12 brilliantly brutal lessons I learned this year…

Pandemic aside, this year has had no shortage of fuckery… and its share of brilliance. Lately I’ve been re-reading old journals and posts that have captured the past couple years of this journey. And, though I’m nowhere close to finished, I’m starting to recognize how far I actually have climbed.

Yet somewhere during the exhaustion of falling and standing and falling and standing and falling and standing, I forgot how to trust my intuition.

Somehow while watching for red flags, I mistook dozens of them for confetti.

And then I remembered...

I remembered each gold thread that rendered me stronger.
I remembered every exhausted rise.
And then I realized the 12 beautifully brutal life lessons I awakened this year…

1. I expanded my vocabulary to include vulnerability, clarity, gaslighting, love bombing, capital gains, back-buttering, help, covert narcissist, and empowerment.
2. I discovered tearing down walls- physically and emotionally- is physically and emotionally exhausting.
3. I realize that fragile egos are incapable of seeing colossal, epic fucking growth happening before their eyes and that’s ok. Because when they think I’m too exhausted to continue the climb, I’ve already scaled over their shoulders.
4. I understand that worth, deservedness, and boundaries don’t require an explanation or validation.
5. I learned how to mix mortar and how to mix fire & flow.
6. I find clarity on a long drive, short run, painting a wall, and in moon-water.
7. I acknowledge what I need and what I want, and I’m not afraid to ask for them… or ask for help.
8. I can steal a moment, trade a stock, ignite my passion, silence the stories, build a life, burn a bridge, and listen to my intuition.
9. I feel it all. I don’t have to stuff each feeling into its own Houdini-esque lock box and swallow it to bury the pain- afraid to cover them with a morsel of food in fear that I’ll projectile a cacophony of debilitating emotions. Now I control the emotional flood gate and let them out one at a time, calling each by name, and allowing them to visit as long as necessary.
10. I welcome the difficult conversations. I’ll share the adventure. But I won’t assume or guess.
11. I found that sometimes people who are willing to sit in the shit with you aren’t there for support… it’s just where they just feel most at home.
12. I admit that surrendering to new paths, new adventures, and watching your kids do the same is fucking terrifying, but the oxygen and view you find along the way is also fucking breathtaking.

The other day I read “I am here, because I was there.”

Every jump,
Every fall,
Every scrape, cut, success, blindside, milestone, and loss led to one more resilient step back up.

I am here because I was there.
And next I will be further there because I was here… because I’m not done.

I’ll keep going.
I’ll keep showing up.
I’ll keep loving, giving, repairing,
and I’ll keep learning.

I will ask the tough questions… and I’ll patiently and vulnerably unwrap the answers.

I will listen more… to myself and to what isn’t said.

But the rules have changed.
I have changed.

Because the girl you thought you knew is nothing of the woman that I am today-

and I’ve got a dozen reasons why.