This year has felt like a blur. At the beginning of the year I was feeling really lost, which seems to be a pattern. Whether it’s seasonal or just a general lack of vision and confusion of where I wanted to take my life this year, I don’t know. I didn’t feel passionate about nutrition goals, I was confused as to whether I should concentrate on learning, creating, or if I needed to change direction entirely and focus on dating, if having a family is what I truly wanted. Overall, I felt like my life was on hold. It felt like I was put in Austin to stay and sit tight. I felt like I was being told to wait for something or for someone and that I needed to be patient and trust in the universe. Per usual. I had this feeling, maybe not as early as the beginning of the year but somewhere along the way it came to me that I felt like the biggest lessons I had yet to learn I needed to learn through relationship.
But then my grandmother died. That rocked me and my family. It made me give death a seat in my life. It made me consider that everything in this life is meant to end. Seasons end, feelings end, relationships end and change and evolve. Change is itself an ending. I didn’t realize how much I hated endings and wanted to avoid them at all costs – and how ridiculous that is. I think part of me has been avoiding relationships because of the pain of endings. But if everything ends and it’s a crucial part of life, I cannot be afraid of it. I also can’t avoid it. So it sparked in me this appreciation for opening my heart and being vulnerable. It’s still a practice and I’m still learning but I think I’m more open to confronting the fear of doing so for the love that it brings. This idea made me appreciate that immense pain is part of this life so we have to squeeze every bit of joy out of it in any way we can, especially through relationships and spending time with people who hold our hearts and make life worth living. This ideas was reinforced when my grandfather died shortly thereafter. The pain was lessened after the initial wave of my grandmother, knowing they would be happy together again, but it was still a powerful passing that put life into perspective.
Around March I started getting inspired. I was finally able to see a vision for what I could accomplish with my certification. After a couple key courses, I saw what was attainable and it was something I felt like I could do and do well. So I got to work. I spent the next few months writing and creating and working piece by piece to create something I could offer people. And I did it. It took longer than expected but it was only a couple months and it felt so rewarding to complete and finish. Unfortunately, that’s where the fun ended. I lost every thread of motivation when it came to selling. It became clear very quickly that was not my path.
One big insight I came to realize is I can’t put pressure on anything in my life because it takes me out of embodying the energy that aligns with attracting the right people and situations for me. When I’m in that place of calm and trust in the universe, I’m still very intentionally embodying the right energy to attract the right people and situations. I’m still working hard to cultivate a clear mindset and present the best version of myself to the world. It’s not about taking action for me, or putting pressure on myself to do so. If I do take action, it’s something that comes clear and easy. It’s just the divine timing of my life and fully trusting it. Yes, maybe it’s slower and things don’t happen as quickly. But it’s richer. It’s the details that build on each other that compound and create experiences and relationships that are true to me and that enrich my life. Maybe I’m over analyzing again and reading too much into my life but I think this is key for me. Sometimes people push me to “make things happen” or “make moves” but that’s just not me. Whether it’s my human design or not, the key to my life is simply to flow and listen to the whispers and the nudges, and to trust them. It’s that trust and patience that allows my life to unfold in meaningful ways that touch my soul. It’s so strange but it’s true. And when I’m not aligned to that, I don’t feel like myself. My soul feels disturbed and disconnected.
Onto relationships. I think because dating had been more prominent on my mind and I knew I was here to sit and wait, I kept wondering who it would be that would enter my life and change everything. I had fun keeping tabs on handsome men at the gym. I thought really hard about the dating app world. I didn’t want to join it. In fact, I did everything to avoid it. But in June I finally decided that there was more to gain as far as learning about myself than sitting and waiting for someone to approach me in person. I tested it for a week before it was too overstimulating for me. But then some random pull made me get back on in July… I can’t tell say what it was. Maybe it was frustration. Maybe I needed an ego boost. Maybe it was my grandparents or my uncle nudging me to align with divine timing. I don’t know. I had been asked on one date but I wasn’t excited about it so I cancelled. After I analyzed the shit out of it, of course. I put myself through the ringer about it so much that I was done with the ego boost that time around when a guy liked me after I had initially passed on him. I gave it a night before I was ready to delete the app again and he changed my mind. He was fun to talk to, incredibly engaging and we had some weird life path things in common that seemed a little too strange. But we got along well and we seemed to mesh well. It was natural and easy. The first date came around and I was incredibly stressed that I wouldn’t find him attractive and it would all be over. But we hit it off and then he kissed me. And from there things just fell into place.
As the Summer progressed, I went to Big Bend, I got COVID, I traveled to see my brother and be part of an Ayahuasca ceremony, and I went to my first Ohio State football game at the Horseshoe. It was a whirlwind of a couple months. And the guy was still a highlight. But then things got rocky. I was at a point where I was falling harder and that’s when he pulled away. He made an effort for my birthday, planned a whole day for me. I thought it was heavenly until I realized they were all things he enjoyed. And they were all things he enjoyed because he didn’t know me well enough to know what I did. After 3 months. After that he became more distant and my anxiety went through the roof. He finally got the courage to end it, claiming he was in a really bad place mentally, financially and with work. I was devastated but I felt that there was hope and it was better for him to heal on his own and when he took care of himself, I would be there maybe at some point in the future. But soon after, I learned that he was seeing someone else and had lied to me. I had already felt misled after he wasn’t honest about the extent of what he was supposedly going through. But then I found out he was seeing someone else the same week we broke up and have never felt so betrayed in my life.
The next month was hard. It took a long time to heal from that betrayal. He said so many things to me that made me believe he really cared about me – that’s when I learned the meaning of the term “love bombing.” There were clear messages that I ignored… But it was difficult for me because I was trying so hard to open my heart. I was trying to overcome my fear and anxiety. I was trying not to let fear ruin this relationship like it ruined my last. But I should have listened. They were all messages telling me he wasn’t worth my time, that he wasn’t trustworthy. And now I know he only told me things I wanted to hear. But he was put in my life for a reason. Perhaps to teach me not to trust so easily. Or perhaps I was put in his life to teach him something. The exact lesson hasn’t become clear.
That break up wrecked me and the rest of my year. I spent the holidays with my family but I wasn’t myself. I tried doing things I enjoyed and I started a new course and I started meditating to heal and attract the life I want. But I found that I needed to take a step back further and love myself again. Because I was so unhappy with myself. I hated myself for allowing someone into my life and falling for his deceit. I punished myself and it affected all my other relationships. It was not a good thing. I felt lost and scattered. I didn’t know what direction to take or what to do to heal. I didn’t trust myself. But I had to. I had to trust myself. I had to love myself through it. I could honor that ending, that death, if you will, and I could be happy that it was short-lived. I could be grateful that I learned what kind of person he was. I could be grateful that he was no longer part of my life and now there was space for the right person. I could be grateful that I would marry someone who was so much more worthy of being my husband than he was.
This year’s theme was play. And I think I did a hell of a job. I tried things, I traveled, I created, I dated, I met people, I learned, I explored. There were a lot of times when that playfulness brought pain and frustration. Even when it wasn’t expected, there was pain. But there was also beauty to be seen in that pain. I lost my grandparents this year and that was so painful. It was hard to feel the loss of the grandparents who taught me so many things, who I had so much fun with, who I could have learned so much more from had we been closer and had I not kept them at a distance. But beauty can be found in honoring endings, including death. There is death all around us in life, when things change and when people leave us. But honoring loss and honoring the grieving of loss is a beautiful thing for humans to do. It creates meaning and helps us feel what we’re feeling and move forward. It helps us heal.
Overall, it was good. I wrote, I discovered that writing and creating is something I really enjoy, even if it’s for myself. I tried dating and I met someone I thought was worthwhile. He probably gave me more lessons than I have processed but he brought a lot of joy and a lot of pain in a very short amount of time. People always take up the biggest pieces of my heart when I look back on my years.
Outside of that, I traveled to Fort Worth a few times to see my friends, I went to Big Bend and spent time with bears – it was the happiest I was all year. I went to NY to visit my brother and be part of an Ayahuasca ceremony. I went to Ohio with my family to attend our first football game, I joined the YWA to meet new people, I had so much fun reading SJM and ZA, I got out of my comfort zone and saw JBP by myself. I joined dating apps and explored talking to boys. I had fun watching good looking men at my gym and trying to smile at them. It was a whirlwind but it was also lonely. I think it was a lot of throwing shit at the wall and I think along the way I lost some of myself. I was alone so much and took time for myself, but I think I lost love and deep soul connection to myself. I think I was so focused on doing that I lost sight of being, no matter how much I thought I was reminding myself to do so. I think I lost some of the peace and soulfulness that I had gained. It was almost as if I sacrificed some of myself to go out into the world and explore. I did my best but I think I’d like to go into 2023 with more intention behind my choices to explore and get out of my comfort zone. I don’t want to lose my love for myself.
Lessons in summary:
- Writing is nourishment for my soul
- Spending money to travel with people I love is a worthwhile investment
- For me, life is most fulfilling when I am fully embodied and flow along with it. Simply being and listening to the whispers and nudges of my intuition and Spirit, and trusting them, leads me to what is meant for me, and always has.
- I must open myself up to feeling the full breadth of emotions life has to offer. The highs of love and the lows of loss. I cannot close myself off from feeling pain and suffering. Feeling the full spectrum is what gives life its magic.
- It is important to honor death and the endings that life brings.
- While letting go, living freely and allowing what is meant to be to happen, I have to be more discerning with who I let into my life. It is important for me not to give away my trust too easily or too early in a relationship. It is important for people to prove themselves to be people of integrity and good character.
moodybreadcrumbs 