It’s also why I LOVED being in the field of education. Every quarter, year, new CLASS is a chance to start FRESH.
The last period doesn’t define you but it will certainly influence you, guide you, move you, challenge you.
YOU have the 🗝️ to make it different. To make a change. The passage of time allows you the absolute power to start again, start OVER and adjust good habits, old habits, bad habits, and even removing habits.
One of my biggest “aha moments” over my personal journey in the past 20+ years of making New Year’s resolutions is removing things from my plate that no longer serve me or serve me well.
Being a reflective human is difficult because it calls us out on ourselves often analyzing our weaknesses. It’s a very mature thing to be able to own your weaknesses and take responsibility over them.
Identifying them, owning them, adjusting them and building on WEAKNESSES are realistically what makes us human and BETTER HUMANS and perhaps the best versions of ourselves.
You can laugh out loud if you have always failed miserably at this.
You can even use the excuse that “it never works for me anyways”.
But
Hi there! If you’re still reading this…. maybe it’s a sign from the UNIVERSE to start fresh tomorrow. January 1.
I’m going to start to get a little more “life coach” on you here. It’s perhaps the BIGGEST LEGACY my parents left me with almost 10 years ago.
And I am this many days old and realizing it….
Today.
Many people go through their entire lives not knowing what theIr PURPOSE is. Yup. They go day IN and day OUT without really knowing what they want, what they were put here to do, and what their truest potential really is.
Beyond that….
Perhaps because they don’t know;
They end too soon. Or they quit.
Rounding out the last quarter of my 21 days here (which mind you took me a LONG TIME to complete) is a little nudge, a little kick in the 🫶🏼 and a reminder that what happens to you in life isn’t always something within your control, BUT, how you choose to react to it and respond to it IS your responsibility.
As we roll into yet another NEW YEAR, remember that there are a lot of other people who won’t be joining you in that privilege. They sadly are less fortunate and aren’t going to make it. ✨
On my deepest and darkest days, sometimes that little reminder is all I need to pick myself up and keep going- one step at a time. One 👣 in front of the other.
Realistically, it’s normal to have these days. We ALL have them. Even the people who look like they have it all together.
Your responsibility (and you owe this to yourself if no one has told you this yet) is to make sure that you analyze and reflect on YOURSELF.
Ride high on the good.
But take note on the “bad”.
…..reflect on whether or not it was designed not by accident to happen to YOU, but rather as a complete and purposeful PIECE that the universe put in your path to get you to where you really need to go- and where you may not even realize you are going!!!!!!
Also make note to when your “CUP” seems half full…..
I mean…..Is it???
And how are YOU responding when it’s half full?
What is “your response” in these moments?
•Do you complain?
•Do you blame others?
•Do you throw yourself into a tantrum in the corner and feel sorry for yourself?
Because you CAN change the
CUP size.
You also can make a decision about what YOU ARE FILLING YOUR CUP WITH. 🤔
Maybe it’s something entirely different.
Maybe you have “buckets” and you are filling your buckets with the wrong things.
For the first time in over 10 years I’m entering a holiday season when I can check off this holiday wish list.
Let me repeat. For the FIRST TIME in over 10 years.
Ouch. What does this mean?
The holidays are supposed to be about joy, happiness, togetherness, laughing, giving, gratitude, etc etc etc RIGHT?
Our society has conditioned so many of our hearts to shame ourselves if we aren’t appreciative, thankful for what we HAVE, and/or focusing on what we don’t have. So people at a very YOUNG age are almost taught to “fix” that mindset and we are quick to want to “fix it” for them.
So what happens as these people age and they perhaps don’t have the pillars in their life to get them through those patches of terrible feelings?
They look around them and feel like everyone is handling it better and able to work through things and then the person feels STUCK in a place where they don’t think anyone gets it, understands, or will even want to be around them or accept them for being in that place.
So they pull it together, yet again, or find coping mechanisms to help blur the pain, dull the pain, or forget the pain.
I chose early on to try not to let my kids in on being my life coach. I love my mom dearly, and I loved her tremendously while she was walking this earth, but from an early age I now recognize that I was her life coach. She shared with me pain and physical struggle more than anyone in my family and she cried all the time. She needed much more support than she was ever given. It just wasn’t a resource for her and her thoughts were often just that “I’m lucky to be alive”.
My dad told me from an early age that when someone is very sick, sometimes it’s the family that suffers more than the actual person.
….I NEVER EVER understood what he meant from that.
Almost 44 years old and now I get it.
…the family suffers more…
I get it now. And it makes me sick. It makes me sick that decades went by. Damage was done. And no one got the support.
Not to pat myself on the shoulders here but this is my point.
I was the ONLY one who was on medication from my early 20s on. I was the only who started seeing a therapist in college and that was ONLY because it was FREE for student athletes and I was crumbling.
People didn’t get it then.
People still don’t get it now.
And if you are reading this and get it…. here is my holiday wish for YOU.
Get.
Help.
Don’t shame yourself. Don’t TRY to be strong for others. Don’t guilt yourself into trying all kinds of coping mechanisms without fail.
It will leave you feeling hopeless. Feeling alone.
Feeling like you are the only one in this world who can’t get their s&it together.
You aren’t the only one.
But you need some help.
🤍🫶🏼💓
#988
988 has been designated as the new three-digit dialing code that will route callers to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (now known as the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), and is now active across the United States.
When people call, text, or chat 988, they will be connected to trained counselors that are part of the existing Lifeline network. These trained counselors will listen, understand how their problems are affecting them, provide support, and connect them to resources if necessary.
The previous Lifeline phone number (1-800-273-8255) will always remain available to people in emotional distress or suicidal crisis.
The Lifeline’s network of over 200 crisis centers has been in operation since 2005, and has been proven to be effective. It’s the counselors at these local crisis centers who answer the contacts the Lifeline receives every day. Numerous studies have shown that callers feel less suicidal, less depressed, less overwhelmed and more hopeful after speaking with a Lifeline counselor.
And GOD BLESS all of our first responders. The fire fighters, volunteer ambulance drivers, the police officers, and hospital staff, the therapists and counselors trying to help in the middle of their own life’s challenges.
Is it ok to disappoint? To mess up? To fall down?
AND if you do…. can you ask for help? Are you ok receiving help? Are you comfortable asking for help?
When you find out the person is actually gone. When it really hits you that you will never see them again….
•you think about what you could have said
•what you should have said
•what you wished you had said
But what if you’re left with the everlasting question of “could I have changed their mind?”
“Is there something that I could have done to change their mind?”
“How come I wasn’t enough for them to keep living for?”
“Was it that bad?”
“How long was this going on?”
We are all human. Pain is universal. We all will experience the untimely death of a loved one and the timing is never ok. It’s never on our clock or on our agenda. It doesn’t fit our schedule and it’s something many of us fear. When we lose someone that seems to be something that could have been avoided- the people left in their shadow of death will live the rest of their lives wondering and living in doubt, question, shock, disbelief, sadness, sorrow and trauma.
If you or somebody you know needs to talk to someone- please let them know that it’s perfectly normal and acceptable and entirely understandable to need support during and throughout this time here on earth.
No one was meant to walk it alone.
More people need to understand that everyone needs a life coach. Everyone needs support. It’s human. It’s reality.
💓Mental health matters.
RIP to those who end the pain on their own terms. Whether you were in your right mind or not, you were successful and we are your survivors.
My babies don’t know it yet but I know the timing is coming soon where they need to know how their grandpa died. They ask questions about grandma and grandpa and I am well aware that some things are hereditary. Someday they will know and I’ll explain what I know the best I know how. Until then, the only thing we can wish on anyone is that the day we are in is the best present we can make it. Each day it’s our responsibility to make it the best life we know how. Peace. Connection. Grace. Gratitude. Love.
Changing Lives One Day at a Time and One Face at a Time
