Happy New Year 2025! Every year I reflect on my biggest lessons:

This year I noticed a distinct deepening of my sense of inherent worth, in a way that never really landed this hard before.

It crept up on me so I couldn’t say when, but when it landed, I was blown away. I felt and sensed my own VALUE, strength, and worthiness from within.

I no longer felt like a loser who didn’t have her life fully together, despite being called one repeatedly by my own mother. I no longer need a certain income from my passion work or a romantic partner to feel valuable, whole, or that I was living my best life.

I’m an artist, I’m a healer, regardless of how much I produce or serve or how much compensation I get for it. Those are my gifts and essence, and I’m expressing them all the time whether intentionally or not, officially/professionally or not, for money or not.

(This was really hammered home by my experience with the cats in this 2-month-long Housesit assignment (a FANTASTIC way to travel for free rent worldwide! here’s a 25% off code if you’re interested in checking it out! It’s only $95/year) — they healed and opened up to me in a way that shocked their owners!

One of them hadn’t let them touch her for 6 years, and didn’t let guests or other petsitters even SEE her, and she let me touch her on day 3, has cuddled with me, and even came out to meet some guests I had over after that. (I was so so proud of her!!!)

Somehow, on some level, I had helped them heal their anxiety and distrust, and I feel so touched and blessed, to have this sort of medicinal presence without even trying.

It’s VALUABLE, no matter how I use it, not everyone has this. I knew this in my head but they didn’t really land in my body until I had experiential evidence.)

And I am surrounded by SO MUCH LOVE. (What a waste to wait for only 1 special person to pour that love on and receive from!) I really experienced a deepening of my friendships, as I navigated some difficult conflicts and we came out stronger on the other side after learning how to sincerely repair.

I now see conflicts as a way to more deeply understand each other, especially since they often involve tender raw spots we carry from childhood, some we’re not even aware of until they are rubbed against. Not that I look forward to them, but I don’t avoid or worry they’re the end of the world anymore. I appreciate the opportunity to grow, both individually and together.

I also noticed an ability to love more towards my ideal of unconditionally, than ever before. Before this year, I had never experienced the feeling of simply feeling so much joy to see someone’s face, their energy, how they are, and be in their presence. I felt I didn’t need anything from them other than to be around them.

I had always heard relationships are about what you can give, not what you can get, yet don’t we also all have needs too? My ideal is to be with people I just love, respect and admire so much that I’m grateful to just have them in my life, seeing them walk their path, and intentionally choosing to push our paths closer together and walk together.

Some things I wish I could tell my younger self of a year ago:

1) We all need people. It’s important to self-regulate, but co-regulation with others is also necessary for a happy and healthy existence! Western society shames us for having these needs. It doesn’t end when we become adults; there will always be an Inner Child, a tender part of us that has attachment needs for care, safety, comfort and soothing, from cradle to grave

2) Being “independent” is overrated. We all need people. It doesn’t make us codependent or too dependent or too needy; it makes us HUMAN. (There’s even such a thing as hyper-independence or counter-dependence, yikes!!)

3) Nobody can always show up for us in the ways we want them to, even if we ask. It’s not necessarily because they don’t want to, have bad intentions, or want to hurt us, it can just be a matter of capacity or ability.

Being in a close relationship with another person, no matter platonic, familial, or romantic, requires to a certain degree of softness and flexibility. And lots of compassion, self-awareness, and accountability, being able to sincerely apologize, own up to our own mistakes, learn to make adjustments, and repair.

Because we will always step on each other’s toes at some point in our dance together. No two people are alike and can step perfectly together all the time. Someone who’s willing and able is process and repair with you, is a GEM. Thank you JA and LB especially for being rockstar dance partners

4) You can’t rush emotional intimacy. Vulnerability is of course important and you might need to go first, but oversharing can be a trauma response to try to artificially build trust and intimacy more quickly to bypass the discomfort of relational uncertainty, especially in romantic contexts.

Spend time with people in different settings, moods, and activities. Share intentionally and reciprocally, paying attention to the balance of sharing, giving and receiving.

Also notice if people are curious about you, specifically, or are just looking for an audience. Do they ask questions because they genuine want to know what you have to say, or as an opportunity to answer it themselves?

5) Don’t be so quick to judge, positively or negatively. Your brain can tend to take small things, extrapolate, and catastrophize them in the worst possible ways, as a defense mechanism, to try to talk you out of something to keep you safe.

You can also idealize and become blind to warning signs and unable to take a balanced assessment, another way to set yourself up for failure and keep you safe. Just chill, seek out but also let information unfold, and time will tell.

6) Abundance comes in sooo many forms, way beyond just money. The care, goodwill, time, and energy that you give to others, none of it is ever wasted and comes back in surprising and unexpected ways, and in other areas. Stay in the flow. Don’t withhold. Calculating and keeping track just makes everybody miserable!

This calculating inner critic, negative, demanding, perfectionistic, for whom nothing is ever enough (I call it the ancestral “Tiger”, we are all victims of it!! It’s not us vs. them (i.e. us vs. our Tiger Parents who didn’t or couldn’t give us the unconditional love we deserved)

If we were taught that by being a punching bag to someone else, don’t forget that they are a victim too.

It’s perhaps what all healers aim to do, to wake people up from the unnecessity of continuing to pass this lesson on and create more of it.

To remember our love for all, which we understood so well as children. Who miraculously don’t see color, divide, of the other, unless taught to distrust, hoard, label, and separate according to us vs. them. It is all us. It is all of us sharing this planet, having the same human experience, of love, joy, disappointment, grief, anger, and everything in between.

You don’t have to heal others. It’s enough to just heal you, your Inner Child, and if you have them, your children too. Everyone around you will be impacted by you simply being yourself. Your true, kind, and loving self. When you’re no longer pretending to be someone you’re not and the pain of it no longer bleeds out of you in bitterness, anger, hatred, or resentment.

(Lol had to repeat the image 3x for inclusivity and also because I couldn’t decide on which one!)


Thank you 2024 for being such an eye-opening year

Wish the best for you and all your loved ones for 2025

If you’re in need of support, I can point you to some customized resources. I offer everyone a free 30 minute chat to learn a bit about what’s going on and send you some recommendations. I’m only one person, but I try to do what I can to help.

You can also find a free empathetic volunteer listener at 7cups.com or even ChatGPT can provide some comfort, reflection & perspective if you have nobody else you can talk to. If you have thoughts about hurting yourself or others, please call 9-11 or 9-88 (suicide prevention hotline). Please reach out. You are not a burden. People care about you more than you know.