When I checked to see the last time I had written a blog post I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t written one since April. Wow! I’ve missed it here. This is the place where I get all of my thoughts out and allow myself to truly be vulnerable with my words, much like I do with my vlogs on my YouTube channel in visual form. I thought about what kept me from coming back to this place, my touchstone if you will, for so long. It wasn’t as if I didn’t need the outlet or that I didn’t have anything to say because believe me I had plenty of thoughts jumbled up in my head over these last several months. I guess that’s just it. It was all too jumbled and too messy.
Perhaps I believed that my thoughts were just too messy to share. Which is silly because that’s the whole point of this blog. Well it’s a New Year and I have new goals and plans to see come to fruition and I think it holds me back to not get my thoughts out and to set them free into the world so that maybe they can help someone else with messy, jumbled, rambling thoughts to know that it’s okay to be vulnerable and express themselves. Last year was not a good year for the most part, political climate and terminal state of the world aside.
In regard to my writing, I didn’t write nearly as much as I had hoped to (click here to see my wrap up video to find out the exact word count) and although I had plans to publish a book last year, it just wasn’t ready to publish yet and I can’t put something out there that I feel isn’t ready. In terms of my YouTube channel, it hasn’t grown like I wanted but it hasn’t dropped a lot of subscribers either so perhaps that is a win, but we always want to see growth, even in small numbers. There are other things that I had planned to launch and kick off but I just kept telling myself they wouldn’t work. Essentially, I rejected the thing before anyone else could reject the thing. And that is what I would drastically like to change this year.
I am in an environment, personally, where I am made to feel small and unworthy on a daily basis and where I feel like I am being emotionally tortured all over again (reliving childhood traumas) and it has affected me even more than I realized until just last week when I was filming my reflections video (click here to watch) when I realized just how much I was standing in my own way. Now I’m not saying that my feelings aren’t valid and that I should just get over them (as some people who lack empathy probably would say) because as much as we would like it to, trauma doesn’t just go away simply because we want it to. If that were true, there would be a lot less emotionally scarred people in this world.
There are people who will tell you that you can’t live in the past and there’s no sense in even thinking about past traumas and hurts and mistakes. I happen to think that way of thinking is just completely ridiculous and dismissive of how a person feels. What I will say is that while you can’t live in the past, you have to acknowledge those past hurts and mistakes in order to learn and grow from them.
That’s why my word of the year is ‘Growth’. I chose this word not just because of the obstacles that I have grown through, but because of the growth that I hope to do on the next part of this journey as I make it to the other side of this particular obstacle I’m dealing with. If there is anything most people can figure out about me within about five minutes of knowing me, it’s that I don’t like change. I am a very routine and regimented person who likes to know how things are going to go throughout the day, how things are going to work out in the end and whether I’m going to be okay or not. I work very hard at establishing discipline and structure that will allow me to go after the things that I’m so very passionate about. I can’t function without that structure and that routine.
That said I acknowledge that every change is not a bad one and that I do eventually come around to the fact of making the changes needed when I absolutely have to. I just tend to come around later than I probably should. So, this year I want to grow outside of what feels comfortable for me. I want to take risks on opportunities that come my way without second, third (and sometimes fourth) guessing it because it doesn’t fit into my routine and my structure. I want to bet more on myself and not against myself. Do less assuming that the answer will be no because what if the answer could have been yes.
I am so excited to be back posting here again. Just writing this post has already helped me clear out some residual negative thoughts that I had still been keeping at bay about the year we’ve just entered and I needed to get them out so that I can stay on track. I’m not throwing out my routine or anything. Simply allowing for new things to be added in that will benefit me in the long run and thus those around me as well. I want so badly to be a person who inspires and motivates others, and I think the only way I can continue to do that is to be more open to taking risks and challenging myself.
May this New Year bring us all joy and happiness as well as perspective and the vision to see the opportunities for growth whenever they present themselves. Here’s to planting new seeds, continuing to nurture the seeds we’ve already planted, and giving them the room they need to grow. Until next time… #BeMindful #BeBold #BeFearless
Write 2 Be 