The year 2023 was a huge one for me that was full of transformation, and so much death and rebirth over and over again.
But, that’s the way of the multiverse and that’s the beauty of duality. You must have the wanted with unwanted, the dark with light, the sun with the rain, the death with the rebirth.
I spent the last year building a life truly worth living for and to do that I had to experience it all, and turn knowledge into wisdom and action.
2023 was a massive year for me full of transformation, and so much death and rebirth. I had some of my highest of highs and some of my lowest of lowest of lows this past year.
I find it so important to honor and acknowledge both aspects of life so here are some of the accomplishments from this year;
Graduated DBT
Cut ties with all toxic family
Became a professor teaching magic and paganism
Was a crucial part to getting abortion codified
Served my community in many ways
Heard olyver say I love you
celebrated 13 years with Vincent
Wrote over 3000 pages for my books and students
Made great new friends
Started a business
Founded a pagan temple
And here are some of the many challenges this year
Going thru pe trauma therapy
Being diagnosed with OCD and DID which brought me to 6 disorders being diagnosed with
This was the toughest year our marriage has ever been thru.
Finding the right communication method for olyver
Olyvers official diagnosis
Gaslighting from family Members and my mother
Working thru body image issues and an eating disorder
Financial instability
Dealing with imposter syndrome about teaching
Deep feelings of isolation and loneliness
Your life and you really can look completely different in one years time.
I am so grateful to the many lessons in duality this year taught me and I can’t wait to see what 2024 has in store. The year of the 3 pillars for me! The year I fully step into my identity as a goddess!
Here are the top 23 lesson I look away from 2023 ( in no particular order)
1.Life is much easier when you assume everyone is both doing the best they can be and they need to be doing better.
This one is still hard for me at times. But, when you start to look at the people around you as doing the best they can, with the knowledge they have, their circumstances, the resources they have access to, and what traumas and triumphs they carry with them. While also recognizing when they hurt you, make a mistake, or cause unwanted feelings they can still grow, change, and do better next time. You connect to others humanity more, you have more empathy for them, and more grace for them. While at the same time holding and keeping respect for yourself in a healthy and symbiotic way.
2. DBT saved my life and everyone should be taught it.
DBT- Dialectical behavior therapy in case you didn’t know what that meant. I had never heard of it until this program was suggested to by my cbt therapist after 5 years of being with her. This therapy quite literally saved my life in every sense of the word. It taught me to think dialectically, skills to actually know what the hell my emotions were, and how to use them in a healthy way. It taught me what wise mind and walking the middle path meant and how to do that.( aka mindfulness) It brought understanding of myself in so many ways. It literally taught me how to REWIRE my brain, my patterns, my behaviors, and my emotions. It taught me how to be present in my life. Most importantly it stopped 30 years of suicidal ideation and taught me how to create a life worth living for and how to maintain it! If it does all this why shouldn’t we be teaching it to everyone.
3.You won’t heal until you decide you no longer can keep living the way you have been.
There are many stages to readiness I think everyone goes through when it comes to change, healing, growth, trauma, mental instability, and even addiction and to be honest I learned this from dr. phil. He isn’t wrong either. I am living proof of it. ( I’ll do a separate blog post to break down how this actually happened later) I Had for a long time now known intellectually I needed help, and I knew it needed to happen. I read the self help books, made the Pinterest boards, got the supplies, would schedule appts to meet a therapist or to go back, would get back on meds. I would take the steps, gather the knowledge, and the resources but, never follow through with it or act on it. I would get spurts of being emotionally ready for the sake of others and because others told me they needed me to as well. But, until I hit this soul wrenching moment where I was jobless, living in one room with my husband, 3cats, and my newborn son, I had not eaten in 2 days, and I was sitting on the floor with a note in my hand and a plan, and I heard my son make a noise in his sleep while napping and I felt it from the depths of my soul and that I simply could not live like this anymore no matter what. I couldn’t keep feeling that way, and barely existing. Until then, and that moment happened, did I finally have the determination, strength and reason to heal and recover.
4.Family truly is what you create it to be. Blood will not always be there for you or support you.
Family support is not something I am familiar with. Even launching this blog and site, becoming a professor, and all my political work I don’t receive support or even congratulations from my family. It just isn’t something that happens and I’ve come to be okay with it and no longer support those who don’t support me in return and I have done that by creating my family. Truly grasping and understanding that at its core family means those cheering you, supporting you, holding you up, making you feel heard, loved and proud of you. You can get all this and build this with anyone they don’t need to be blood.
5.Boundaries will cause you to lose people.
Plain and simple some people can not handle boundaries and you will lose some if not many when you put them in place AND enforce them. They see them as control or rules and they fight it. Some people can’t handle change and aren’t able to grow and evolve with who you are and can’t give you things they simply do not have like respect for your growth thru boundaries.
6. Letting go doesn’t mean you bury the past. It means you radically accept it and understand that it simply was.
I have heard on a loop in my life from family to just let the past go. First it’s toxic to say to every situation to just let it go. Just letting it goes comes with the huge implication that you don’t need to work thru the emotions and/or events that need to be let go. Not working through things like can cause lasting long term affects. It also implies no accountability for someone to need to take or changed behavior by them which continues an unhealthy relationship and/or abuse. Lastly, it takes away from the impact an emotion/person/ or event had on that person and in some cases you are continuing the abuse in a form of gaslighting.
7.To truly transform your life and you, you must burn it down to the ground in order to grow back in the most fertile soil beneath the ashes.
There honestly is a shit ton to unpack with this one and it is one of the biggest lessons I have learned and that I do my best to remind others of when they are struggling or on a healing journey. If they are really truly wanting radical life altering change they will have to burn their whole way of life to the ground, their thought patterns, fear and more to achieve it. We see this in nature time and time again. after a forest fire or a volcanoes eruption happens in that area what happens next? The land is cleansed, it heals, and it comes back more fertile than ever to sustain a whole new ecosystem.
I can speak to this on so many levels in my own personal life and journey. Every single time I have evolved and moved through to my next step in my healing journey my life, me, and my thought patterns have been burnt to the ground. Hell my home has even burnt down twice in my life and each time I was able to rise from the ashes in growth. It is even something they make sure to teach and have you understand in the ORIENTATION for DBT therapy/ treatment. That majority of your time in the program you will be sitting in stage 1 where your world, relationships, and you are burning down, on fire and the flames are almost to much to bear but, you claim through that to a whole new way of being and seeing the world.
“The ashes of your existence will fertilize the soil for the universe to follow.” -Richard Kadrey
8.Every day is about progress not perfection.
This right here is a key factor to me meeting so many of my goals from last year, being able to keep my commitment to DBT and graduate the program, and to so much of my growth and change. I am a chronic people pleaser, a perfectionist, and someone who is very comfortable in routine and control. I live my day to day life with OCD as well which has my brain on high alert, and I have done so much work to get it to a manageable place and the threat level I feel from disorder isn’t so catastrophic anymore. *( Do I still obsessively clean more than others, have rituals and routines I must do and fight to maintain order more than I go with the flow? Yes of course. But, I no longer think quite literally if I a blanket isn’t perfectly straight on my couch I am in severe impending danger if I do not fix it immediately. Will I still fix it? of course but, it isn’t detrimental if I don’t anymore).
Hanging on to this mantra, repeating it to myself daily, writing it over and over in my BUJO, putting it on sticky notes up in my house, and on my goal board helped ground me and give me an IMENSE amount of grace I needed to be giving myself. It allowed me to navigate my emotions without letting them get overwhelming and cause a shame spiral and it brought me back to my own humanity. By reminding myself I am just as flawed as any other human being on this planet that I give grace to each and every day. And I deserve to be given it as well.
It also helped me be realistic with my goal setting, my expectations, and with my true reality and circumstances I was in.
9.Relationships that are one-sided are draining and not worth the energy.
This is pretty self explanatory but, I want to make a distinction with this. I am a very kind soul, I pride myself in that. I am very empathetic and I do many things in my life and with my time to help those from many different communities. I do this because it simply is who I am, I can not do it, and I deeply want to help others. I never help others with any expectation of things in return and I will never be that way. This is not a tit for tat kind of lesson or thing here. This is about simply getting the basics from others in energy exchange within relationship structures. It’s about not always having to be the one making plans to see them, not being the first one to reach out, having them be interested in your life, give you basic support, and simply put treating you with basic human decency. When even those things can not be met, a relationship is so draining it toxic for you and should be removed.
10. Mental health goes hand and hand with your magic and spiritual practices.
These two are so intricately linked you simply can’t work on one without the other. Or have one affect the other. Are there things magic can be the only answer too? yes. And are there things mental health can be the only answer too? yes. But, overall if you are disconnected or unstable in one the other will only be able to flourish as much as the other. I am going to be writing so much on this and break it down for you all on this journey with me.
11. If the soil you are growing in isn’t fertile and healthy you won’t grow.
You can do all the self development in the world. You can do all the therapy programs in the world. You can do all the shadow work in the world. But, if you are living in an unhealthy, unstable, toxic and maybe even abusive environment. Or your environment is populated by one or more unhealthy, unstable, toxic, or maybe even abusive individuals. You will never FULLY heal, evolve, awaken or fulfill your sacred contracts this lifetime around now. You can heal, and use skills to help you through being in those environments and/or individuals because, we may not be able to get out of or away from them. But, until you are able to get out of them or away from them you will can’t FULLY bloom. Just like plants, flowers, and trees around the planet you can’t grow and flourish in poisons and infertile soil.
12. Self care! Self care! Self care! There’s a reason everyone talks about it!
Like it says self care there is a reason everyone and anyone talks about it. There is a reason every therapists and therapy program I have seen and/or been apart of has tried to get my brain to understand this simple yet inhuman concept in our society. It makes such a difference when you recharge your battery and make sure you have enough energy in all ways from emotionally, physically, mentally, to pull from and use. But, just remember it is going to look different for each and every one of us, and it will look different for you at different times. Some days your self care needs will be small and some days they will be great just listen to your energy and do what you need to do.
13. You become a better parent when you are mindful and fully present in each interaction with them.
Understanding what it means to be fully mindfully present in each moment and what you are doing makes a world of a difference in your interactions with your children and their attachment to you. You can do all the “right” things and check them off each and every day in your to do list and schedule but, they won’t have the full impact unless you are fully mindfully there for them to absorb, learn, and attach to you.
14.The universe will keep giving you the same lessons to learn until you respond differently.
If you feel stuck or like your life follows a cycle or pattern and you keep ending up in the same place in life or going through the same hardships over and over again. There is a reason for that. Take stock. Do some shadow work. Notice the pattern and where it isn’t changing and make a plan to change it! Do the work to change it! The lesson will keep coming back and hitting you in the face with that lesson until you finally learn it. That’s the beauty and the way of sacred contracts.
15.Marriage is not 50/50 or equal the goal is for it to be fair
This was really humbling for me to learn this year. And I know so many are going to buttheads with this lesson just by reading that sentence ( which is why I am doing a whole seperate post on this alone). But, let me give you small rundown on why. This lesson was taught to me by my dbt therapist and at first I fought her immediately and did not agree until I let her expand and explain. 50/50 means at all times not matter what the circumstances are things should be split down the middle in responsibility between you and you partner right? That’s how most would view that philosophy, myself included. There are a handful of reasons why there is something wrong with that but, the main few are; if you really think about it if you have a loving, stable, 50/50 equal partnership is it really? every single day? Is every task and responsibility whether its something you are capable of doing shared down the middle with your spouse? For example I know very little about the internet and technology, how it runs and how to problem shoot and fix issues. My brain literally can’t wrap my mind around some of it. Do I help my husband with half the workload of those things? Nope I don’t. And I am so grateful he does that for me since my brain literally can not understand it and than I am his living breathing spell check since its something his brain has a very hard time with.
The other major issue with being 50/50 is what happens when your partner simply can’t carry their half of that weight or even a quarter of that weight? Whether it be due to medical issues, illness, or mental health illnesses. What happens than? When all your partner can do is focus on not ending their own life? When they are in the midst of treatment and therapy? When they are so depressed every ounce of energy and will power they have goes to waking up each and every day so they can’t help with the finances? What happens when all your partner can give you is 5% of their 50%? A lot would say leave , its toxic, you wont ever be happy etc. What should happen is the other partner adjusts, and understands that being fair NOT equal matters so much more when your partner just doesn’t have their equal share to give to your or your relationship. You fill the space and the gaps your partner needs help with, you lift them up, you support them and you carry as much of their weight as they need until they are able to take some or more of it back and you adjust the load distribution again. If my husband wouldn’t have been able to adjust and take a massive portion of my load for over 3 years I would not still be alive today writing this post for you all to read. The gratitude, love, and understanding that he gave me was what a soul partnership truly means and now that I get to carry his share of his load for as long as he needs I am really being shown humility, grace, and a true understanding of this lesson and what a marriage should look and feel like.
16.Being authentically you. Draws other to you wanting to do the same.
17.One person can truly make a huge impact to those around them! And others may never know about it.
18.When you step into your sacred purpose and reveal your sacred contracts to yourself paths open up to you.
I talk about sacred purpose and sacred contracts all the time. If you are reading this and one of my students already I doubt I go one class without bringing it up or talking about it. They are just so crucial to who you are, why you reincarnated this lifetime, who you are meant to interact with, your awakening, and of course true pure happiness this lifetime. And let’s not forget how each of our contracts are meant to benefit the collective as whole. When you do the work, open your energy channels, your heart, your eyes, and your ears to what it or they are and you embrace them with a willingness to move through them and fulfill them paths will simply unfold before you to take or not take. Paths you had never looked to see will suddenly be illuminated for you to no longer ignore. And it’s okay to embrace them and still have some doubt, or fear, or anxiety about them a does of those are healthy to have and they serve a purpose just don’t allow them to reach an unjustifiable level and hinder you.
19.There’s no such thing as a “bad” emotion. Every emotion serves a function.
If you hear this and your whole being rejects it, trust me I get it and you are not alone. Learning this lesson took serious brain rewiring to be able to integrate into my life and I at times still have slips ups of judgmental thoughts towards my emotions. But, this is 1000000000% true. Every single emotion is serving a function and communicating something to you and it is valid. It is your job to determine what the function is, what it is communicating to you, and if it is at a justifiable level of intensity. That is what emotional regulation is. This idea of bad emotions or negative emotions that we should never feel or just do our best to work through as quickly as possible is something we as humans in society did to emotions. Why? I will never know. But, we have to work hard to step away from this and truly understand to be human is to feel and experience the full spectrum of emotions.
20. Learning your worth is liberating.
This one is still a work in progress but, how much freedom it has given me from shame, guilt, and self doubt already is immense!
21.Every birth especially a rebirth requires a death to happen first
Everything in the multiverse is about balance, duality, and this cosmic dance of give and take. It’s the one universal truth I will stand my ground on that is true and it simply can not be fought. It is how the multiverse and everything that is comprised of its energies is able to exist. It is both creating and destroying at all times to keep all this energy moving to exist. and when you create, it is the act of birthing which means something must die first to make space and recycle energy and matter. This is something I will be going really deep on soon!
22.You Can have all the knowledge in the world but, it won’t matter unless you use it to act.
23.It’s possible to create a life worth living for!!
The fact that I even typed this out is such a huge deal! I never in my life thought this would be something I could have. I never even entertained the idea so much so I couldn’t even envision my life, what I wanted, what I could look it, what it could like, none of it. Until this past year, I had ping ponged all over the place with dreams, goals, and who I was going to be because I simply couldn’t see a time or a day where I didn’t want to die and I really truly wanted to be alive and thriving instead of simply existing. how could I have when I had spent my whole life I have access to the memories of wanting to die, trying to die, and wising I simply wouldn’t wake up the next morning? But, guess what?! You can do it! I know that now!
