So grateful for this journey of life always and all I’ve had the pleasure of sharing, experiencing and living. I feel truly blessed and so grateful to be here.
With that being said, I wanted to share 23 things that I’ve learned while being 23, now turning 24. To be honest, this has been one of the most challenging and beautiful years of my life. I had to make some extremely tough decisions, take leaps of faith and navigate myself out of some very dark and challenging moments that I wasn’t able to see the light from in that moment. Most of all I’m grateful for my friends and soul family, the beautiful beings who reminded me of who I was in the moments that I forgot, supported me at my lowest, and helped me find my way back to the light. You know who you are and will always hold the deepest place of gratitude and esteem in my heart.
Now to be in the position that I’m in at this time is the most unexpected and wonderful blessing. I’m working my dream job, as a musician and sound healer living in paradise. I have financial stability after years of poverty and survival mode, and I’m constantly healing and uncovering deeper layers of my soul and the gifts that pour through from that. But most beautifully of all I have soul family, seen and unseen, physically present or not, even if we’re in or out of touch. And that is an ever-constant blessing and support.
This year has been a huge learning ground, particularly around relationships. And the most challenging in a lot of moments has been coming face to face with my own shadows, how that affects other people, and taking responsibility for that. It’s been very painful in some moments to sit with myself in those uncomfortable truths, and constantly learn how to integrate them. My intention with the last new moon was to integrate everything I've learned over the course of this past year, and quite a few points started to flow out. So I’m sharing them with you today, in the hopes that some may resonate or help you.
1. Real deep love and intimacy will show you the darkest and lightest of yourself and the other person. It’s about making the choice to stay in the room when those parts come up, instead of running away.
2. Attraction alone doesn’t maintain a relationship. Safety, compassion, and consistency do.
3. There’s a part in all of us that’s narcissistic and/or codependent. Especially if you keep attracting and labeling people who show up in your life as “narcissistic” Oh you better bet you’ve got that going on inside as well!
4. We are this entire human tapestry of life: we contain all of the darkest/lightest of humanity within us. The more we embrace that the more real and authentic we can be.
5. Long-term relationships are not always an equal give and take, often one person is giving more than the other and supporting the other and vice versa when each of them needs it
6. Sisterhood is deeply empowering and sacred and difficult for many of us to feel safe in, especially if you have punishing mother wounds. I feel my heart opening with a deep desire for true sacred sisterhood.
7. Discomfort is where growth is.
9. Discipline doesn’t have to be painful or punishing, it can actually just be making self-loving choices
10. Anyone who’s done something profoundly f*cked up to you or whom you’ve had a really hard time with is actually your best friend on the other side and doing a tremendous act of service playing the villain in your life story.
11. Your capacity for grief is the same as your capacity for joy
12. I’m now giving my inner child and teenager all the experiences they wanted but didn’t get to have, and it feels so damn good
13. Feeling safe, seen, and loved is the most powerful medicine
14. When it comes to communicating boundaries and communicating in general, it’s more important how you say something than what you say. The how can make or break how it is received
15. It’s really true that you need to love yourself before loving someone else. How you treat yourself is such an indicator of how you treat others you take as a part of yourself.
16. Our personality and our parts are always going to range from our most shiny outward expression to the most shadowy inner ones. The trick is to be conscious of who's speaking
17. Sometimes we just have to surrender and rest
18. The most loved, highest paid, highest valued person is regarded as such because of their own personal self-concept. So much of your success is dictated by your self-concept and beliefs. Your beliefs alter the world around you.
19. Thinking is exhausting. Sometimes you're more tired from your own thoughts.
20. Stillness and silence are extremely powerful.
21. God lives in all of us, everything in every moment. When we're present we're the most fulfilled, true, and happy.
22. Sometimes we have to work from the outside in. And sometimes from the inside out.
23. Joy is the quickest way to return home.
4. Your most authentic self is actually the most joyful and highest version of yourself.