lessons learned

Each year brings its own set of blessings, challenges, and lessons to learn and 2019 was certainly no exception. As we head into 2020, 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 the New Year.

Here are my top 20.

1.       It’s okay to be a thinker.

Clearly, I am a thinker – a deep thinker, an overthinker, whatever you want to call it. I’m a thinker. And I suppressed and hid that part of me for a long time because I was almost embarrassed about it. It isn’t always the norm. I’ve had people very close to me – people who love me – flat out tell me they don’t think as deep as I do and don’t understand why I make everything so complicated. This year really pushed me to embrace and unleash my thinking. Obviously, as I’m now trying to make a living out of it now.

The term “overthinker” is often used as a negative. But this year I finally came around and have embraced it as a positive. So, early in the year I wrote an article for Thought Catalog on behalf of all my fellow overthinkers titled, 5 Little Reasons Why It’s Actually Good To Be An ‘Overthinker’.

In it, I wrote,

“we aren’t “over” anything. We see the people and world around us as intricate and interesting. So we think… we reflect… we analyze… a lot. Some may say it’s too much – and that’s fine. But we aren’t here to float through life not giving a shit about anything. We are here to root out the reasons for our relationships and learn the lessons life throws at us. Our days are full of mysteries to solve, connections to make, and thoughts to explore. You might look at us and think we are making life more difficult… but I argue we are making it more meaningful.”

So if you are an “overthinker” or know one, understand that this is not a bad thing. It’s simply the way someone’s mind works and they can’t exactly change it. All we can all do is accept and embrace it.

2.       Everything matters.

Apparently scrunchies are back in style. When I first heard this, I didn’t believe it… until I saw this cute young millennial who definitely knows more about fashion than I do with one in her hair. And in that moment I thought, “Wow, everything really 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 big implications. Karma, Law of Attraction, Justice, whatever you want to call it… they are all essentially saying the same thing – that 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 for me, it’s kind of exciting. 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.

3.       There is insight in every emotion – good and bad.

I read in an Esther Hicks book that our emotions are our inner guidance system and that really stuck with me. The good ones help show us we are in the right place, moving in the right direction. And the bad ones… well, they show us the work we need to do. The problem is, we often suppress or avoid the negative ones because they’re 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 spent my entire twenties avoiding 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 out. Not just acknowledge them but see what they can teach me.

I talk about this in my blog titled All the Feels, where I wrote,

“Accepting ourselves means accepting our whole selves… and all the feels along the way. We can’t deny them because they came for a reason. No matter how unpleasant, they exist to teach us – 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 the 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 feels 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 stay 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 uncomfortable to process. But if we can shift the lens a little and look at them as insight, they can move from scary to helpful.

4.       We can only ever love to the extent that we understand love.

In my experience, we can’t fully receive and accept love until we know how to fully give it. 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. 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 learn what love really is by learning to love ourselves. And then and only then are we ready to give it to someone else... so we can receive it.

It's like learning how to love ourselves right earns us the right to experience love with another. 

5.       Our relationship with our self takes time.

I’ve been asked a lot this past year in interviews about my book if I would recommend others to give up men for a period of time like I did. My answer is absolutely not. But what I do recommend – to EVERYONE – is to carve out some time in your schedule to hang out with just yourself. No phone, no Netflix, no friends or family, just you. It’s hard to do from a scheduling standpoint and it’s hard to just actually do. It’s hard to just sit quietly with ourselves. And I don’t necessarily mean meditating. So many people don’t even go to the bathroom without their phone these days, let alone sit outside or go for a walk with nothing but your own 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 catching up with ourselves. We aren’t checking in to see how we’re really feeling once all those distractions are removed. Taking stock of where we currently are in life and where we want to go – and if we are on track to get 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 thing. Nope, our relationship with our self 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 but instead something we have to continuously work at is because I totally 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 our self.

6.       Life has different seasons.

Maybe I should say chapters since I’m a writer. But I like the term season because I think there is a cyclical 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 kinds of ideas for blogs and articles. And then I go through seasons where that inspiration isn’t there. At first, I got really frustrated during those seasons and would try to force myself through them. But viewing them as seasons helps me remember it’s temporary and to not get frustrated about what season it isn’t, but instead find out what season it is. Just because it isn’t one filled with creativity doesn’t mean it’s a bad one. It’s just a time to focus on other things.

I think the concept of seasons is true in all areas of life. Megan Weigel and I talk about this a little in Episode 9 of my podcast, The Better You, in terms of self-care. You may go through seasons of life where you’re really killing it in the health and wellness game. And then life changes and maybe you become a parent or maybe 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 for how they may change our focus or priorities in life. 

And, like I wrote about in a blog about a season of my life where I moved back in with my parents in my thirties titled The Gift, there is a silver lining to every season no matter how tough it may seem at the time.

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 us the perfect material for whatever lesson we need to learn. We just 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. We’d rather lay our head down on the desk and sleep, distract ourselves by writing notes to friends, or maybe even skip class completely. But just as in all our years of real school, we won’t truly learn the lessons of life 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 try to 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 – 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. That our experiences – while wrapped in different circumstances – at the deepest level are oftentimes the same. And it is when we realize that... when we see our struggles in the struggles of another... that we can relate, we can accept, and we can love.

But I also believe that it is through each other that we truly learn the most about ourselves. It is in relationships of every form and interactions throughout every day where we see where we really stand.

Because recognizing our self in another is more than just seeing the connection points. It is seeing the counterpoints.

It is our differences that reveal the parts of us 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.       Our brain can’t always be trusted.

One night I was lying in bed and my mind was racing. It was on an analytical rollercoaster 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 true in this moment? It totally saved me from myself because my answer was simple and easy, “I’m lying in a comfortable bed in a safe condo with a man I love sleeping next to me.” That is the ONLY thing that was true in 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 back to the past or run off into the future supposedly trying to figure it all out but really just freaking out. And in those moments it can be hard to realize none of that 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 to it is to learn. And the future is all unknown – it’s only guesses.

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 in this moment?”

10.   Set boundaries.

Boundaries. We hear this word all the time and up until I interviewed Dr. Kristie in Episode 15 of my podcast, I will admit I never fully understood what it meant. I always viewed them as a negative – a way to keep people at a certain distance – which worked for me for a long time as I was pretty closed off emotionally. But Dr. Kristie said something that suddenly made it all so clear to me – “boundaries are how we teach people how to treat us.”

They are not meant to keep people away but instead to show them the way. They narrow the path and educate people on how to reach us, how to love us, how to 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 clues that your gut is talking.

I wrote about them in an article I published on Thought Catalog - These 3 Important Tells Mean Your Gut Is Speaking Up And You Need To Listen.

In a nutshell, the 3 tells are:

Your Brain Works Against It

Meaning it’s usually not a logical decision. So you’ll often find yourself trying to talk yourself out of it. But when you’re debating things in your mind, who’s 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 difficult. 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 difficult to trust because we tend to seek validation in our choices from others and it’s hard for people to validate something they simply can’t understand.

In my experience, listening to your gut does comes with consequences. You may be judged. You may be misunderstood. You may be heading down a messy road. But know that doesn’t mean you are making a mistake… rather, you have stopped arguing with yourself and finally started listening to yourself.

12.   Maybe there is no right and wrong.

Life is full of choices and oftentimes decisions are not easy. There is no way to know what choice is the right one. But maybe therein lies the real issue – that we have decided that for every decision there is a right choice and a wrong one. But how can we ever truly 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 end results reveal themselves. But when is the real end? Every decision we make creates the next round of choices and so on and so on. There is no end. Whatever results come along the way are never the end 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 an important step. And we can choose to see them as good or bad, fair or unfair, right or wrong... or we can see them as growth, as learning, and as 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.

I turned 35 this year. And had you asked me ten years ago what my life would look like at 35 I would have painted a VERY different picture than what it currently looks like. Not in a million years would I have expected to not be married, not have children, not even have a steady income. 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 I’m not aware of.

I talk about this in a blog titled, Maybe Life Knows Better. 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. Maybe 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 really needed was my own; miserable drives to work to teach me those careers weren’t for me; mistakes that 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 life 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 very specific 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 ultimately 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 main goal is to actually free us from them. To remove the concept of need. To break all the attachments we have to people, to things, to identities and to 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.   Everything that matters is happening inside us.

So here’s where you’re really going to see the extent of my deep overthinking nature – this one is pretty philosophical. But I had this realization after listening to a dream expert interviewed on Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations podcast. He talked about how 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 blog titled, The Ruse,

“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 really 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 inner conflicts.

Maybe all of it is insight into the state of our psyche – showing us which parts may need repair. All of it serves an important 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 heart broken. What truly matters in life is how we see it, how we feel about it, and how that plays into our concept of self. 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. All the sudden 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 used to surface our feelings. The significance lies in the feelings and how they shape our view of the world. Are we humble, grateful, and optimistic? Or are we selfish, power hungry, and negative?

Perhaps what life is really 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 is uncovering a wound that needs work.

Dreams may be where our subconscious handles the healing process… but life is where we take the stage.”

15.   It is what it is.

I used to use this phrase all the time. Then I stopped using it – disagreed with it even – as I came to this realization 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.” Then I heard Byron Katie say in an interview that the moment we begin to argue with reality is when we begin to suffer. It got me thinking about my old go-to phrase and whether or not it holds any truth.

In the interview she went on to explain 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. How someone else lives theirs – everything they say, decide, and believe -y 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.

It’s when we overstep into business that isn’t ours that we suffer. When we stress, worry, and get upset over things that we can’t control – they just are what they are. We want them to be different rather than accept they are reality. 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 back. 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, 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.

16.   We actually can change others… but only by changing ourselves.

A lot of what I talk about and write about comes back to a focus on self – taking ownership of our life 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 always interacting with each other – it’s this constant interchange of actions and reactions. We are forever affecting each other.

We can’t force change upon someone else but we can evoke change in them by changing ourselves – changing our actions can cause a different reaction. Bryan Falchuk and I discuss this a lot in Episode 18 of my podcast and I also touch on it an article I published on Thought Catalog – When We Give Up On Others, We Give Up On Ourselves – where I write about how because we can’t force change upon someone, we can only accept where they are in life and trust and believe that they are capable of change. And maybe that acceptance – that change within ourselves – is what will evoke change in them.

17.   All change starts with awareness.

This is one of those lessons that I continue to learn over and over again. 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. 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. If I catch myself starting to freak out over something my boyfriend did or didn’t do, or worry about what someone is going to think about something, or start 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 blindly following it into freak out mode. There have been times when I have literally 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 if I can see those thoughts, I’m not those thoughts. And if I’m not them, then I have a choice in the matter. That 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.

18.   Life is only lived one step at a time.

I’ve talked about this a lot this past year – usually when people asked how I was able to write and then publish a book that airs all my dirty laundry, or how I was able to walk away from my comfortable corporate job and venture out into the unknown world of freelance and entrepreneurship. And I always like to point out that whenever we want to take on a big challenge or a big change, if we look too far into the future, it can become too big and scary and overwhelming. 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.

When I was writing my book, if I had let myself spend too much time thinking about how I was going to publish it and then how I was going to market it and then how people were going to 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. When I was writing, I only thought about writing – that’s it. And writing the book didn’t mean it was ever going to be published or marketed or read and reacted to so there was no reason to stress over all those future decisions. Writing it only meant I was writing it.

And that’s my advice for any goal or change anyone wants to tackle. It’s just like the saying – How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Don’t look too far into the future and let that freak you out and convince you to never move forward. Just take the first step. Then realize you’re okay – your world didn’t fall apart. Then take the next step. And so on and so on.

I talked about this recently in a blog titled, The Moment. In it I wrote,

“Perhaps the answer lies in another one of Newton’s Laws – an object in motion stays in motion. Maybe it is just a matter of realizing we are already moving towards what we want. Having the idea, entertaining the idea, and seeing the idea as reality has already set its future in motion. We just have to stay out of our own way.

Because it’s not so much about struggling and pushing through the entirety of the counter moment but rather 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 way 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 resistance is choosing not to.”

19.   Trust the process.

This may be the toughest lesson I’ve learned this year. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t naively hopeful that I’d publish my book and it would just take off and I’d be one of those BOOM instant success people. It might work that way for some people but for the majority of us, it’s a process. Anything we try to accomplish in life, any change we try to make within ourselves, it’s all a process. And we have to first accept there is a process, and then accept where we are in that process.

I had some big 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 in an insecure panic purchased a bunch of fake followers.

I then decided to own that decision, despite how embarrassing it was, so I wrote about it and published an article on Thought Catalog titled, Oops, I Bought 3,000 Instagram Followers.

Here’s an excerpt from it:

“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 towards the end she said something that took me by surprise. She instructed us to, “surrender to mediocrity.”

The talk was titled, “The Humble Journey to Greatness,” and towards the end she said something that took me by surprise. She instructed us to, “surrender to mediocrity.”

Huh? Mediocrity? Is her motivational speech really going to end by telling us to settle for mediocrity?

She went on to explain that surrendering to mediocrity is, “humbly acknowledging that the very best thing you have to give us is only what you have to offer. It’s what you already have; what you already hold.”

And then it sank in. 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 in pursuit of a big dream. We live in this culture that is always striving for more – more money, more power, more love… and 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 is having the capacity to 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 strive for more; to appreciate everything our current view has to offer 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.

Because 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. We make the biggest impact by being true to who we are and giving whatever we have to give at that point in time. 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 gift outweighs the other.

My truth is that I do 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 is in process to get to those places. I may be miles away, but I am still walking the path that those 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 and market my brand. I am finding my tribe and they are finding 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.”

20.   “The reaction doesn’t belong to you.” -Elizabeth Gilbert

I read this in her book Big Magic. It’s a little line... a small fragment of a sentence... but one that holds so much meaning, so much truth, and so much freedom. In the book she is referring to creativity – that we should put our work (in whatever form it takes) out into the world and then let go of the reactions. Not worry about them. For it is only the product and the process that goes into it that belongs to us. The reactions live beyond our control and therefore should be outside our concern.

But I love this line for life as well. Because it is the work we put into it – the thoughts, the decisions, and yes, OUR 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, to be accepted, to be included, and replaces it with the space to be unique. The freedom to create your life thought-by-thought and decision-by-decision without the worries of 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.

This blog is based off of Episode 20: Life Lessons for the New Year of my podcast, The Better You Podcast.