Ann-Marie Maloney: Rest at the Center—Voice and Art as Healing
- Kami Redd
- Sep 12
- 3 min read
Ann-Marie Maloney writes about rest in a way that makes it sound less like a spa day and more like a moral choice. Her letter carries a refrain—“rest in the center of your soul”—and then shows the reader how to do it when the sink is full, the phone is loud, and the world pushes urgency. She ties rest to voice, art, and the steady building of a life that does not run on apology.
She starts with hiding. A little girl who learned to scan a room before speaking. A teenager who thought quiet would keep peace. A woman who realized shrinking did not stop conflict; it only removed her from her own story. The turn came not as a single breakthrough but as a series of small recoveries: saying a thought out loud at a meeting; reading her own writing to a friend; taking a morning to be outside without a to-do list. Those acts sound modest. They are not. They moved the needle.
Rest, in her pages, is a structure. It includes a bedtime, a simple weekly plan, food that fuels, a body kept in motion, and time with people who do not demand a performance. It includes sabbath hours that are not stolen by chores. It includes a corner of the home that signals calm—lamp, chair, blanket, one book at arm’s reach. She teaches this on purpose because she knows chaos fills the space that structure leaves empty.
Voice follows rest. She encourages readers to write three honest sentences each day. Not fancy ones. Three sentences that say what hurt, what helped, and what you want tomorrow.
She recommends saying needs out loud to a person who can help meet them. She offers phrases for hard talks that keep respect on the table: “I want to understand,” “I need a pause,” “I’m not available for that,” “Let’s revisit on Friday.” She treats voice as a muscle. Use grows strength.
Art sits beside these habits. Ann Marie leads Becoming Enough workshops and directs Poetic Voices, where young people and women use poems as a way to say what regular speech hides. She knows art gives shape to feelings that escape neat lines. She pairs prompts with simple forms—list poems, haiku, letters, six-word memoirs—so beginners can start without fear. She says the point is not a performance. The point is release and witness.
She builds community as a facilitator who refuses shame. Workshop rooms have clear agreements: confidentiality, kindness, time limits that keep one voice from taking all the air, and an open door if a person needs to step out. She trains helpers to watch for signs that someone is overwhelmed and to offer water, a break, or a walk without making a scene. She takes care of the caretakers, too, with debriefs and boundaries that protect their lives outside the room.
Her letter includes a section on perfection. She does not scold it. She thanks it for trying to keep chaos out. Then she shows how it steals sleep and turns creativity into an audit. She writes about replacing perfection with presence. A poem finished and shared is better for the soul than a draft edited to death. A dinner eaten with laughter is better than a table that photographs well and tastes like stress.
Faith is a quiet thread. She speaks of a still voice that interrupts panic. She writes prayers as short as one breath. Thank you. Help. Here I am. She rejects the idea that God loves versions of us that never make a mess. She acts like love already chose us in the mess and is teaching us to choose ourselves.
She offers a weekly template that many readers could adopt: one evening for rest, one for community, one for creativity, one for errands, and one for nothing at all. Weekends for nature, worship, or play. She urges a seasonal retreat, even if it is a few hours at a library with a notebook and no phone. She wants rhythm more than balance because rhythm bends with life.
Her letter closes by blessing readers who are tired of being agreeable at the cost of being real. She gives them a sentence to try: “I am enough for the life I am building.” Not someday. Now. Enough includes rest, voice, art, work, and a circle of people who clap when you say no to what does not fit. She wants women to stand in the sun they once avoided and stay there long enough for warmth to undo old lessons.
Ann-Marie Maloney’s work does not promise ease. It promises a life that fits a body and a soul at the same time. That is worth the plan she lays out and the practice she invites.
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