2022: Aligned and Loud(er)

Those were the words I chose to be my guiding light for 2022. It was odd because I felt aligned and loud before 2022..but something was…off.

I love reading everyone’s posts about 2022. I wish I could be short winded about this year…but alas, my word for the year was louder…so here I go being long winded. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

I loved this year. The growth hurt..a lot sometimes but the magnificent beauty of this year will live with me for forever. I’m going to share some of the moments with you now.

This year, I stayed up way later than I should have laughing with old friends. I hugged and kissed the cheeks of those I haven’t seen in many years. I reconnected, rehashed, recounted and for all of it I’m better.

This year more than any other year I got the chance to reconnect with people from my past. Big ones like going to see my dad for the first time in 12 years, leave a moment on my heart that still make me weepy.

I got more DMs of connection from people from high school and college, where at one point the connection had been severed. We got to talk about our kids, our lives and lessons we’ve learned as adults.

We’ve had raw conversations about politics, race, and what hell is wrong with 3 year olds.

With some conversations, we healed a part of the past in which didn’t treat each other that well. All conversations were healing, growth inspired and left me in a place of awe. They started out simple and became complex in meaning. In 2022, Reconnection changed me and made me feel alive again.

I said no more while saying yes more to things that set my soul on fire.

Y’all I’m not going to lie to you. This year I learned I do not like confrontation. Well of course I don’t- its a trauma response but hear me out.

In the past I’ve said yes when I didn’t want to in order to support the people around me better. It left me exhausted and mean and uninspired. This year I said fuck it and made myself uncomfortable: I said no a lot. I gave up leadership positions that I had held for years to give myself space. I said no to things on my schedule (for the most part) that didn’t support me.

I said YES to a whole lot of joy. I jumped on the planes. I took the phone calls (who calls? Me. I call. So answer because it’s fun!). I didn’t roll my eyes at a name coming up on my screen in my messages. I said yes to new adventures and going places I’ve never seen before. I said yes to coffee dates and conversations full of hard truths.

I said yes to me first and everyone second…that includes my spouse and children. If I said yes this year, I meant it, whole heartedly and without resentment. And that made the yes’s that much more powerful. In 2022, I said yes to the things in life that brought me joy, and it led to my most successful year I have ever had.

I laughed more than I cried, but my cries more often than not were tears of happiness…mixed with exhaustion.

This is the first year ever that I laughed more than I cried. There are months, yes thats right, plural, that I didn’t cry AT ALL.

I am a huge expresser of emotion. I love them. I love talking about them, I love showing them, I love it all. But for a good chunk of my life I would cry more than anything because I was hiding the tears behind closed doors. No one knew. And when no one knows, no one can help.

This year, I allowed a small amount of safe people behind closed doors. I worked on me more than I worked on any one else- which when your profession is helping others, its a large order to follow. I would find gold then dig deeper and find some more. And in all of the growth and all of the work I found this:

Falling in love with me again is the most fundamentally prosperous thing I have ever done.

In 2022 I fell in love. And it was the year everything changed for me.

In 2022, I traveled 10 out of the 12 months.

Typing it out still makes my enneagram 7 heart pitter patter. I got to experience so much life, in so many places old and new. I reconnected with old friends, got to squeeze family and got the opportunity to meet new souls for me to love.

People would tell me “oh you’re just lucky to be able to do that.” Nope. I’m not lucky. I made it a priority because theres growth on the other side of going to places you’ve never been. It wasn’t always easy and plans would get interesting. But we worked hard to do it. I’m not telling you have to travel every month, but I challenge you to go somewhere in 2023. I went somewhere new all of 2022, and it made all the difference.

In 2022,

I found the true meaning of a friend, felt unconditional love again and understood the clarity that comes from having a conversation with your parent…as an adult.

I was waltzed around dance floors and got to experience the high again of being in the room with a huge chunk of my favorite people all at the same time (One of the times I sobbed uncontrollably behind closed doors this year: I was so overwhelmed with happiness to be with the team I grew up with, that I went into the bar bathroom and cried ha!).

I felt nostalgia, frustration, exhilaration, THE rush, exhuberance, love, hate, encouragement, defeat, exhaustion and extreme joy.

I said more words and found new venues for my words to be heard (y’all I wrote a fucking book. Did you think I could do that?! I DIDNT…releasing 2023!).

I laughed loud.

I loved loud.

I cared loud.

I cried loud.

I was me. And I am loud.

It’s the end of 2022 and I’m zero percent scared to be me- I am truly aligned. I know why I was brought here, what I was set out to do…and that is to help others find their own true and exact self. The self they were created to be. To experience the freedom and joy of Yes and No. And to experience what it’s like to face challenges in neutrality instead of spirally into a realm of gloom and doom.

If I could sum up this year perfectly: I became Aligned with myself and Loud(er) about it.

Thanks for coming along for the ride, the crazy shenanigans I put y’all through and music that came with it.

Dear 2023,

I’m excited for what you have to say as we open the door for you. I’m glad that you have shown up exactly as we need you. Loud, aligned and here to give us this next level of life.

Hello new friend, here’s a champagne! Let’s hang out.

Love you, mean it.

And if you haven‘t, there is still time to get your tickets for both EVOLVEs in January 2023! We’re going to go hard on goals, habits, money mindset and what you need to do for a prosperous 2023! www.evolutioncollective.co/evolvemn