Apparently I forgot to do 2022 lessons I just realized. Between getting married, getting laid off, getting a new job, COVID, moving, and helping Tyler with school, I must’ve just forgotten? Which so isn’t like me, but I can’t find any record of me doing this in 2022, so I’m doing it now! I don’t remember exactly how I was feeling at the end of 2022, but I do know my wedding was the single best day of my whole entire life. Marrying Tyler was such a blessing and being his wife feels like a new high every single day.
Here are the lessons I learned in 2022!
Religion
Weak faith does not disqualify you from using God (The Well, 2.13.2022)
If being commissioned by an earthly king would be a tremendous honor, how could being commissioned by the eternal king not be an honor?
The Well, 1.16.2022
The grace that does not change my life will not save my soul (The Well 5.8.22)
Satan is so crafty…he’s going to make sure there is a time in your life where weakness meets opportunity (Jerry Flowers Jr., “I Did it Again” 6.6.2022)
As you try to push back darkness, darkness will push back (Satan is always present in all blessings) (Torrey, The Well – Genesis 26: 12-25, 9.11.22)
Trying to obey and serve food before we come to love him can be exhausting -Beth Moore (The Well, 8.28.22)
Love/Relationships
Temptation is only hard when you don’t have a greater than (Jerry Flowers Jr., “I Did it Again” 6.6.2022)
If you do not give up on your marriage, you will reap good (Torrey, The Well, 9.11.22)
Do not be deceived: bad company ruins good morals (1 Corinthians 15:33, 7.24.22)
Work
Don’t tell someone what salary you expect. Whoever talks first loses.
Healing
We will always gravitate to familiar chaos at the expense of foreign peace… when you grow up in combat, peace is a trigger. (Jerry Flowers Jr., Mr. And Mrs. Dysfunctional, 11.20.22)
Sometimes if you really do need to have a good cry, just go in the bathroom and cry. It’s just your nervous system resetting itself…it’s your body’s way of trying to hit baseline again (Suzanne Wallach, Call Her Daddy).
Tony Robbins says we change things for two reasons. 1. It hurts so much we have to or 2. We learn so much we have to
Mark Groves, Girl’s Gotta Eat, Why are We Bad at Dating, 7.17.22
All our addictions are really just distractions from pains that we don’t want to process…the wrong question is why the addiction, the right question is why the pain? (Mark Groves, Girl’s Gotta Eat, Why are We Bad at Dating, 7.17.22)
My choices were not aligning with what my spoken intention was. And whenever your choices don’t align or your life outcomes don’t align with what you want, you know that there are unconscious beliefs and wounds within it. (Mark Groves, Girl’s Gotta Eat, Why are We Bad at Dating, 7.17.22)
If you’re obsessing about something, if it’s an ex, something that’s bothering you, it’s just your mind trying to make sense of trauma. You’re not in love with them, your mind is trying to comprehend trauma. I don’t know who needs to hear this, but we only obsess over people who make us feel unsafe. That obsession gives us a false sense of control and it’s probably a trauma response
Hannah Berner, Giggly Squad, 3.8.22
Honor the space between no longer and not yet.
We run to our past when we are not happy with our present.
Life
The less information you share about a sketchy situation, the more can be left up to interpretation, which isn’t always a good thing. If you fuck up, explain why.
Don’t allow familiarity to be the thief of amazement and awe
Torrey, The Well, 1.20.22
You weren’t made to be famous. You were made to be effective (Jerry Flowers Jr., I Did it Again, 6.6.22)
It’s like the number system. If you look at any number from one to one million…you take any number out of it and it all falls apart…You’re never angry for the reason you think you are, you’re angry because you think the world is meaningless. God did not create a meaningless universe…I’m a number in a sequence and it’s not meaningless and you belong” (French Stewart, You Made it Weird, 6.22.2022)
2023 was all in all a really solid year. It was our first full married year. We lived in Austin for another full year. We bought a house (two houses – sent one back). Tyler got his associates degree. I have been at my new job for almost a full year. And ultimately, it was a year that everything just kind of worked out how it was supposed to and I couldn’t be more grateful.
Some things that unexpectedly worked out perfectly:
At the end of 2022, I shockingly got laid off of the job I moved to Austin for. In 2023, I started a new job in Phoenix (while living in Austin) that I didn’t feel like I was ready to commit to because I was so heartbroken over my last one. I took a title cut and pay cut and committed to moving to Phoenix within three months (which we were in no way ready for), but it was the first job I could find and I just kind of settled into the safety since we were in the middle of the great layoffs of 2022/2023. Since then, I’ve moved up the company pretty significantly and I’ve gotten a pretty significant promotion. I’m really happy with how everything worked out, but God really had to force the old job out of my life to make way for this new opportunity. I’ve learned so much and feel the most confident at work that I’ve ever felt.
This year, we also became homeowners! We had been looking for houses since mid 2022, but my new job kind of forced our hand. We needed to live in Phoenix by April, so we finally bought a house lot unseen in February 2023. In March of 2023, I flew to Phoenix by myself to pay the rest of the deposit in person and my gut told me to check the lot before I handed the check over. The lot was awful and long story short, we ended up backing out of the house. We continued looking and bought our dream house (a new build) at the end of April. The house will be ready in February 2024. My job gave me the flexibility to not move to Phoenix until my house was ready, so that’s been a real blessing as well.
Another couple things that just worked out were the two times we just happened to be in Phoenix at just the right time. 1. When X was born (weeks early), we just happened to be in Phoenix and got to see him the day he was born. 2. When Tyler’s dad got in a pretty serious accident, we just happened to be in Phoenix and were able to drive up to the hospital that he was airlifted to.
So yeah, this year was uncomfortable, but it really did work out almost as good as I could’ve imagined. We upgraded almost every area of our lives, got to live another year in Austin, were home in Phoenix for every important moment, and I feel extremely blessed.
Word of the year: Preparation Favorite book this year: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (because I read it with Tyler) Favorite moment of the year: X being born Coolest achievement this year: (besides buying and designing our house) Getting up wakesurfing Favorite TV show this year: Southern Charm Favorite event of the year: Women’s national team game/Julie Ertz return Favorite trip of the year: Mexico ❤
Completed 2023 Goals:
Wrote this again 🙂
Completed my 1s every day this year
Closed my rings almost every day this year
Bought a house
Travel Bucket List Ticks:
New York City (For anniversary number 1)
Cancun (with my husband for Honeymoon Pt. 2)
San Antonio/Gruene
So anyway, that’s a recap of the year. Here are the lessons I learned through it all:
Religion
“You may not be preaching from a stage on Sunday, but you’re preaching with your life on Monday”
Torrey, The Well, 9.24.23
I really love this quote because often times we think we don’t have any responsibility to anyone but ourselves to live a certain way, but the truth is, as a Christian, you’re a walking example of a Christian every day. In fact, you might be the only example that someone has. Make sure that you represent Jesus and The Church well.
No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. (Matthew 6:24)
It’s almost as if having an abundance reduces our dependency on God (Jerry Flowers Jr., What about Next Sunday, 4.18.23)
Mercy triumphs over judgment (James 2:12-13) One Sunday afternoon, I was walking along the bridge in Austin and I came across a guy that had a “free prayers” sign. It’s 100% in my nature to not stop for something like this, but for whatever reason, that day I stopped. I talked to the guy for a long time about his life and about my life. We had very similar stories, but very different lives. I was in kind of a tough place and he read this verse to me. It’s always better to show someone mercy than to show someone judgement. And even though I knew that, the way he said it to me that day really resonated. At the end of our conversation, he prayed over me and we went our separate ways, but this verse left a mark on me.
Spiritual maturity is when I view the change of plans not as disappointment but as God ordering my steps
Jerry Flowers Jr., “I didn’t ask for this”, 2.3.23
God sovereignty uses difficulties for your salvation (The Well, 8.27.23)
And the devil would much prefer that you remain over-churched and spiritually under-developed… that you look more like Church and your character look less like Jesus Christ. He would prefer you be more committed to your church and to your pastor, but not as committed to Jesus. He would prefer you speak fluent denomination, but can’t speak sound doctrine. The devil don’t care that you come to church, that you bring your notes, as long as you continue to listen to watered down gospel. You do a great job focusing on inviting people to church but never take the time to share the gospel with the people who you’re inviting to church. Or your circle of friends are all the people who share the same faith and none of them are non-believers. The devil would prefer that you remain over-churched but under-developed and that your circle of friends are all people who are saved, sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost and nobody in your circle is an unbeliever so you’re just catching fish that are already caught. He would prefer that you remain spiritually underdeveloped meaning that you don’t see yourself the way that God sees you… The devil would prefer that you do not learn the word of God for yourself (Isaac Curry, Jerry Flowers Podcast, 9.24.23) WHEWWWWWWWWWWW. This one hit me SO HARD. Going to church is always a tough experience for me. I partially feel more at home than I’ve ever felt, but then at the same time, I feel more judgement than I’ve ever felt or ever wanted to feel. Going to church is one thing. Going to church in the south is a very DIFFERENT thing. Going to church in the south has shown me faith and hospitality like I’ve never known back home, but it’s also shown me some pretty ugly judgement. I’m particularly sensitive to this judgement because of my husband’s previous experience with churches and I’ve always wanted to show him something different. Sometimes my church does show him something different, but sometimes it shows him more of the same. I love this quote because it is SOOO true. There are so many people that can quote scripture and that can LOOK Christian, but that doesn’t mean they know how to connect with people who aren’t in the church. Not connecting with people who aren’t already in the church is elitism. Sometimes you don’t have to teach someone the bible. Sometimes you just have to show them with your life.
I give you uncertainty to put your faith in the gym (Jerry Flowers Jr.)
Love/Friendship/Relationships/Community
Whoever has access to your ear constantly will impact how you see
Jerry Flowers Jr., Therapy Thursday 10.13.23
Who’s on my side? Who wants me to win? It’s easy to feel like we’re alone when we’re getting beat up by some really powerful forces outside of our control (Minimalist Podcast, Building a Non-Anxious Life 10.16.23)
Marriage is a long road. Remember he’s your true North (Firefly Lane, 6.2.23)
Some people like the unhealed version of you better. You’re only compatible because you’re both broken in the same area…if you heal, you’ll remove what y’all have in common…you no longer need my sin together because you’re taking what we had in common (Jerry Flowers Jr., he set it straight 4.18.2023)
Familiar voices you always entertain when you’re in dark places (Jerry Flowers Jr., it’s about time 12.3.23) I love this quote because it’s a great reminder that you turn back to familiar people when you’re not doing well, but familiar people isn’t synonymous with good people. These people are in the past for a reason and you shouldn’t bring them back for familiarity when things aren’t going well.
Discipleship with no challenging is cheerleading
Torrey, The Well 10.29.23
Don’t miss something before you realize how good it is to you (The Well, 2.19.2023) I love this quote because I think too many of us take our loved ones for granted. You shouldn’t have to miss someone to realize how good they are. You shouldn’t wait for the missing before you get to loving them fully and completely.
Holding receipts blinds you to growth (Jerry Flowers Jr. love is 6.12.23)
The biggest predictor of happiness is relationships…The extent to which you can relax and be yourself…community is essential, not optional. It is built into the design of creation. Relationships are essential to who we are because it’s who God is… creation is not complete without community…learn how to be where we are with the people God has given us… let’s say you find the perfect community (like a guy finds his perfect girl), what makes you think they’ll want you?… what if you stop looking for community and accept the one God is giving you? (Will, The Well, 10.22.23)
Every worthwhile relationship has conflict (The Well, 5.14.2023)
Give somebody the opportunity to show up (Minimalist Podcast, Building a Non-Anxious Life 10.16.23) This is just a great reminder to rely on the community around you
Play this first voice and y’all tell me who it is *plays voice* *everyone in the audience says Denzel Washington* Is there anybody who didn’t know until everyone said Denzel? *hands are raised* This is why you need community… you couldn’t recognize it until someone who [has] encountered it recognized it (Jerry Flowers Jr., 10.23.23)
Life/Work/Discipline
It’s okay to celebrate as you’re ascending (The Well, 2.5.23)
If serving is beneath you, leading is beyond you
Jerry Flowers Jr. 1.30.23
In order to not incur further injury, you need to rest…The business of our lives tempts us to never rest…Jesus paid for your restlessness that you might find rest in him. (The Well, 1.22.23)
You’ll never let yourself fail. When your own ass is on the line…you’re going to work much harder (Bran Flakezz, SWAF podcast, 9.14.23)
Normalize becoming inquisitive about the uncomfortable things that seem normal to you I don’t remember the context of why I wrote this down, but I do remember I found out that something I always believed to be true wasn’t actually true, and I just never thought to question it. It made me realize that I need to question things that I’ve always accepted as “facts”.
Clutter is not about not having things. It’s about refusing to let things have you…Minimalism isn’t about divorcing the world, running away from the world, renouncing the world. It’s about reinventing our relationship with the world so we can redeem the world through meaningful engagement and purposeful activity (Minimalist Podcast, Building a Non-Anxious Life 10.16.23)
Excuses are the security deposit that ensure who you were yesterday, you remain today. (Jerry Flowers Jr., What About Next Sunday?, 4.18.23)
Did you not have time, or was it not a priority? (Trax, PT, 12.13.23) The past couple months have been absolutely INSANE at work and I keep finding myself not eating and not taking care of myself. One particular day, I went to PT (and at this point, my PT is pretty much exclusively heavy weight lifting), and I hadn’t eaten, so I was starving. I mentioned that I didn’t have time to eat and my physical therapist said this to me and it really put things into perspective to me. It was in that moment that I decided that I needed to make myself a priority and I need to have boundaries about what I need to do for me.
There never feels like there. Whenever you say you can’t wait to get there. When I get my bank account there. When I just get there. There never feels like there. And in fact, once you get there, you will discover that your current ceiling is the floor to the next level…and since you wanna keep going up, you’ll live your whole life stressing yourself to go up but never look up (Jerry Flowers Jr., What about Next Sunday, 4.18.23)
Money is a great trap for idolatry (Torrey, The Well, 11.19.23)
Discipline is to lean into discomfort. Bwana Shida was going out to chop wood one day for a fire. He was working to fell it on a hot day and he was almost finished when… “Suddenly he heard a roar behind him and scrambled up the tree lickety-split. Lion! He looked down and saw a lion… but just as he thought he had gotten to safety high up in the tree branches, he turned and saw a…. what dangerous animal do you think might be in the tree? Yes, a poisonous snake! He thought to himself “I’ll just jump in the river where the snake and lion won’t follow me, but when he looked down, he saw another sharp row of teeth waiting for him. Crocodile! Bwana Shida dangled in the breeze, threatened every which way by aggressive dangers. He’ll die! Things only got worse for Bwana Shida as the wind began to pick up and make it difficult for him to keep his grip after he was already tired from working. Nonetheless, Bwana Shida said to himself, “I’m just going to hold on as long as I can and wait to see what happens. Just when fortune seemed most impossible to turn for the better: the wind made the tree fall, which pinned the lion and snake, and the sound of the mighty tree cracking sent the crocodile into a watery skedaddle that took him out of predatory reach. To his astonishment, Bwana Shida walked away unharmed.
God can do more with your uncertain yes than you can with your confident hustle (Jerry Flowers Jr., What about Next Sunday, 4.18.23)
Being buried and being planted look alike
Jerry Flowers Jr., What about Next Sunday, 4.18.23
Grief/Sadness/Anxiety/Anger
Stop letting your tongue loose when your heart is broken (Jerry Flowers Jr., When Loving Them is Hard, 7.10.23)
Matthew 6:27: And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
The Well 1.22.23
Never waste a crisis (Baby Steps: The True Cost of Surrogacy 11.10.23)
Anxiety is often control issues playing dress up (Jerry Flowers Jr. 11.6.23) This is too true. I get extremely anxious about things that I don’t have the ability to control.
Bitterness is grief that was never fully processed (Jerry Flowers Jr. love is 6.12.23)
When things are tough you have to hold on, and that when things are tougher you have to hold on tighter, because you never know what the wind may blow your way.
Regret is to lean into comfort (Jerry Flowers Jr., Time Tables, 12.8.23) Regret really is born out of decisions that are made when comfortable.
Speak from the scar not the wound (Mike Finoia, J Train Podcast, 12.5.23) I like this a lot. Speaking from the scar means to speak about it from a healed place, while speaking from the wound is still speaking from the hurt broken place. That broken place means that you might say something that you don’t quite mean.
Anger is pain pretending to be powerful
Jerry Flowers Jr., When Loving Them is Hard, 7.10.23
God wastes nothing including your suffering…if you give it to him (The Well, 8.27.23)
Emotion does not equal Gods’ word (Torrey, The Well, 9.24.23)
One of my standing yearly goals is to work on becoming a better person. I believe you can never stop growing and unlearning harmful patterns that were indoctrinated in you as a child. It is my goal to NEVER be complacent with who I am and to actively seek lessons that continue to facilitate my own personal growth.
Writing these lessons down has evolved over the last four years. You can see my progress here:
What can be said about 2020 that hasn’t already been said at this point? 2020 was obviously a WILD fucking year. And I know that it was extremely difficult for a lot of people, so it is not my intention to minimize that. But for me, 2020 was the year that I THRIVED. My life changed in so many positive ways, and I am so blessed to have had the growth that I had this year.
The biggest lesson I learned this year was how to be ALONE. And how to be happy ALONE. Like many other people, I was forced to be isolated for a lot of the year due to the pandemic. My roommate is a nurse, so she moved out pretty early in the pandemic for both mine and her safety (which is EXTREMELY thoughtful and I am so lucky that she even considered doing this for me). At first, I was TERRIFIED. I had never lived alone, and I had never been forced to spend so much time alone with my thoughts. Usually, I try to keep myself as busy as humanly possible, and then I saw that quote, “Are you healed or just distracted?” AND WHEWWWWW, did that hit me. There was a lot of me that was healed, but MAN there was a big part of me that was just distracted. And the pandemic removed all the distractions.
I was forced to sit alone with a lot of my thoughts and feelings, and it was honestly so healthy for me. I FINALLY accepted myself fully and completely, and I finally learned how to depend on no one but myself for my happiness. For the first time in my whole entire life, I was fully comfortable being alone, and it was so freeing. I really couldn’t be more grateful to have been forced into this situation.
With this newfound independence, I decided that I would stop dating for the whole year to focus on myself. I ultimately failed, BUT the fact that I even was willing to stop looking demonstrates some pretty tremendous growth that I am super proud of. Prior to this declaration, I was constantly feeling like “if I just had someone, I would be happy” until I finally believed the advice that “until you love yourself, no one is going to be able to love you.” So I learned how to love me. And that was when I received the best compliment I’ve ever gotten in my life: “You look happier.” And I am.
So this year of tremendous growth also came with a tremendous amount of lessons. I’ve documented everything I learned in these subcategories below:
When I look back to where I was a decade ago, I am amazed at how different of a person that I am now. Ten years ago, I was fragile, codependent, hopeful, and really naive. I thought I knew exactly who I was back then, and I thought I knew exactly how my life was going to turn out.
But my life was turned completely upside-down this decade more than once. And I am in no way where I thought I would be in 2020. It’s not good or bad. It’s just different. I’ve really learned a lot in the past ten years, and I’ve grown so much closer to the person that I want to be.
2019 was all in all a pretty solid year for me. I went through a lot, as I suppose I do every year… But I grew in ways that even a year ago I couldn’t have imagined. So here’s to 2020, and my third year in a row writing this piece. Hope something sticks with you as much as it’s all stuck with me ❤
Alright, that’s a tad dramatic, but really, it did completely change my life. And I did feel like it tore apart my life at one point when it first happened. And I’m sure it will feel that way many more times throughout this process.
My identity has changed many times over the course of 27 years, but soccer player has been the most permanent one I’ve ever had. Everything else has always been variable, but soccer has always been what I could fall back on. It has always been my safety. That’s going to have to change for the next year. And it’s going to be crazy difficult.
I know that many people have been through this. And I know that many people have gotten through this. But, I think that having support of course makes it easier. And I think knowing what to expect makes it a little easier too. So I started blogging about my experience.
I hope that someone finds value in this, and if not, it’s at least a good way for me to track my experience and progress.
It’s been over a year and a half, and I am wondering if I still miss you. It’s been a whirlwind couple years, and I never thought I would be almost completely disconnected, but the time away has served me well.
Let me preface this by saying: I don’t think that I am any better than anyone else because I don’t rely on you anymore. I am fully aware of how self-righteous I might sound be saying “oh I don’t use social media,” so I mostly try to just keep it private (except for when I dedicate a whole blog entry to it). But the reality is, since I stopped using you, my life has completely changed. In some ways for the better, and in some ways for worse. But I can honestly say that I don’t think I’ll ever go back to letting you consume my life like you used to.
“2016 changed me 2017 broke me 2018 opened my eyes 2019 I’m coming back”
Somewhere along the way in the past 3 years, I really began to prioritize becoming the best version of myself. It started with my first devastating breakup conversation. It’s in those passionate heated moments that you get the harshest version of someone, but you also get the truth. Since then, I’ve gone through a couple pretty devastating breakups and they’ve all pushed me to heal myself and come out better than I was before.
Some of the things I did to heal included reading one book a month, listening to new podcasts, adopting a “never say no” attitude… But the one thing I’ve done that has been the most consistent is the one I reflect upon every year: The Lessons List.
The lessons list is a list of things that I’ve heard in the past year that impacted my life in some meaningful way. Some of it is advice, some of it is quotes, some of it are just conversations that I’ve heard.
The big takeaway I had from 2018 was that I need to rest and slow down. I have been running from life for so so long, and I needed to feel everything I felt this year to finally move on.
Author’s Note: I started writing this piece three years ago to help others understand what living through a tragedy might be like. But the more I wrote, the more personal it became. It turned into a way for me to navigate all of the feelings I had about what had happened to me for the last (at the time) ten years. I didn’t anticipate how much this piece would come to mean to me and how much I wanted it to perfectly capture all of my feelings and emotions. This became my therapy to finally help me deal with my dad’s death, and in writing this, I realized that it wasn’t so much his actual death that destroyed me, but everything that followed. So many people suggested that I shouldn’t share this because of the feelings it might hurt. To that, I say: “You own everything that happened to you. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should’ve behaved better.”Continue reading →
Jazled 