who was good friends with the librarian at school, haha. I would definitely recommend being friends with librarians and local bookshop owners. Very cool people (well, from the perspective of a very uncool person).
So now I make better room for both on purpose. The heavier mindset and spiritual books belong to my mornings, daytime, and the occasional early evening, when I actually have the energy to sit with what they bring up. Before bed, I want fiction. Fantasy. A story with mystery or a little magic tucked inside it. I want my mind to soften and imagine rather than receive one more assignment.
That has become part of clearing the vessel for me too. Growth and healing in all ways matter to me deeply, but I also need my frolicking, imagination, play, and stories with no homework assignment attached to them.
I used to watch a lot more of the same shows and movies everyone else was watching, so this definitely wasn’t always me. As I’ve grown closer to God and become more attentive to the spiritual gifts He’s given me, I’ve also become much more aware of what certain things leave behind, what numbs me, and what stirs up more than I want to carry.
These days, I barely watch movies or shows that aren’t PG, which is objectively very funny when I say it out loud. If my television is on, there’s a good chance it’s an ambience video, wholesome YouTube, Frog and Toad, or Little Bear (girl, aren’t those for kids? Yes, and whimsical adults, thank you for asking. I bet if you watch an episode... you’ll get it. Don’t worry, I won’t tell any of the cool kids), or a Hallmark movie. During the day, Rebel, my cat, usually has some Cat TV video playing, so technically she has the most sophisticated viewing schedule in the house.
And all of this is important to me. I don’t live this way because I believe it makes me better, more spiritual, or more disciplined than somebody who makes different choices. I believe God asks different things of different people. Some of us may be called to make particular sacrifices because of what we’re meant to carry and eventually pour into the world. For me, keeping certain things out helps me stay clear and sensitive to God’s voice, creativity, and available for the kind of healing and truth I pray my words and presence can participate in. It feels less like deprivation and more like understanding what keeps my own vessel clear enough to pour from.
Alcohol fits into this same conversation. I rarely drink, mostly for spiritual and wellness reasons (especially sleep), but I’m also very much not sober, and I always want to make that clear because there is a decent chance I will eventually appear on the internet holding a glass of wine at a beautiful winery. I enjoy wine occasionally. I prefer alcohol to have a small, occasional place in my life. That balance works for me, and I’ve become much more comfortable letting my own life be what it needs to be instead of trying to fit in.
And interestingly enough, when you’re the person ordering the mocktail at the table, you’d be surprised how many other people join you, almost like you gave them the okay to skip drinking that night too.
I’ve also started using my phone a little differently. I’m trying to make it work for my attention instead of constantly asking for it. My calendar holds the bigger pieces of the day, and timers help me stay inside them. They aren’t competing with each other. The calendar says, this part of the day belongs to this, and the timer helps me remember when it’s time to pause, stretch, pray, write, move, or switch gears. It varies by day. And I know there are various apps that help with this too, but I’m just not really an expert on all of that.
For the most part, the first thirty minutes of my day belong just to God. Before messages, social media, work, or everybody else’s thoughts have a chance to enter. God continues to be part of my day, but starting with uninterrupted time with Him makes a difference in how the rest of the day feels. After those first thirty minutes, I use simple labels for the things I care about protecting: reading, stretching, work, writing, movement, prayer, rest. Nothing elaborate. I just need the occasional little bell reminding me that I already decided what mattered before the day-to-day things start popping up.
I used to think of missing out the way most of us are taught to think about it, as if the interesting thing was happening elsewhere and I should probably hurry before I missed my chance to be part of it. JOMO, the joy of missing out, feels more like looking around at my own life and realizing I’m already inside a life I care about. There are still things I want to change, refine, grow into, adjust, and hand over to God, but I don’t feel the same pull toward all the things that I once did.
This connects to the way I’ve been thinking about myself as a Divine Vessel for God, which sounds very poetic until I start asking myself all of the practical questions about it. What have I been taking in all week? What has stayed with me longer than I wanted it to? What has made me feel clearer, softer, more creative, and connected to God? What has left residue?
Like many things, I’m learning this in real time. I still notice certain inputs after they’ve already taken up more space than they deserved. I still have moments where my attention ends up scattered in six directions and I need to come back to God, come back to myself, and clear the countertops of my inner world a little. But I’ve become much more aware of the difference between what nourishes me in my soul and what drains or clouds me.
So yes, I miss out on plenty. Quite happily, actually.
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Romance & Devotion
There is so much relationship noise now. How quickly things should move, what a man or woman “should” do, which behavior means run, which one means marry him tomorrow, what counts as a red flag, and somehow everybody online has been handed an executive seat at the relationship council.
Some of it can be very helpful, especially if it’s God-centered advice, and I do welcome that. I’ve also learned things from people sharing their experiences. But I’ve also noticed how easy it is to take in so much of it that other people’s voices start getting louder than your own discernment, and even louder than God. I don’t want to consume so many rules (not into the so-called rules at all anyways), warnings, stories, and takes that I become less able to hear what God is showing me about the person in front of me, or the person He may eventually lead me toward.
I’ve been especially aware of this with heartbreak content. I have a lot of compassion for people who share those seasons publicly, and I know their honesty can be exactly what another person walking through something similar needs. I can support that with love and prayers and also recognize when it isn’t mine to keep taking in. I’m in a season where I want my mind and heart around love to stay healthy, hopeful, discerning, and close to God. If I spend too much time listening to stories of betrayal, painful endings, and everything that can go wrong, I can feel the residue of it after a while. That’s usually enough for me to know I need to step away.
And I don’t think this only matters once you’re partnered. I’m learning it now while I’m single. I’m already paying attention to what I want to bring into love one day, what I want my inner world to feel like when I meet that person, and what I’d rather leave outside the door. For someone already partnered, I guess the question shifts a little: what are we allowing to have a voice inside what we’re building together?
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Maternal Garden
Maternal care has more than one doorway. Some women are raising children right now. Some are knee-deep in grandkids, nieces, nephews, godchildren, students, younger women they mentor, or the very serious responsibilities of being the auntie who knows where the top-tier snacks are. Some of us are praying toward a family we haven’t met yet, already noticing the kind of home, language, rhythms, and love we hope to bring into it. Love starts practicing before every title arrives.
I carry that into the family life I hope to build with God. I want a home with enough breathing room for everyone inside it to hear themselves. Alive, yes. Full of music, meals, books left open, socks migrating into locations nobody remembers approving, somebody asking a surprisingly enormous question right when bedtime was supposed to happen. I want room for a child to get bored long enough for a cardboard box to acquire an entire backstory, for a beetle in the yard to become the main event, for a blanket fort to survive well past its original permit because somebody has moved three books and a flashlight inside and now it is clearly a residence that receives official mail.
Those are the pieces I imagine becoming family folklore later. The game nobody remembers inventing correctly. The recipe that always comes out a little different. The phrase one child said once that everybody is somehow still quoting twelve years later. Childhood gets built from a lot of moments nobody scheduled.
And homes pick things up. They remember what we keep carrying through the door. The way we speak about ourselves when a child is close enough to hear it. The energy left over from what we’ve watched, scrolled through, argued about, or sat with too long. They hold laughter too. Prayer. Music from the kitchen. Apologies. Curiosity. The feeling of being able to exhale around people who know you well.
That matters whether you are raising children, loving grandbabies, mentoring, auntie-ing, or praying toward a family of your own. We are all leaving something in the atmosphere around the people who come close to us.
I want the children around me to know their inner world has a front door. Things come knocking all day long: images, words, fears, somebody else’s mood, something they heard at school or at the playground, something they watched and carried farther than they meant to. Part of loving them would be helping them notice what followed them home, bring it to God, and decide what gets to stay.
The family life I hope to build with God feels wonderfully full in my mind. Love, laughter, prayer, meals, curiosity, books, ridiculous little traditions that make perfect sense only to the people who live there. Enough life happening inside the house that missing a few things outside of it feels less like missing out and more like being home for the good part.
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Wildflower Apothecary
Thyme Foot Soak for Clearing the Day
We’re still in thyme.
Some evenings call for a full bath. Others call for a bowl of warm water, bare feet, and ten minutes where nobody needs anything from you.
For this little apothecary practice, steep a generous handful of fresh thyme or 1–2 tablespoons dried thyme in hot water for about 10 minutes, then strain it into a basin, foot tub, or bathtub with enough comfortably warm water to cover your feet. Add ½ cup Epsom salt if you enjoy it, then soak for about 10–15 minutes.
Thyme has a long history of culinary and traditional herbal use, and its scent alone can make the whole ritual feel green, clean, and slightly medieval in the best way.
I like pairing this with the idea of clearing the vessel. This isn’t claiming to “pull toxins” through the feet. It’s more about reducing what we can, washing off the day, slowing the nervous system down, providing warmth, and creating a little less internal noise.
Sometimes clarity begins with very ordinary things: warm water, herbs, fewer inputs, a slower breath, and enough stillness to hear yourself again.
You could even use the soak as prayer time:
God, help me release what I picked up today that was never meant to stay with me. Clear what is clouding my attention, and bring me back to You.
Then dry your feet, moisturize with a simple oil or balm, and let the evening get softer from there.
Garden note: Skip the soak on broken or irritated skin, and stop if anything stings or causes irritation. If using thyme essential oil instead of the herb itself, dilute it properly in a carrier before adding it to water; essential oils should never be dropped directly into the bath. Please do thorough research when implementing essential oils into your routines.
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Garden Practice
Close the Gates for an Hour
Some days I can tell I’ve taken in far more than I’ve actually had time to process. Nothing huge has happened, but my brain feels crowded, my attention keeps wandering off, and things I usually enjoy start feeling like one more thing arriving. That’s usually enough for me to know I need to stop adding.
For at least one hour this week, I am inviting you to make yourself a little harder to reach. Put the phone in another room. Let the television stay off. Lower whatever sensory volume you can. Make something warm to drink. Give your mind a stretch of time where nothing new is asking to come inside.
A little help from your phone: If willpower disappears the second Instagram starts acting like it has urgent business with you, use the tools already sitting in your phone. On iPhone, that might mean Do Not Disturb or a custom Focus, Screen Time limits for the apps you tend to disappear into, or Guided Access when you want to stay inside one app while reading, praying, or journaling. Important people can still have a way through. Android has similar options through Digital Wellbeing, Focus mode, app timers, and Do Not Disturb.
The first few minutes can feel strangely unfinished. I actually find that part amazing. We can get so used to receiving something all the time that an empty stretch starts feeling like a problem to solve. Let your mind catch up with where your body already is before you give it another thing to hold.
After a while, notice what keeps floating back up. A conversation you’ve replayed enough times to know every line. Somebody else’s opinion that somehow made itself comfortable in your head. Something online that changed your mood more than you realized. A decision you’ve been chewing on all day. The feeling that everybody has had access to you except you.
You don’t have to interrogate any of it. Notice what keeps knocking, and bring that part to God.
Ask Him what deserves more of your attention and what has already had plenty. What needs a boundary. What you picked up because you moved too quickly to notice you were carrying it. What can go back into His hands now.
Before the hour ends, choose one small change you can actually live with for the next few days. Mute something. Protect the first part of your morning. Eat one meal without a screen beside you. Let a conversation God already helped you release remain released. Tiny adjustments can change how much gets through the gates.
Clearing the vessel can look this simple. An hour with fewer entrances open. Enough space to notice what has been living in your attention. A little more room to hear yourself again, and to hear God.
I left a Divine Imagination practice below for anyone who wants to stay with this a little longer with God. Save it for later if you want. Come back when you have enough room to actually enter it instead of trying to squeeze it between two other things.
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Divine Imagination: Clear the Vessel
A 7 minute practice for releasing what you picked up and returning to God
Once you’re comfortable, put on your headphones if you enjoy listening that way and press play whenever you’re ready. I’ve recorded the Divine Imagination below in my own voice, with gentle music beneath it. May the glass greenhouse give your sensitive heart a beautiful place to settle with God, where receptivity feels spacious, discernment grows gently, and the depth within you is met with His peace.
You can close your eyes, soften your gaze, or let your eyes rest wherever they are comfortable. There is nothing you need to picture perfectly. Listening is enough.
Let one hand rest open in your lap, palm facing upward. Let the other settle wherever it naturally wants to begin. Feel the surface supporting your body and allow yourself to arrive here with God exactly as you are.
Bring your hand gently over or near your throat.
Think of everything that may have passed through this place lately. Words you swallowed. Things you wanted to explain. Moments you felt misunderstood, judged, or unsure whether it was safe to be fully heard. You do not have to untangle any of it right now. Let your hand offer this part of you a little warmth.
God, I give You the words I carried past their moment. I give You the fear around being heard.
Let your hand travel down to your heart and upper chest. Feel the movement beneath your palm. Breath. Heartbeat. Life continuing.
This part of you may have known grief, longing, disappointment, restlessness, love with nowhere to go, or the strange heaviness that arrives when too much has collected at once. Meet it with affection rather than interrogation.
God, I give You what has been heavy here. Hold what I have been carrying beyond my own strength.
Move your hand lower, over or near your upper abdomen.
Notice what happens when you think about everything you have been trying to understand, solve, anticipate, replay, or mentally turn over one more time. Let your body know that every unanswered question does not require another hour of thought.
God, I give You what I have been trying to solve past the point of peace.
Now let your hand rest along the right side beneath your ribs, or hover there if that feels more comfortable.
You may think of frustration here. Anger. Resentment. The conversation you keep rerunning. The thing you wish had happened differently. Whatever rises, let it be met without shame. Your feelings can tell the truth without becoming permanent residents.
God, I give You what I am ready to stop rehearsing. Take what has grown too hot or too heavy for me to keep holding.
Let your hand move to your lower belly, or rest against your low back.
This is a place to notice bracing. Fear of what comes next. The part of you that tries to prepare for every possible outcome before life has even arrived there.
Let your hand stay for a moment.
God, I give You what I picked up while trying to protect myself. I give You the futures I have been carrying before they became mine to live.
Now bring your hand back toward the center of your body. You can leave one hand over your heart while the other remains open in your lap.
You have listened to yourself with love. You have noticed what was asking for attention. You have handed some of it back.
There may still be things you cannot name, and God does not require perfect language before He receives them.
God, I give You what I picked up.
Let the open palm remind you that releasing is only half of this practice. A vessel also receives.
Make room for what belongs here now: God’s peace where fear had been rehearsing, wisdom where thoughts had become crowded, love where grief had been sitting, steadiness where your body had learned to brace, and His presence moving through all of it.
God, fill this vessel with what is Yours.
Stay here for one more breath.
You do not have to carry everything you encounter.
You can return what became too heavy, keep what became wisdom, and remain open to God.
When you are ready, let your hands rest wherever they feel most at home. Carry the spaciousness with you.
After the visualization
Stay here with God for a few minutes if you have the space. You may notice a thought, feeling, memory, or even a part of your body asking for a little more attention. Let it come without turning it into another thing to solve. You can talk with God about what surfaced, sit with your hand over that place for a while longer, or remain in the stillness and receive.
The vessel does not need to be emptied all at once. Let God show you what is ready to be handed over today, and let the rest remain held in His care until you return.
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Thank you for reading. Have a blessed week ahead! See you next Wednesday.
Written with love, patience, and wonder,
Cheri Collazo,
Poetess & Certified Health & Wellness Coach
🌸 New reflections published every Wednesday
Instagram: @LuzandWildflowers (Letters, Herbal Wisdom, Wellness and Substack updates)
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A Loving Note
Everything shared here is intended for educational and inspirational purposes only and should not be considered medical advice. Please listen to your body and consult with a qualified healthcare provider before making changes to your diet, lifestyle, supplements, herbs, or wellness practices, especially if you are trying to conceive, pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or navigating a health condition.
I share from a place of faith, personal experience, ongoing study, and curiosity. I encourage you to bring everything back to God in prayer and discernment, trusting Him to guide what is meant for you in your own life, body, and season.
© Luz & Wildflowers™| 2026 Graced in Pink® |
Faith • Femininity • Family
All Rights Reserved
Dear Cheri, I find you very cool! 😄
And I love your flower remedy and message from the nature. Thank you. I can see how much effort and love you've put into.
Truly beautiful and powerful. The pretty uncool are the dopest and more powerful walking the Earth barefooted. You got this and you're divinely guided to the best of yourself🤍