In the Mountains of Tennessee, I reflected on The Simple Gifts

Over the last week I was tucked away in the hills of Tennessee for a personal intensive. A tech-free retreat with no email, no texts, no late-night Googling of “how to train your dog not to bark when people come over.”

Just me, some very kind humans, and enough quiet to actually hear myself think. I spent my mornings watching the mist clear over the horse pasture, my afternoons walking slow, soggy trails, and my evenings in conversation with people who weren’t in a hurry. 

At some point I realized: my nervous system had dropped its shoulders three inches. Apparently it just needed one week without notifications to remember it belongs to a body.

Somewhere between the firepit and my 26th cup of tea, the Shaker song Simple Gifts showed up as a soundtrack to my week. It’s a gentle reminder that “’tis the gift to be simple… ’tis the gift to be free.” If you want to hear the version I keep going back to, you can listen to it here.

Simplicity, it turns out, isn’t about decluttering your entire house or making all of your bread from scratch. It’s not even throwing out your tech and going back to using a landline (though I’m definitely tempted). It’s the smaller, quieter gifts:

The gift of sitting down to tie your shoes without also planning dinner.
The gift of stirring a pot on the stove while someone you love tells you a story you didn’t know you needed.
The gift of a breath. One full breath, before responding to a teenager who is currently auditioning for a role in Dramatic Eye-Rolls, Season 4.
The gift of letting something be easy, even if only for five minutes.
The gift of being present and giving something your full attention.

At the retreat, the song kept looping in my mind. Not as background music, but almost as an instruction manual. Because when life gets busy (as it does, and will, and currently is), we complicate things. We add and add and add, all in the interest of being better organized, more efficient, more productive.

We add more structure, more strategies, more steps, hoping that if we just build the perfect scaffolding, everything will feel manageable. 

But most of the time, what actually helps is the opposite: a gentle subtracting. A returning to what steadies us. A remembering that simplicity isn’t a moral achievement; it’s an emotional permission slip.

And so, in the spirit of giving you something whole and beautiful to carry into the week, here are the full lyrics that have been echoing around for me since Tennessee:

’Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free,
’Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
’Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,
To bow and to bend we shan’t be ashamed,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come ’round right.

So as you head into Thanksgiving week maybe let these lyrics travel with you. 

Where can something be simpler? Where can you turn, just slightly, “by turning, turning,” toward ease?

Wishing you small gifts of simplicity this week — the kind that make the season feel more spacious, more grounded, more human. And if you need to step outside for a breath (or an entire Tennessee-style tech hiatus), consider this your invitation.