January is over. By now, most of us have learned to write “2024” consistently without having to go back and scratch through the “2023” we clumsily wrote by mistake. I’m not even continually hearing reflections on 2023, what a good year it was, how rough it was. We can mark it as a year in history now. It’s over.

I clicked to fire up WordPress this morning, and it had been so long since I had written anything that the app required an update. After it opened up anew, I scrolled through my 2023 posts. I recalled so many situations, rewards, hardships, successes, quandries…all the things that crossed my path in a year’s time. Well, nearly a year. My last post was in September. I remember why.

2023 was a tremendous year of personal growth. I loved it. I “graduated” from nearly 2 years of therapy, and I set about on a spirital journey. I even hired a coach. I studied myself. Internally. Carefully. I studied myself as a mom, a wife. I evaluated myself as a business owner and teacher. I studied my Bible and leaned into my personal relationship with God. I poured over books about eastern religions, meditation practices, and healing. By September, I had learned so many things, I was focused on applying them, and I realized how important it had become to completely do away with something I had clung to a long time…my ego.

My ego had lead the way a long time. It’s human nature, really. We don’t realize how much our egos are in charge, and we aren’t deliberate about allowing it to be…they just push their way to the forefront. We are constantly in our own heads, wondering who might be looking at us, who might be judging us. We quibble over that little thing someone said, how we got our feelings hurt. We struggle to be successful, earn that pat on the head, impress someone…and even expect people to perform and impress us.

I had a lot of thoughts and beliefs deeply ingrained in me, too, that were dictating my every move. I had to unlearn. I had to ask myself really hard questions. I had to resurrect a lot of buried emotions, and I had to take (and let go of!) some responsibility. Our past traumas, grief, and experiences plague us more than we realize. Our first family, our historical relationships, our former teachers, childhood friends…all play a role in how we developed and now how we put our belief systems into practice.

I understand it now, and I’m over it. Self awareness, examination, and HEALING are wonderful things!

I want to tell you all the things I learned. I want to share with you the minutiae of everything that has seemingly set my soul free. I want to tell you about how, last year in early January, in my journals I cried out for peace and how this January I have it. I want to throw out like glittery confetti all the gems I’ve uncovered and hoarded away in my heart that have changed my outlook on myself and my life. 

I stopped writing so I could focus. I’m not even sorry. I left 2023 intellectually smarter and emotionally wiser. 2024 promises to be a year of supreme self evolution. I’m set to put into practice everything I have learned and stay true to the SELF I have discovered (who I REALLY like!). I will let go. I will invent. I will nurture. I will create. I will serve.

My evolution is happening now, in God’s heavenly timing, and I’m excited.

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