Each year brings its own set of blessings, challenges, and lessons to learn, and 2021 was certainly no exception. I can’t help but reflect on what I’ve accomplished, what I’ve overcome, and the lessons I want to carry with me into this New Year.
1. People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.
Often, relationships come in for a reason ~ to learn something new, open a doorway, gain insight, and direct you to another part of your path or purpose. But, they are there merely for a reason ~ and once that reason is served, they disappear, fall away, or feel out of alignment ~ sometimes for no apparent reason. This is when we try to hang on, look for fault or blame. But, when you can see the possibility that a relationship was just here for a reason, a purpose, you will know it has been served. Then, you may be able to release it or let it go without the same pain you are used to experiencing when relationships end. The important thing here is being willing to see these relationships’ truth.
Other times, relationships come in for a Season ~ to bring you a new awareness, new love, new life, and new lessons. These season relationships are usually a bit longer, and with that are often harder to let go of or release unless, of course, you recognize they were here just for a season. Once the season is over, it is time to go, to move on. No wrongdoing; again, the season is over, and a new season always follows when one season is over. It will look and feel different, and if you allow yourself to let go and open to the new, it can be fantastic. You must be the one to let go without blame or anger and instead be open to appreciation. They were here just for the season ~ and the season is all it was ever meant to be. Take the experience and be grateful for all that it was. It was a fantastic season.
Yet, others are for a Lifetime. Lifetime relationships last a lifetime. The exciting thing about lifetime relationships, I think, is that often we assume those are family relationships; and they can be, but they aren’t always. Family relationships are for a lifetime when you have chosen to experience them for a lifetime. On the flip side, you may have to release some of your family relationships, as you become aware that they were indeed only for a reason or a season. Just because they are blood does not mean they are all lifetime relationships. Acknowledging this is an important one to remember. Sometimes family members’ purpose is more for a reason than a lifetime.
When I took the time to figure out which one it was, I knew what to do for each person.
2. Forgiveness is a journey, not a destination.
The journey began when I understood that I was 100 percent responsible for my own life ~ the good and the bad. It started with forgiving myself for how I responded to some of the outcomes I experienced in my life, but the most challenging part was forgiving those who left a mark. If I had been asked to forgive all those who have hurt me, my immediate answer would have been, “Nope.” But if someone had asked if I wanted to be free from the anguish and distress that I felt from their betrayals, I would have shouted, “Yes!” Forgiveness is more than releasing your hands from the neck of the people who have hurt you. It is genuinely about removing your hands from your own neck. Forgiveness is about your freedom from the grip of pain caused by someone else. In reality, forgiveness has nothing to do with the other person; it has everything to do with me. Forgiveness does not need to be asked for because it isn’t done for the sake of the “offender.” It’s done for our own healing and well-being. It goes without saying that when we’re considering forgiveness, it is because we’ve been hurt, wronged, or betrayed. Someone has done something to us that caused us pain. A significant component of forgiveness is the recognition of the intensity of your pain. You have to sit in and be with your pain. You can’t ignore, rationalize, or wish it away. You must simply let it be. You can talk about it, journal about it, cry over it or scream about the hurt and painful emotions, but they must be allowed to surface. Another critical step to forgiveness is understanding how the pain and betrayal affected me. Pain isn’t an isolated experience or emotion. It affects all aspects of ourselves and our relationships when we are hurt. Emotions go beyond any betrayal; now, the pain seeps into other relationships. Once I saw all the feelings for what they were, it was never about the people in my life; it was more profound than that.
3. Life has different seasons.
I love the term season because there is a recurring nature to it. I’ve noticed this a lot with my writing, but I imagine it’s true for any kind of creativity. I go through seasons where I’m constantly inspired to write, and I have all sorts of ideas to share on social media. And then I go through seasons where that inspiration isn’t there. At first, I got frustrated during those seasons and would try to force myself through them. But viewing them as seasons helps me remember it’s temporary and not get frustrated about what season it isn’t, but instead, find out what season it is. Just because it isn’t filled with creativity doesn’t mean it’s terrible. It’s just a time to reconnect and open your heart to let the creative energy flow through you.
I think the concept of seasons is genuine in all areas of life in terms of self-care. So, for example, you may go through seasons of life where you’re killing it in the health and wellness game. And then life changes; maybe you become a parent, or perhaps you’re taking care of an aging parent, and now that season of life has a different focus.
It’s all okay. We have to accept the seasons as they come and not beat ourselves up to change our focus or priorities in life.
Just trust and know there is a silver lining to every season, no matter how tough it may seem at the time.
4. “The reaction doesn’t belong to you.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
I read that line in her book Big Magic. It’s a bit line, a small fragment of a sentence but one that holds so much meaning, truth, and freedom. In the book, she refers to creativity ~ that we should put our work (in whatever form it takes) out into the world and then let go of the reactions. Do not worry about them. It is only the product and the process that goes into it that belongs to us. Therefore, the responses live beyond our control and should be outside our concerns.
But I love this lifeline as well. Because it is the work we put into it ~ the thoughts, the decisions, and yes, the reactions that belong to us. It is the product (ourselves) that we put out into the world each day that is ours.
Releasing the reactions removes the pressure to be liked, accepted, and included and replaced it with a unique space—the freedom to create your life thought-by-thought and decision-by-decision without worrying about what others think.
It is the work we put into finding ourselves, creating ourselves, and staying true to ourselves that is ours. It is the version of us, the parts of us, or the entirety of us that we give to the world that belongs to us. And the reactions lie in the hands of the receiver.
It’s a New Year. A fresh start. Own the process, own the product, then release the response.
5. It is what it is.
I used to use this phrase all the time. Then I stopped using it as I came to realize that I was in control of my life and, therefore, could make it what I wanted to be rather than just throw my hands up saying, “it is, what, it is.” I only came to this realization when I heard Byron Katie say in an interview that the moment we begin to argue with reality is when we start to suffer. It got me thinking about my go-to phrase and whether or not it holds any truth.
In the interview, she explained that something is either your business, someone else’s business, or God’s business. How you live your life, from how you dress and what you do to your beliefs and attitude, is your business. Everything they say, decide, and believe is how someone else lives; theirs is their business. And God’s business? Well, that’s pretty much everything else ~ from the weather to when we come into this world and when we leave it.
When we overstep into a business that isn’t ours, we suffer. When we stress, worry, and get upset over things that we can’t control ~ they are what they are. We want them to be different rather than accept they are real. That is the suffering.
But there is good news ~ we do have some control. We can’t control what someone says or does, but we decide what we say or do. We can’t control what life will throw at us ~ challenges, loss, difficult times, difficult people ~ but we decide how we react to it, how we view it, how we feel about it, what we do with it.
That is the control. So yes, sometimes it just is what it is, but the good news is we always take it from there.
6. There is insight in every emotion ~ the good and the bad.
I learned that our emotions are our inner guidance system that stuck with me. My life coaches, Em, Scott, and Simon, all said the feel-good ones help show us we are in the right place, moving in the right direction. And the not-so-good feeling ~ well, they show us the work we need to do. The problem is we often suppress or avoid the negative feelings because they’re just not fun to feel. But I’ve learned that suppressing emotions is an all-or-nothing game. We don’t get to be selective. Suppress the bad, and inevitably you’ll lose the good as well.
I pretty much avoided my negative emotions. Every painful relationship and all the drama they caused in my life ~ I didn’t deal with it. I just tried to “be strong” and move on without really processing any of it. And it left me feeling pretty numb and void of any real emotion ~ good or bad.
This year I’ve done a lot of work to get back in touch with my feelings and finally let the bad ones come up and out. Not just acknowledge them but to see what they can teach me.
I talk about this in my journal where I wrote,
“Accepting ourselves means accepting our whole selves and all the feelings along the way. We can’t deny them because they came for a reason. No matter how unpleasant they exist to teach us, they show us where our triggers are or where we haven’t dealt with something. We can only learn the lesson if we let them in and listen patiently, knowing it may take a while.
That’s what we often fail to do. We don’t acknowledge unfriendly emotions. We don’t sit with them without judgment until they are ready to leave. Instead, we immediately reject them ~ barely let them in the door before shoving them away.
But we have to understand they are part of us. All the emotions and all the feelings are part of the human experience. So we should let them all in. Accept each one. Sit with each one. Appreciate each one, knowing it will not stay forever, and we can’t let it last forever. But understanding it too has something to say, understanding that difficult teachings are where we learn the most and understanding that when it comes to emotions, unpleasant visitors are better than none at all.”
Negative emotions are uncomfortable to feel, and I’d argue even more painful as hell to process. But if we can shift the lens a little bit and look at them as insight, they can move from scary to helpful.
7. “Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” – Pema Chodron
I believe this is true for all things in life ~ relationships, circumstances, feelings, etc. Life has this incredible way of providing the perfect material for whatever lesson we need to learn. But, unfortunately, we tend to look at it wrong. We don’t see it as a lesson. All we see is pain, bad luck, or misfortune.
This is because sometimes the lessons are hard. They are painful to sit through. It’s like a school of life. We’d rather lay our head down on the desk and sleep, distract ourselves by writing a note and passing it to a friend, or maybe even skip class entirely. But just as in all our years of real school, we won’t truly learn the lessons of life in school if we don’t pay attention. Time will pass, and we may think we’ve graduated to the next level, but intellectually we haven’t ~ emotionally, we haven’t ~ spiritually, we haven’t.
The only way to progress ~ the only way to leave the classroom is to find the lesson and learn it. To see how we can better ourselves in relationships rather than change others. To see how we can use seemingly unfortunate situations to grow rather than blame them for our unhappiness. And to see our feelings as indicators of pages, we may need to revisit rather than reasons we should close the book altogether.
We are here to learn. No one can do it for us, and no one can stop us but ourselves. And the more we fight it, the more excuses we find not to pay attention to, the less we know about each other, about ourselves, and about life.
8. The point of relationships is to trigger our shit.
I very much believe that we are all so much more connected than we realize. Our experiences, while wrapped in different circumstances at the deepest level, are often the same. And it is when we recognize that when we see our struggles in the struggles of another, we can relate, accept, and love.
But I also believe that it is through each other that we truly learn the most about ourselves. In relationships of every form and interaction, we can see where we stand daily.
Recognizing ourselves in another is more than just seeing the connected dots. It considers the contracts.
Our differences reveal the parts we can’t find on our own. It’s when we get annoyed that we find an exposed nerve we haven’t yet healed, when we get in arguments where we see fears we’ve wrapped in anger, and when our feelings are hurt where we find sensitive spots we’ve not yet strengthened. It all exists to reveal the parts of us we tend to overlook, ignore, or pretend aren’t there.
But we have to find them to face them and face them to work through them. And we can’t do it alone, which is why we can always go further together.
9. The brain can’t always be trusted.
One night I was lying in bed, and my mind was racing. It was on a roller coaster of the future and all the fears associated with it, jumping from one assumption to the next with each one making me more agitated. And then a question jumped into my head out of nowhere ~ what do I know is confirmed now? It saved me from myself because my answer was simple, “I’m lying in a comfortable bed in a safe place.” That is the ONLY thing that was true at that moment despite my mind’s desperate attempt to convince me otherwise. And with that answer, my mind relaxed, and I fell asleep.
It’s all too easy for our brains to revert to the past or run off into the future, supposedly trying to figure it all out, but it was just freaking out. And in those moments, it can be hard to realize none of it is true. The only truth ~ the only reality that ever exists is the current moment. Everything in the past is already done. The only reason to look back is to learn. And the future? Well, that’s all it is, the future. A future that has not happened yet. It is all unknown ~ it’s only guessing.
So when you catch your mind going down a rabbit hole of negative assumptions, pause and ask yourself one question ~ “what do I know is true at this moment?”
10. Boundaries.
I heard this word a lot!! But, until a few months ago, I admit I never fully understood what it meant. I always viewed them as a negative ~ to keep people at a certain distance, which worked for me for a long time as I was pretty closed off emotionally. But then, my life coach, Em, said something that suddenly made it all so clear to me ~ “boundaries are how we teach people how to treat us.” Boundaries are not meant to keep people away but instead show them how. They narrow the path and educate people on how to reach us, love us, and make us feel safe enough to come out from behind our walls and meet them halfway.
Boundaries aren’t a negative thing. They’re a necessary thing to keep all our relationships in balance.
11. It’s not easy to listen to your gut.
This is something I’ve struggled with for a long time. People always say to listen to your gut, but I find it very difficult to do. I’ve made quite a few gut decisions this year, though, and I’ve been able to pinpoint a couple of clues that your gut is the one talking.
I wrote about this in my journal; the three tells I learned were actually for me.
In a nutshell, the three tells are:
your brain works against it ~
Meaning it’s usually not a logical decision. If I’m feeling desperate or fearful, I find myself trying to talk myself out of it. If I find myself debating over things in my mind, I pay attention to who is doing the debating? I think it’s your brain against your gut.
It Is Difficult To Listen To
Not just because it’s hard to hear but because it’s hard to follow. The road it leads us down is often tricky. It is full of the fears we haven’t faced, the desires we ignore, and the insecurities we overlook.
No One Understands It But You
It’s one of those things you “just know” but can’t explain to others, which makes it extra challenging to trust because we tend to seek validation in our choices from others, and it’s hard for people to validate something they can’t understand.
In my experience, listening to your gut comes with consequences; you may be judged or misunderstood. You may be heading down a messy road. But know that doesn’t mean you are making a mistake ~ instead, you have stopped arguing with yourself and finally started listening to yourself.
12. Maybe there is no right or wrong.
Life is full of choices, and frequently decisions are not accessible. There is no way to know what choice is the right one. But maybe therein lies the real issue ~ that we have decided that there is a right choice and a wrong one for every decision. But how can we ever honestly know which is right and wrong when one of the choices never plays out? All we have are assumptions of how it would have gone.
Maybe there is another way to look at it. Because at what point are the choices labeled right or wrong? Only when the results reveal themselves. But when is the natural end? Every decision we make creates the next round of options and so on. There is no end. Whatever results come along the way are never the results. They are merely one stop on a much longer journey.
So if we remove the concept of right or wrong results, what do we have left? Simply the experience that comes along with our choices. The roads they lead us down, the people we meet, and the rocks we trip over along the way. Some experiences may seem better than others, but maybe they are still all-important steps. And we can choose to see them as good or bad, fair or unfair, right or wrong, or we can see them as growth, learning, and tests of strength.
Maybe our decisions aren’t singular instances with clearly defined results, but instead just part of an ongoing, interconnected journey where right and wrong hold no real meaning.
13. Life knows better.
Had you asked me twenty years ago what my life would look like at age 35, I would have painted a VERY different picture than what it currently looks like today. First, I would not have expected to be divorced; twice, not have any money. And while I could easily let that upset me, it doesn’t. Because I now understand and fully believe that there’s a much bigger picture than I’m not aware of.
I talk about this in my journal. In it, I wrote,
I guess Forrest Gump nailed it when it comes to life ~ “ya never know what you’re gonna get.” And maybe there’s a reason for that. Perhaps it’s because life knows better than us. The life I had designed for myself would have been great. I don’t doubt that. But look at what life gave me instead.
It gave me heartache to show me the love I needed was my own; miserable drives to work to teach me those careers weren’t for me; mistakes made for great writing material; and struggles that gave me a story to tell.
No, I didn’t get the life I wanted, but maybe I got the one I needed. A life that painfully pushed me in a direction I wouldn’t have gone on my own. A life that taught me lessons I didn’t know I needed to learn.
We grow up with these particular ideas of what it means to be happy ~ to be successful ~ to “have it all.” But as time goes on, those ideas often don’t work out or don’t deliver. And it can take a long time to remove them from our psyche, to detach them from our definition of happiness. And to see that sometimes it’s our connection to what we assumed would make us happy that is doing just the opposite.
Maybe that’s what life is trying to teach us ~ that it isn’t about living our best-laid plans. Maybe through all its twists and turns, life’s primary goal is to free us from them or remove the concept of need. To break all the attachments we have to people, things, identities, and ideas. To show us the only thing we need to be happy is something we’ve had from day one and along every step of the way. For all we need is us.”
14. Our relationship with ourselves takes time.
My three life coaches, Em, Scott, and Simon, told me to carve out some time in my schedule to hang out with just myself. No phone, no Netflix, no friends or family, just me. It’s hard to do from a wife/mom standpoint, and it’s hard actually to do. It’s hard to sit quietly with ourselves, and I don’t necessarily mean meditating. Many people don’t go to the bathroom without their phones, let alone sit outside. Better yet, go for a walk with nothing but their thoughts. We live in this world of go-go-go with endless things to scroll through or swipe through or catch up on. But we aren’t even trying to catch up with ourselves. We aren’t checking in to see how we feel once those distractions are removed—taking stock of where we currently are in life, where we want to go, and if we are on track to getting there. These are the conversations we need to be having with ourselves so we don’t lose touch with ourselves. When, where, or how you have those conversations is totally up to you.
But I will warn you that it’s not a one-and-done deal. Nope, our relationship with ourselves is much more high maintenance than that; as with any other relationship, we have to continue to make time to hang out with ourselves, or we’ll start to get disconnected. This is why I’m such a believer in self-reflection, but I’m by no means perfect at it. Oh no, the reason I know it’s not a one-and-done thing is because I dropped the ball this past year. My life changed, and my routines got all shuffled around, and I got “too busy” to hang out with myself. And sure enough, that disconnect started to creep in, and man, did I feel it.
It’s hard ~ it’s hard to continue to make ourselves a priority. That’s why it helps to think of it as a relationship. Every relationship in our life needs continuous time spent together to keep it in a good place, including the one we have with ourselves.
15. Everything that matters is happening inside us.
After listening to a dream expert interviewed on Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations podcast, I realized this realization. He talked about what happens in our dreams is just a ruse to get us to feel certain things and the true insight in our dreams are those feelings.
As I wrote in my journal ~
“And then I started thinking, what if the same is true for life? Maybe the “script,” the daily who, what, when, and where, isn’t what matters. Instead, maybe it too is just a ruse to reveal our inner workings ~ our perceptions, thoughts, feelings, joys, and struggles. Perhaps, like dreams, the purpose of daily life is to resolve our internal conflicts.
Maybe all of it is an insight into the state of our psyche, showing us which parts may need repair. But, on the other hand, all of it serves the vital purpose of helping us become whole. In that case, it doesn’t matter if we get cut off in traffic, denied a promotion, or have our hearts broken. What truly matters in life is how we see it, feel about it, and how it plays into our self-concept. We are always either healing or deepening the hurt.
If we view life this way, significance begins to shift and what we allow to define us takes on a new shape. Suddenly, it doesn’t matter what job we hold, what car we drive, or the house we live in. There’s no meaning in our education level, relationship status, or retirement fund. These are all just part of the script ~ ruses are used to surface our feelings. The significance lies in the emotions and how they shape our worldview. Are we humble, grateful, and optimistic? Or are we selfish, power-hungry, and harmful?
Perhaps what life is trying to show us, through all the plot twists and turns, is how to heal ourselves. Every moment of pain, discomfort, hatred, judgment, jealousy, and anger uncover a wound that needs work.
Dreams may be where our subconscious handles the healing process, but life is where we take the stage.”
16. We actually can change others, but only by changing ourselves.
Much of what I talk about and write about comes back to a focus on self ~ taking ownership of our lives and our decisions, analyzing ourselves, and changing ourselves because we can’t change others. But the thing is, we don’t live in silos. We are constantly interacting with each other; it’s this constant interchange of actions and reactions. So we are forever affecting each other.
We can’t force change upon someone else, but we can evoke change by changing ourselves; changing our actions can cause a different reaction. Likewise, we can’t force change upon someone; we can only accept their life and trust and believe that they can change. And maybe that acceptance ~ that change within ourselves ~ is what will evoke change in them.
17. We can only ever love to the extent that we understand love.
This was a hard lesson to learn; we can’t fully receive and accept love until we know how to give it entirely. But we can only give it to the extent that we are capable of at any given stage of life. And that capability depends on how much we truly understand what love is. This is why I think self-love is so important. It’s our first go at love, and it’s the only relationship we are in our entire lives. So we are our first guinea pig with love; we practice, we fail, we learn, we try again, and that goes on repeat until we get it right ~ until we know what love is by learning to love ourselves. And then and only then are we ready to give it to someone else so that we can receive it.
It’s like learning how to love ourselves right earns us the right to experience love with another.
18. All change starts with awareness.
This is one of those lessons that I continue to learn repeatedly. We can’t alter our self-destructive patterns or limiting beliefs if we don’t know they’re there. We can’t overcome our insecurities or heal our triggers if we can’t see them. So the first step is always, always, awareness.
And sometimes, awareness is all it takes.
I find it especially helpful when my mind starts to race off into unnecessary drama or anxiety. For example, suppose I catch myself starting to freak out over something my husband did or didn’t do or worry about what someone will think or begin to stress over the future. If I can create just enough space ~ just a split-second pause ~ to take a step back and see my mind racing, I can avoid following it into freak-out mode. There have been times when I have said to myself in my head, “Wow, look at you go. Look at you all worked up.” It may sound funny, but it creates enough space for me to realize that I know I am not those thoughts if I can see those thoughts. Then I have a choice in the matter. It then allows me to relax a little, view the situation from a level head, and ultimately make better decisions about how to react in any given situation.
19. Life is like driving in the dark.
I had thought about this a lot this past year ~ usually, when people asked how I could walk away from my comfortable corporate job and venture out into the unknown of starting a business and entrepreneurship. And I always like to point out that whenever we want to take on a big challenge or a significant change, it can become too big and scary and overwhelming if we look too far into the future. And while yes, looking ahead for planning purposes is necessary sometimes, we can’t let our minds stay there too long. Because all we can ever do at any given moment is take the next step.
If I had let myself spend too much time thinking about how I would start my business or set a goal to bike ride 52 miles and then how people would react to it, I’m not sure I ever would have gone through with it. It would have all seemed like way too much. So instead, I only ever thought about the current step I was in and the next step I had to take when it was time.
Jack Canfield said this in The Secret Movie; “think of a car driving through the night. The headlights only go a hundred to two hundred feet forward, and you can make it from California to New York, driving through the dark because all you have to see is the next two hundred feet. And that’s how life tends to unfold before us. So if we just trust that the next two hundred feet will unfold after that, and the next two hundred feet will unfold after that, your life will keep unfolding. And it will eventually get you to the destination of whatever it is you truly want because you want it.”
Understanding that progress is always only made one step at a time. Our present self is free to punt almost everything about an idea to our future self ~ almost everything, all but one step. That’s the only thing the present self ever has to manage ~ taking one small step.
Our thoughts will always venture off into the future, which seems far away and full of resistance. But our lives are always lived in the present, where we can only ever take the next step. And where the only opposition is choosing not to.”
20. Trust the process.
This may be the most challenging lesson I’ve learned this year. Anything we try to accomplish in life, any change we try to make within ourselves, it’s all a process. And we have first to accept there is a process and then accept where we are in that process.
I had some significant failures in that arena this past year, but the biggest one by far was when I freaked out over my lack of Instagram followers and purchased a bunch of fake followers in an insecure panic. I was so embarrassed I deleted my Instagram account.
It wasn’t until recently; I listened to a talk by Cheryl Strayed, author of the bestselling memoir Wild. And boy, did it hit home!
The talk was titled “The Humble Journey to Greatness,” and she said something that took me by surprise towards the end. She instructed us to “surrender to mediocrity.”
She went on to explain that surrendering to mediocrity is “humbly acknowledging that the very best thing you have to give is only what you have to offer. It’s what you already have, what you already hold.”
In other words, we need to accept who we are and where we are and be true to that ~ whether it be at work, in a relationship, or pursuit of a big dream. We live in this culture that is always striving for more ~ more money, more power, more love, and in my case, more followers. We see people who have what we want and use it as proof that we aren’t where we should be. We see their success as evidence of our failure. But that simply isn’t true.
According to Cheryl, “Part of being evolved can hold two opposing truths in one hand and recognizing the truth of each and understanding how they serve each other.”
Our task is to accept where we are yet still striving and appreciate everything our current view offers while not losing sight of the heights we want to reach. It’s a delicate balance and one that’s hard to find in our forward-focused world. But it’s a line we must walk.
We don’t serve the world by wishing we were different or pretending to be something we’re not. Pining for the future does nothing for the present. Instead, we make the most significant impact by being true to who we are and giving them whatever we have to provide. And as we continue to work on ourselves, our talents, and our business endeavors, those gifts will change and grow day by day, month by month, and year by year. And no one contribution outweighs the other.
My truth is that I did not have a little blue check by my handle or a “k” in my follower count, far from it. I am not well-known or even somewhat-known at this point. And I guess that’s alright. I am where I am and where I am in the process of getting to those places. I may be miles away, but I am still walking the path I admire had to walk. I am doing the work. I am defining my voice and learning how to use it. I am figuring out step by painful step how to build my world. I am finding my tribe, and they are seeing me. Slowly, but that’s okay.
Ultimately, my frantic purchase taught me that the proof of success does not reside in numbers. It isn’t about counting your progress but rather continuing the process at peace with every step.
21. Everything matters.
When I first heard wide-leg pants were back in style, I didn’t believe it until I saw this cute young girl wearing them. It was at that moment I thought, “Wow, everything does come back.”
And then I thought more about that concept. It’s at the very least entertaining when it comes to fashion, but it can be applied to life as well, and there it carries immense implications. Karma, Law of Attraction, manifestation, whatever you want to call it, they are all essentially saying the same thing ~ what we put out into the world returns to us.
To some, that concept may be empowering or exciting, and for others, it may be overwhelming and scary, but it’s exciting for me because it means that everything matters. Every moment, every decision we make, every action we take, every reaction we have, none of it is for nothing. Because we will see it all again, it will come back in a different form a blessing, a hardship, a lesson, but it always comes back. So it all matters.
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