thirty-five, and now I'm all wise n shit
✿ lessons, anecdotes, advice
When I tell you that I’ve been on a failing (learning) streak for the past thirty-five years and acquired not one, but like twelve PhD’s in What Not To Do, you best believeeeeeeee. Consider this listicle a fun little bookmark to honor my 35th year alive. Maybe I’ll make this essay a yearly tradish?
(I am checking back in a year later and I did not in fact make this a yearly tradish)
Remember: don’t shoot the messenger. And even more than that: don’t shoot the birthday girl because that’s just rude. ¯\_(ツ)_/
At times, the most difficult place to be is right where you truly are. Difficult, because being where you truly are involves facing the totality of your reality, and the totality of your reality is often filled with tough ass truths and big feelings and paradox and everything delusion you’ve been maintaining. Trust me: the delulu sucks your life force and that’s why you’re miserable.
Allow yourself to be hurt by the magnitude of painful moments you’ve experienced. Let every hurt hurt. Let it hurt all the way to the bone. And then when the hurt becomes root-like and starts to choke you, slowly unfurl yourself, otherwise it will consume you and you’ll morph into a victimized void and everything and everyone will be seen as your perpetrator. The hurting and unfurling is non-linear.
Nothing is personal.
Everything is personal.
An opinion is one small particle of the multitude of who a person is. Don’t dismiss a whole person based on one thing they believe. Maybe they know something you don’t. Maybe they’ve been where you haven’t. Maybe unfolding curiosity instead of instant condemnation?
The most impactful healing modality of all time is a big ol’ cry.
There are different tiers of friendship and connection, and each of the tiers invites a different standard of care. Are there people who have greater access to you than should? Do they pour into you as you pour into them? Do you really actually know them or does social media convince you that you do? What are your standards for close friendship? Are some friendships long past their expiration date
Learning to hold the tension of desiring something and then not getting it is one of the most important skills to nurture. Going without—for the sake of something greater—sharply counteracts the effects of our instantaneous, convenience-loving, teenage-mindset run culture.
You don’t have to have an opinion—not on news stories, not on viral media, not on popular culture. You don’t have to keep up with the Kardashians. You are allowed to mute it all. Our systems weren’t designed to process as much information as we are.
Aliveness is an ebb and flow between movement and stillness. If you’re stuck in chronic stillness, thank your body for keeping you alive and when it’s time, grow your capacity for movement. If you’re stuck in chronic movement, thank your body for keeping you alive and when it’s time, grow your capacity for stillness. Your body will know what you need and when. It has probably already been shouting. Grow your capacity to listen. Grow your ability to access both movement and stillness.
If a bunch of people mention something to you about yourself, there’s a high likelihood they’re seeing something you aren’t. They may not be projecting after all.
You don’t have to like everything about yourself. You can have dignity for yourself regardless
Dethroning the influence your parents have on you psychologically is one of the first major shatterings that needs to happen if you are to truly grow up.
If your friend tears down her other friends in front of you—I’m talking character assassinations (vs expressing a benevolent gripe) and nasty judgements (vs expressing loving concern), and then she also tells you things her friends asked her not to share… she’s doing the same thing to you behind your back. There’s a difference between comparing notes and gossip. There’s airing out a complaint in order to process it, and then there’s talking trash.
If you need to inflate yourself—as in make yourself ‘more than human’ in order to feel good about yourself, perhaps wonder why not being seen is intolerable. If you need to shrink yourself—as in make yourself ‘less than human’ in order to feel good about yourself, perhaps wonder why being seen is intolerable. Wonder gently
What people call depression, I call your body’s way of making you pay attention to something you’ve been neglecting (pssst it’s often your own pain)
In a western world drunk off optimization, improvement, and betterment, strive for sober acceptance and learning to cherish and work with what is.
If it looks like a cult and quacks like a cult, it’s a duck. I mean cult.
Even if we are forced to adapt in order to survive, we are still always seeking aliveness—even if our quest looks like addiction, thrill-seeking, or anorexia. Aliveness is what we naturally move towards, always, even if it seems paradoxical.
You don’t have to be healed to be in a relationship. You don’t have to love yourself first before anyone can love you. You do have to be accountable for how those wounded parts play in togetherness with another.
There is always a third option, a middle way, a way for both to ‘win’.
Some wounds never heal. See number seventeen.
Some nervous system wiring and patterns are for life.
Most healing advice doesn’t really speak for people who grew up with severe interpersonal injury.
We humans are suuuuper skilled at deluding ourselves. Like super skilled. The delusions keep us safe, yes, but they also keep us in delusion. We know what we know. We don’t know what we don’t know.
The term ‘mental health’ is not even close to accurate. Mental health is emotional health is physical health is spiritual health is energetic health is societal health is cultural health is ancestral health is familial health is ecosystem health is is is…
Healing relationship injury happens in relationship. If you’re on a self-healing solo journey and you find yourself believing you’ve arrived at Destination Healed, you’re in for a big shock the moment you enter a relationship, friendship, or interact with any other group of people or person. This is why some stay in Perpetual Processing Land
We are influenced invisibly by both extractive and supportive energy fields all day, every day. If we could see them, I’m sure more people would care about how they impact us
Us women unknowingly create and perpetuate many of the relationship struggles we blame men for. Therefore us women also have the power to shift many of the relationship struggles we blame men for.
We become fragile when we are too safe for too long. We become hardened when we are too unsafe for too long.
Imagine a braid—three sections of hair interwoven. One of those sections is bullshit but it gets braided right in with the other two truthful sections, forming the whole. This is why people struggle to see the falsehoods baked into our societies, our governments, our systems, our groups. All or nothing thinking has us stuck. Reality is much more grey in tone.
People who are perpetually happy are not people I’d trust. People who allow for the full spectrum of emotion are.
Few people are true ‘pathological’ narcissists. Most people have what I call Adolescent Narcissism which is a survival response to being filled to the brim with shame. It’s like a bubble that prevents us from looking too closely at our impact on others lest we contact that churning reservoir of shame. Most of us can have our bubbles popped. Ask me how I know. 😉
Just because you feel disrespected, doesn’t mean you are being disrespected. Just because you feel abandoned, doesn’t mean you are being abandoned. Just because you feel like someone is being deceptive, doesn’t mean they are being deceptive. There’s a difference in feeling like something is happening and it actually happening (and of course sometimes our feelings are what’s actually happening!) Feelings are subjective ‘tones’ we organize and catalog based on our life experiences. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re facts—merely that a ‘tone’ was recognized.
There’s pushing forward with something despite obstacle after obstacle, and then there’s obstacles intended to redirect us elsewhere. Learning the difference is subtle yet life changing
Oh and a bonus one cos I’m on a roll:
Find something to be accountable for in every single situation. Find one thing, even if it’s tiny or seemingly uninvolved. This will remind you of your agency. This will remind you that you’re never 100% helpless. This one small thing could be the difference between sinking permanently and rising eventually
↓ More Goodies:
Everything you read here is written and edited by these nimble human fingers (and sometimes thumbs.) I do not and will not use AI to write or edit my words. I believe in the grunt work of artistry. To me, this is a holy practice.
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It helps us silly creatures find each other ♡
Happy birthday 🎂
No 27 I was nodding my head saying 'yup, aha, sure is'.
35 had The Gambler by Kenny Rogers playing in my head. I often relate life learnings to songs, each time I hear it triggers a remembrance which is always timely for the moment.
The part about narcissism...agree! Protective or regressive in my experience. I'm the latter, and I know it.
The one about feeling disrespected...ughhh. Tend to the feeling, check for intent and actual facts before making yourself a perpetual victim. Oof.
Im surprised you're "only" 35. 💖🥂