Hello 40!
It has been almost a year since my last blog, a year! I could tell you that I’ve been uninspired, or busy, or a multitude of other things but I would be lying, mostly. While I have been a bit of all those things, I think I have been distracted. Again, I wish I could say it was by important things, but mostly it wasn’t. Lots of busy work I guess. There are a lot of things that have been pushing me back to writing but even more that are calling out my distractions. As the title suggests, I just turned 40. While I feel better and more alive at 40 then I ever did at 20, I am also feeling very accountable. Have you ever had those moments? I imagine we are all facing this in one way or another, the collective channeled message this week kind of confirmed that for me, so what better time then now to add this blog?
Am I writing my story or am I living in someone else’s narrative? I have had to ask myself this question a lot lately. It has come up in messages, my card pulls, even in my relationships. That radical authenticity. Man it sounds fun, sounds like a good idea, but execution can take some effort. As I approached 40, this glaring mirror seemed to follow me around; my health, my relationships, my family, my work. Asking me over and over if I was writing my story or was I depending on the narrative others were writing. Take health, I realized I had the same goal for 40 that I had for 30. every year the same story, be healthy and lose weight. Why am I telling the same story for over 10 years? What is stopping me from being that person, the one I “strive” to be? The answer, me. I am solely responsible for my life choices, not my childhood, not the Polish in me, not the beautiful decadent brownies, and not my skinny husband who can eat anything and still somehow lose weight. Me, just me. I think the truth lies somewhere between laziness and not believing I am worthy of a healthy body, most definitely not loving the one I have. It is this type of accountability that has been creeping up on me as quickly as 40 did. This is just one example. As I listened to the message spilling out on this weeks live I realized just how much I myself was living in someone else’s narrative.
We find ourselves in roles, boxes, and expectations. They weigh us down. Walking through them and out of them feels much like escaping quick sand. The more you attempt to move, the more it sucks you in. I got stuck in the thought process that if I wanted to escape these roles, I had to prove these roles didn’t fit me. Either living up to and exceeding or breaking out of and crushing others perceived thoughts. I don’t know why I just didn’t think to simply erase and rewrite. Who I am as a wife, mother, friend, sister, even a medium, was being influenced by what others expected or assumed that would be. I have come a very long way in the story line, I started writing my narrative more authentically when I started this work, I have been very proud of that. I also realized that I have more work to do. Where this life is taking me and my family, is far from where we ever imagined and more expansive than we have ever known. This last year has been one test after another it seems. The universe had no problem asking me to practice what I preach. For every live, mentorship, and even reading I did, I had a whole dose of Spirit side eye. For every person that said I helped them, I hope you know, you helped me.
The last quarter of my 39th year has been a massively accountable one. I have been asked to be vulnerable, open, accepting, and most importantly, authentic. I have had to stand in who I am and not who I have been, This meant breaking free from patterns, facing generational traumas, and choosing to not only face the fires but do my part to fight them as well. Sometimes that means speaking up and sometimes that means letting go. Most importantly it’s knowing when to speak up and when to let go. I think that has been my hardest spiritual slap upside the head, I tend to talk when I should just shut up. That leads back to the part I mentioned earlier, that whole proving something part. I’ve spent far more time than I would like to admit trying to call out in others what I truly needed to call out in myself. Calling out toxic patterns that I knew needed to change but doing nothing to facilitate that change myself. Somehow I was falling into the pattern that was created, even if loudly and annoyingly complaining.
Closing all the other chapters and beginning to write your own story is never easy. Releasing the narrative as you’ve known it and finding the truth to your story, owning your origin, your villain, and ultimately your hero, will be the most vulnerable and releasing thing you will ever do. So I welcome 40, I am ready for all the new chapters, chapters written for me, by me. If you don’t feel your story is written by you then I encourage you to begin now, no matter your age or where in this life you are. Live a life of acceptance, accountability, and authenticity. If there is air in your lungs there is a pen to be held. May you be the best author this world has ever seen.