A lot can happen in a year.

I feel like so many people do posts like this. I’ve gained inspiration from a blogger friend of mine, jennyinneverland. She has a wonderful list as well.

When I was thinking about this past year as a whole. It certainly not what I was expecting but when is it ever? I feel good about this past year. I’ve learned a lot and I’ve felt like it was a good growth year for me. Here I’m just going to put 6 lessons I’ve learned this year.

Most people don’t care.

This one was life changing for me. As someone who is a people pleaser and thinks so much about what everyone thinks and feels, it was a tough one to fully grasp. I was talking to a work colleague once. He came off really arrogant and rude when I first met him and once he lightened up, I laughingly said to him, “you know when I first met you, I thought you didn’t like me.” For whatever reason I took his personality personally. He responded by saying, “you know I get that a lot, but the truth is I really just don’t care, and I think that’s true for a lot of people. They’re just really indifferent in most situations.”

And that statement alone made me think about the world differently. It made me think about people differently too. As someone who used to struggle with social anxiety, this is a whole new line of thinking I never even considered. Most people are indifferent. They are so caught up in their own lives and what they are having to do that they don’t really think about others as much. As negative as this sounds, it’s not meant to be. Being indifferent just means that they’re unconcerned about what’s going on, not so much on a personal level, just as a whole.

Just because you stop doing something doesn’t mean you failed at it.

The thought of failure should never hinder you from trying something.

As an example of this, I took as step back from social selling. I quit hounding my emails for new collaborations. I quit selling make up and skin care products, not because I wasn’t successful at it but because it wasn’t fueling me in the way I needed to be. So I decided to take a step back. I decided to redirect my time and energy into something else and there is nothing wrong with that.

I was afraid that if I quit, I was going to lose the friends and connections I’ve gained in the process, false. I was afraid I was never going to pick it back up if I wanted to, false. In this world, you can truly do whatever you want to do. Whatever you set your mind to, you can do it and you can do it for as long and as hard as you want to. And if you don’t want to anymore, stop. It’s okay to run your life the way that you want to run it.

Take the risk, don’t let the thought of failure or thought of not being enough stop you from trying something. Failure is okay, as long as you fail forward and you don’t let it stop you from pursuing something different.

Unconditional love is a powerful thing.

To be loved without condition.

I’ve been raised in a family of unconditional love. Of givers, who give love so freely because it’s simply who they are.

There is so much power in loving unconditionally, of giving yourself freely and not thinking about how others are going to take it. There is so much power of being comfortable enough to give. Being comfortable enough to love. Not everyone has the strength to love without conditional, they see love as a way to be vulnerable. But let me tell you friend, it is powerful. Loving the unloved, being a light to someone’s darkness is so powerful. You have no idea what loving unconditionally can do for a person who has never seen it or who has seen it and become blind to it.

There’s no pain in giving and loving unconditionally.

Change in cyclical.

The inevitability of change is prominent. We all see it; we all know it.

Just as it is in nature with the phases of the moon and the changes of seasons, we as humans are meant to have cycles of change too.

There are many things in life that are cyclical. The way we think, the way we feel, how we decide what we want to do in life.

As an example, there are so many times over the years where I feel like I have wanted to realign myself, my priorities and what I want to put my energy into. I look back at things that I once had a passion for and want to do it again. Like falling back in love with writing or reading or something else that feeds my creative soul.

The change you are making today may not be permanent. You may want to change again later or go back to something again.

Do things purely for the joy of doing them.

I realized this year that life is too short. It’s too short not to experience joy. I feel like there is so much fear in living in joy as if, if we lean into joy too much, it’s going to be taken away from us. How many of us have thought, wow, everything is going so well; I like my job, my family is healthy, work is going well… then we stop and think, what’s going to happen next? As if the joy we are feeling is going to be gone in a moment’s notice.

When we lose our tolerance for vulnerability, joy becomes foreboding.

We don’t want to soften into moments of joy because we become scared the other shoe is going to drop. But how many times do we end up regretting that? We should be feeling joy to the fullest. Let it take us over in happiness because it’s not going to soften the blow later when tragedy comes. It’s still going to hurt. There is no way to anticipate every loss, tragedy and betrayal.

So do things purely for the joy of doing them. Live in joy and be glad in it.

It’s okay to feel things.

Because change is cyclical and because experiencing joy won’t soften the blow when tragedy comes. I’ve decided that it’s okay to fee l things. Feeling huge emotions are okay.

I’ve always heard that feeling big emotions is what makes us human. This year I’ve had big moments of stress, anxiety and depression. So much, so I was worried that I’ll ever fully be able to see the brighter side of things again.

I like very much to be in control over my emotions. I want to be happy 24/7/365, I think most people feel the same way. I realized in 2022, that it’s okay to lean into bad feelings. When you are tired, rest. When you are overstimulated, reflect. When you feel sad, cry.

It’s okay to feel an array of emotions. It doesn’t take away from your overall happiness. Don’t let the bad days win but the times when you need to be sad, be sad. Fell it in its entirety so when you are happy, you can feel that in its entirety too.

There were many other things I learned in the course of life, but these were a few that I was able to reflect on the most. There was a lot of growth this year, as any. Lots of work put in behind the scenes. Lots of big steps forward. I am proud of this year.

with love,

c.p