2018 is coming to a close… WOW has it been a year over here.
This year brought nothing that was expected and everything that was needed.
I had to deconstruct every single plan I had and completely live my year full on in the unknown.
Let’s talk about where I started this whirlwind of a year.
Naturally, late 2017 was when I started digging into the [overly] ambitious plans for 2018. I was eager to level up in my business, no scratch that… not really a level up, I wanted to quantum leap and skip a bunch of steps doing it.
I was living life torn right out of every millennial’s dream board, ‘er… Pinterest board.
Traveling the globe, living life out of two backpacks and working a business from my laptop/phone.
Life was good… or at least it looked pretty.
My ego was most certainly running the show wrapping up 2017. I was way too busy earning five figure months with my dream man, choosing what country to fly to next to pay attention to the inner callings of what I truly needed. In fact funny story, I had a word of the year picked out before my actual word of the year this year. My ego was so adamant that I guide my 2018 with the word ABUNDANCE. The shiny buzz word in every good marketers copy recently. I read an old journal entry recently from when I choose this word. It was all driven by what I wanted more of and why. I held so much compassion for these pieces of me that I mourned this year as I released them.
As I came into 2018 with a pop of champagne and eager dreams, I heard the whisper of my intuition tell me my word will be GRACE. This made me angry because it really didn’t fit with my desire mapping this year. But as I kept seeing this word in my day to day, I knew I needed to listen. I had no idea what grace meant, no idea what I would use it for, and honestly I was a little irritated with the change.
Grace was everything I needed this year.
Grace pulled through every lesson this year.
Grace catalyzed my expansion.
January went by, I didn’t pay much attention to grace yet, life was busy happening… or maybe a more adequate way to put it was, I was busy rushing through life.
Life has a funny way of completely slapping you in the face with lessons if you aren’t paying attention.
It was around November [2017] when I first noticed that something felt like it was missing, and all of the external success I had created felt a little bit empty.
I processed it a little and I knew the pieces that needed healing but I just kept going, there were dreams that needed to be created after all.
So the implosion of my 2018 probably shouldn’t have been as much of a surprise as I took it as.
It all started with Andrew waking me up saying, “you need to wake up, we have to get out there is a fire.”
There was a fire two condos down from us, and the woman in the condo passed away.
It was the first time I had ever been so close to death. I didn’t know her other than seeing her on the porch on my morning walks, but something about the idea that someone died two beds down from me shook me to my very core.
I wondered things like, what if I didn’t get out in time?
And felt rattled with emotion when her mom pulled up to the scene.
But… life just kept going on.
And landed me in the hospital for a breathing treatment after the fire, if you’re new around here, I’ve got a bad set of lungs. They just keep collapsing and no one knows why. So copious amounts of smoke… not so great for me.
Life went on.
And I received the text one day from my boyfriend…. “babe… [the company I’m working with] just went bankrupt.” … “they owe me $30,000.”
Followed by the conversation… “Bitcoin crashed. We lost $20,000.”
Followed by the last message any coach wants to receive, “I can’t finish our series. Sorry but I’m cancelling all final payments.”
Followed by the text to top them all, “Your brother, Kirk, has a new tumor on his spine. He’s in hospice now. It doesn’t look good.”
And that was it.
It didn’t matter that we had no home, no money, and no plan b.
All that mattered was my big brother was dying and I needed to go be the light that might save him.
I won’t tell this whole story again, if you want to hear more about my amazing journey with Kirk’s death, I would love for you to read one of my published pieces from this year here.
This was the cherry on top of a shit storm of the start of a year.
By March I felt like I had already gone through 365 days.
The amount of in between messes that occurred are too much to compile into a post.
And this is where GRACE saved me. This is where GRACE healed.
All of this shit that was piling up into one giant mess was where I found the greatest lessons of all.
Grace in humanity
We often hear about grace in conjunction with god. And of course god is full of grace, no matter your belief system, god is gracious by nature. But humans… we are messy and imperfect, we make loads of mistakes, and are constantly learning. We aren’t always quick to forgive but often quick to react. Humans, are not gracious by nature, but how beautiful is it when we are? I’ve found over this year that grace is one of the most wonderful gifts you can give to yourself and to others. Because the truth is, we all have places to heal, and many steps to learn more, and when you can give grace in those moments knowing that this is all simply part of the journey.
When the prior client of mine decided it was time to end our relationship, it was grace that I had to give her, after processing the pain that came from that experience. The anger that came with someone choosing to terminate a relationship without any regard to how that could affect the other person. But it was grace that saved me from resentment, because I know there are still lessons there to be learned on her side and mine.
The lesson: Give the people in your life grace and you will find peace.
Grace in self
Like I said, it is the best present we can give to ourselves and others. Truth be told, even when we hold space for grace in others, that is so we can find ease instead of holding on to pain. But what about the times we are not holding space for our own humanity. This year I found myself in a lot of pain and a lot of deconstruction. With that came so much guilt, shame, and backtracking. There was guilt that I didn’t spend enough time with my brother. Shame that came up with pieces of me I had buried under years ago. And backtracking from living a glorious life of nonstop travel to coming back to apartment living. This year I learned that it is okay to pause, it is okay to take a break when it all feels like too much. And it is SO okay to feel every emotion that wants to come in.
When I gave myself the grace I needed to process every ounce of hurt this year, the results were beautiful. You have to give yourself grace to evolve as a human or you will be met with massive resistance and hurt. This is what lead me back to the apartment that gave me wings again. We could have kept going, found a cheap place in South East Asia and rebuilt it all. But that is not what we needed. We needed the familiar air to process the shit and to come back to terms with our identity. I needed a space that I felt safe in to scream and cry and laugh uncontrollably. I needed a space to tear my business apart and build it back up again. I needed a space to bring myself back to balance. And grace to know it was all okay.
The lesson: Give yourself grace in your process, and you will find true freedom.
Grace in ego
Ego drove my 2017, and my initial 2018 plans. And after everything imploded, I had a hate relationship with my ego. Why did I put myself here? How did I let my ego make so many stupid decisions? I had to do healing around an experience with a high ticket coach and look at how that would alter the course of my coaching business. I had to find alignment in my values, and feel massive discomfort in letting pieces of me go. I mourned the loss of different parts of me that no longer served the path I was on. And I forgave. I found grace and balance in my ego, who I know now is a friend and there to help guide vision planning while listening to my intuition’s gentle and powerful nudges. When I follow intuition [see choosing grace this year] then I am never disappointed.
The lesson: Balance and grace are friends. Find balance in your desire and your inner guide and you will create wild success.
Grace in the present
This is the year I came to terms with the unknown. 2017 was all about surrendering to what will be and 2018 brought a trust in it will be what is meant to be. 2018 was the year I found that the true journey exists in the present moment you are undergoing. We have to stop rushing to the next great thing or we leave no room for magic in front of us. The present moments need you to have grace, whether it is grace in what you are processing to move forward or a simple eloquence of enjoying exactly where you are. This was the greatest final lesson my brother could have given me. All we have is the single moment we are experiencing. The beat of an inhale and exhale can hold so much power, but if you are rushing by you just might miss it. I remember so vividly the last giant hand squeeze my brother gave me before life started to fade away. I was so completely present with that moment, not with what would be next or how we would all move on. But there with him experiencing every ounce of living love I could receive. Give yourself grace to simply be all here.
The lesson: Grace is so things can unfold with ease, but grace only exists here and now. Give yourself this gift.
Grace brought me to so much this year, and still more to process.
From the lessons of grace, I found:
+ Acceptance – of what is and what will be
+ True Freedom – does not exist in the external world, the external world is just an amplifier
+ Forgiveness – is the most powerful freedom you can give to yourself
+ Processing – opens up so much opportunity for success.
+ Wholeness – who I am, who I was, and who I will be is all complete. I need no more and no less to be who I envision, or to create what I am here to create.
I urge you to see where you can apply more grace in your life, so you can open up for some of these gifts to come in.
This year was a beautifully turbulent ride in my journey as a human.
It was full of pieces I didn’t want to navigate.
But with grace I moved in complete flow.
I truly believe that none of this year happened to me, and it all happened for me to experience a wild ride of expansion, growth, and grace.
I feel myself on the edge of magic right now, and I am so excited for what the unknown has in store for me this new chapter.
Tell me, what gifts did your year bring to you?