Ten life lessons that I am very grateful for that I thought I would share today (even though this accidentally went up for an hour a week ago):
*I’m wrong a lot, and I’m the problem a lot 🤣. Over the years, I have been a professional victim and excellent at figuring out how I was the good guy in every interaction with others. But, as I’ve gotten older, I have realized it takes two to tango (and many times, just me doing my own solo tango, haha). Realizing this feels a lot more productive as I try to figure out how I messed up and then come up with ways to fix it and change (the control freak in me loves taking control of the situation rather than just sitting back and crying). It’s amazing how helpful this lesson has been for my relationships:)
*I was scared about getting older, but goodness gracious, I love it so much. Each year of life gets better and better.
*The body keeps score. I can do all of the positive affirmations and thoughts possible, but there are some things that my body knows, and I have to give it the TLC it needs. I need to ride the wave and feel what I need to feel. Example-> when Brooke leaves, it used to be much harder than it is now, BUT my body knows the day or two leading up to it, and I feel more exhausted and down. Someone could look at me in a funny way, and I would break down and cry. During times like this, I could feed my brain all of the positive thoughts while KNOWING that everything is great, and STILL, my body kicks in, and I need to give myself freedom and peace to feel how it needs to feel.
*Being busy all of the time is not how I want to live. I have used being constantly busy as a coping mechanism for many years, but it always backfired for me. It’s funny because whenever I talk about taking time to do nothing, I always get negative comments from hustle culture people that I’m lazy or worthless, but I’m pretty proud I take time to sit and do nothing or read or nap. It’s fuel for the mind and body.
*Andrew is my twin flame (he hates it when I use that phrase, ha). I’m not sure this is a lesson, but looking at my life in hindsight and what I went through –> Pain isn’t pointless; it all adds up to something great and is worth it in the end. It’s kind of like marathon training. The weeks of fatigue and pain eventually end in that amazing finish line with the biggest smiles on our faces.
Bonus lesson: to figure out my watch tan line before family photos.
*The biggest marriage lesson I’ve learned over the years is that we are on the same team. As soon as we take a problem and turn it to you vs. me… that’s when things go downhill. If we can take a problem and see it as us against the problem, things go so much better. This was a huge lesson for us in the first years of life together. PS I never want to paint us as picture-perfect (even though he is my twin flame; please refer back to the first bullet point on this post) because we have had millions of obstacles to overcome, but I’m so grateful that we have learned we are a team hurdling whatever problem comes up together.
*Motherhood is a relationship, not a role (I learned this from Dr. Julie Hanks). I stink at the traditional ‘roles’ of motherhood, and really, they aren’t things that bring me joy, but I have a dang good relationship with each one of my kids. I’d rather focus on the conversations we have in the car or the card games we play at night or laughing over some inside joke we have with each other or kicking the soccer ball back and forth than how I didn’t cook dinner again for the 10000000th time or that I never put away the laundry or make them perfect lunches for school and let’s be honest, everything on Pinterest scares me. I hold onto what I am doing to build a relationship with them, teaching them, and making sure they know they are loved and let go of the rest.
*There is so much room for grey. Black-and-white thinking feels so polarizing to me in a lot of areas of life. I feel happiest in the grey, trusting others to be doing exactly what they need to be doing/thinking and living true to who I am. Swimming laps in the grey areas of life helps me feel much more alive, compassionate, and open-minded.
*Nature always helps. 100% of the horrible days I’ve had were made better by getting outside. For a walk, for a porch sit, for a run, for a hike… it always helps.
*I’ve shared this lesson repeatedly, but I can never get it off my heart. The sun always comes up. No matter how dark the night gets, the sun always comes. It could take minutes, hours, months, or years, but the sun does come up, and before you know it, you will need sunglasses because it is so bright out.
Do any of these resonate with you?
Any lessons you want to share with me??
