With each year's passing, comes a bounty of insights, and this time around, I'm laying out 37 gems that have illuminated my path.
With each year's passing, comes a bounty of insights, and this time around, I'm laying out 37 gems that have illuminated my path.
Hey y'all, welcome back to another episode of Whatever with Heather. The last time we spoke I was still 36, now I'm 37, moving up in the world. At this point, we're counting birthdays as level ups, so I'm in level 37, which is a good thing, and in honor of turning 37, today I'm going to share 37 lessons that life has taught me. Some of these will be really quick, just one-liners, and some I'll expand on a little bit. I do want to preface this with that. The things I believe now at 37, the things that life has taught me at 37, I know will continue to change and evolve throughout my life. So, as of right now, these are my truths, these are what I want to share, and I'm always excited to learn and evolve and change and have new beliefs. I decided to create this list. I got typing and whatever thoughts came to me are what I wrote down. So, without further ado, the 37 things life has taught me right around my 37th birthday.
Speaker 1:Number one the only person responsible for getting you to do what you need to do is you. If you know there's a change or shift you need to make in your life, if you know there are things you need to release or things you need to add in, the responsibility for making sure that those things are let go or added into your life, or that you start to work on the way you talk to yourself or mindsets or goals or habits you have. Any actions that need to be taken are 100% up to you. That may initially feel overwhelming or like a heavy burden, but as you allow understanding that the responsibility to do what you want and need to do in life is up to you, you'll really step into your power and start to take ownership of your life. Number two your inner voice can be your greatest ally or your greatest enemy. You have the opportunity to have a cheerleader inside your head or a critic inside your head, and you probably have both. So why would you not learn to cultivate a kinder inner voice and I actually just said an episode on this episode 25 on how to develop a kind inner voice. It's one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself.
Speaker 1:Number three keeping promises to yourself is the trick to getting where you want to go and building self-trust. This one is huge for me this year. If I make a promise to myself, then I need to keep it. This, for me, seems to be the biggest hole in my life, or the times where I maybe start to feel anxiety or depressed, is when I am not doing the things that I've promised myself I do. This goes back to number one, that you're responsible for doing the things you need to do. Number three then you need to do the things and as you start to build self-trust where you start to trust yourself that you're going to do the things you say that you'll do that will get you where you want to go in life.
Speaker 1:Number four shame, blame and guilt have no place in your life. The shame, blame and guilt motivation cycle is super toxic. Now I do believe it's important to evaluate where your shame, blame and guilt are coming from so that you can start to address those. But as you Realize where they are coming from, the emotions, the feelings of shame, blaming, guilt will be a lot easier to release. I also have an episode on this. It is episode 18, so if you're struggling with shame, blaming, guilt, go give that episode a listen.
Speaker 1:Number five and I do want to say I did not write these Thinking of the podcast episodes I had done. These are just the things that are the major lessons I've learned, and therefore some of them have podcasts that that match these thoughts. Number four Nope. Number five Past. You was exactly who she needed to be in the moment she was in, because she led you here to this moment that you were. In hindsight, 2020, we often wish we could go back and be a different person, but that's not the reality and Sometimes we regret decisions that we've made or who we were. But those regrets, those things that we maybe aren't Proud of, led us to being the person we are today, and the version of yourself in the past, whatever she did, whatever she didn't do, led you to where you are today and the person you're becoming today.
Speaker 1:Number six you do not have to be involved in politics to be a quote-unquote Good citizen or good human. I'm not quite ready to expand on number six more. I have a lot of thoughts about it. When this thought came to me, it felt important enough to put it in, but right now I'm not going to expand on it other than that, for me, I am better able to be a calmer, more peaceful, more present person when I'm not involved in politics, and I know for some people it's probably the opposite, and I also know that there are quite a few people who feel the same way but feel a lot of pressure to be involved politically, and I knew, by putting this thought down, that some people would not understand it. But I hope that those that do understand it and are feeling the pressure to be a quote-unquote Good citizen and good human but also feel the pull of that when they are involved politically, lots of other areas of their life are not as they should be or want them to be. I want people to feel empowered that you can still be good for you, those around you, without being involved politically, and that's all I'm gonna say about that for now. Maybe someday I will open up on that more, but we'll leave that one at that.
Speaker 1:Number seven happiness is fleeting. Inner peace is the goal. I talk about this a little bit in episode 12, the emotional hierarchy, where we talk about the value of all emotions. But just like when you're sad or angry, or maybe feeling anxious or stressed, those feelings all come and go, and so does happiness, and therefore Living a life of peace, knowing that happiness and all these other emotions will come and go, becomes a much more attainable Place to reside and therefore, every time you're not happy, you don't feel like you're failing because you know that happiness will flow back in. And happiness has been put on such a pedestal as the greatest feeling and feeling happy is great. But just because you're not feeling happy does not mean you're failing. Number eight you will die. Make peace with that. Number nine if you think you are never wrong about anything, you can actually pretty much guarantee that you are wrong about a lot of things.
Speaker 1:This learning, this Understanding, has played a huge part in my life. I remember one day waking up and thinking but if I think I'm right about everything and the person next door thinks they're right about everything and the person next to them like people don't choose beliefs because they think they're wrong, they choose beliefs because they think they're right. Therefore, most people are walking around the world believing that their beliefs about the A, bcd, their beliefs about everything, are true, because if not, why would you believe them? And that started a snowball of me starting to evaluate my beliefs and start to understand the truth. Put an air quotes of whatever I believed, whether it was religiously or politically, or about myself, or about the world, or about the way my body should look, or about the type of mother I should be, or the wife I should be. All of the beliefs we take on and we hold, we keep because we think they're correct, and so does the person driving in the car next to you, and so does the person at the checkout of the grocery store. So, therefore, does the belief that you believe certain things are true about yourself, the world, actually make them true, or do we just think that we're right about everything and therefore, if we're right about everything, we're never wrong about anything? But I had to think. If I'm the one person in the world that is right about everything and that makes everybody else kind of wrong about everything, odds are I'm probably wrong about a lot of things as well.
Speaker 1:Number 10, you do not need more of anything tangible. 11, you do need more promise, keeping self leadership, inner peace. Number 12, you are not the same person you were 10 years ago. So be okay with changing and evolving, because you won't be the same person 10 years from now. Don't fear personal change, embrace it. Number 13, freeing yourself from the expectations of others is the surest way to feel free. Until you start to remove the expectations of the world and others, you will always feel somewhat buried, alive, somewhat buried and drowning, because the expectations of everyone around you and society around you, the expectations of people you love and people you don't even like, will drown you. So begin to free yourself by releasing the expectations of others.
Speaker 1:Number 14, depression is frequently a symptom, not a disease. And this goes with number 15, anxiety is frequently a symptom, not a disease. Now notice, I use the word frequently. I did not say always, I did not say it was never a disease. Both depression and anxiety have played a huge role in parts of my life, major role in parts of my life. So I don't say this to belittle anyone's experience at all. I do say this, however, for those of you that feel as though you are trapped with anxiety and or depression but feel like maybe there's a way out. This can also go along with the expectations of others, the beliefs we've taken on as true about ourselves, the way we think we should be happy all the time. Lots of things I've already spoken about today, lots of those things, for me, contributed to my depression and my anxiety.
Speaker 1:And as I began to release expectations of others and I began to stop shaming, blaming and guilting myself, and I began to release things I didn't care about, and I began to understand why I thought the things about the world that I thought were true maybe weren't, or the things I thought about myself maybe weren't true. That is when I began to realize that for me, when depression comes up, it is usually a symptom of a lot of mindsets, or a lot of weight, or a lot of burden, or a lot of things I'm carrying, or a lot of overwhelm, or a lot of feeling underappreciated, or a lot of me not keeping promises to myself. Anxiety can be the same thing a lot of carrying expectations of others, a lot of never releasing beliefs about myself that are untrue, a lot of feeling like I need to be everything for everyone. Therefore, anxiety was not the disease. It was all of those things that made me feel anxiety. And who wouldn't feel anxiety if you're carrying everything? And depression for me, was not a disease. It was a symptom of beliefs and mindsets.
Speaker 1:And carrying so much Number 16, carrying other people's emotions does not support them. It just drowns you. This was a hard one for me to learn, because when you have like a newborn baby, your one of your jobs is to help them shift their emotions. So if they're sad, you're looking for a way to stop the sadness right. If they're in pain, you're looking for a way to stop the pain. And then, as your children grow up, it's hard to realize that that transitions at some point where it is not your job to carry and fix and correct all heart emotions and that by trying to carry the emotions for your children or carry the emotions for your friends or carry the emotions for your family, you are actually not supporting them. In moving through the emotion, you're trying to take it away from them, you're trying to relieve their burden. And we can support people, we can support those we love without carrying, with letting their emotions be theirs and not taking ownership of what they're feeling and instead empowering them to feel what they're feeling. While we are there for them as support, we will never be able to process the emotions of other people for them. So therefore, by taking them on and carrying them, that emotion will not be processed, that emotion will not be dealt with in the way it needs to move through the person, in the way it needs to move through their life. So at some point, especially as parents, we have to stop trying to mutate and fix and change and carry the people we love and their emotions we can support without carrying and therefore we don't drown.
Speaker 1:Number 17, being your own biggest cheerleader as well as calling yourself out on your bowl is the recipe for personal growth. Being your biggest cheerleader and calling yourself out is how you coach yourself through life. I'm super excited to share more on this later. Coaching yourself is where it's at. Number 18, allow other people to think differently than you without the need to change their beliefs. This goes into some stuff we've talked about earlier. So allow other people to believe differently than you.
Speaker 1:Number 19, I'm actually going to bring my paper out and read this one because it's a little bit longer. Had you been born somewhere else with different parents, your world views would be most likely very different than they are now. So realize much of what you believe now is a product of the place and people and society you were born to. This ties into multiple things that I've listed earlier. Number 20, it's okay to be wrong about everything. This one has personally impacted me in my life and when you are wrong and realize you're wrong about a lot of things, I don't know that there is anything much more humbling and world turning and flipping the table of your life than realizing. You have to restructure. You have to rebuild. Instead of holding resentment at yourself or others because you were quote unquote wrong, you now get to rebuild and then realize even now, for me, I still believe I could be totally wrong about everything.
Speaker 1:Number 21, you are only ever in the present. Number 22, the future is imaginary. 23, the past is a memory. Everything you think of for the future, even five minutes from now, does not exist until you are there. It is imaginary. Everything in the past lives in your head as a memory and therefore the only moment you're ever fully, truly in is the present. I heard a quote recently that said be where your feet are, be where your feet are. I love that being present in the exact moment you're in, because it's really the only place you are, and oftentimes we're thinking about things in the future or we're stressed about or concerned about things in the past, but we only ever really are now. It's the only moment you'll ever actually reside in. You will never reside in the future because once you get there, that will be now, and you'll never reside in the past because that already happened. Current you is only ever now. Number 24, my children have taught me so much about life and made me a better person than I would have been without them.
Speaker 1:I was the type of woman who, growing up, did not think about whether or not I wanted kids, but I did want a career, and once I had kids, I was like I will never be a stay at home mom. But that is not the cards I was dealt. I had certified to be a teacher. I found myself a single mom of two kids and I could not afford to teach, and so I lived with my mom and I was a stay at home mom and I did wedding photography on the weekends so that my daughters could stay with my mom while I worked, and so I was a stay at home mom. Being a stay at home mom was in direct opposition to my personality and my life goals. And then, to add on to that, we ended up homeschooling our kids for seven years. Seven years and the person that I am because of who I was forced to become, and the person I needed to step into to be a good and effective and kind mother not perfect. Even the person I needed to become to be okay, not being perfect, maybe better than I ever would have been had I not had kids, had I reached all my goals that younger me had of a career in New York City, possibly a lawyer like I had big, thank you. Big dreams, and I would have killed them all. I would have nailed it, but I would not have become the person I am today without my children and the great challenge that being a mother is hands down. Being a mom has grown me more than pretty much anything.
Speaker 1:Okay, moving on from the, I never know when I'm gonna cry in these, they just just pops up. Number 25 no amount of hating my body ever gave me a body. I loved it's. Number 26 this is not written very eloquently, but my premise is the same. I wanted this to be worded better, but this is what came out. Phones rob more people than thieves. And a little side note Phones rob you have something more valuable than someone taking items from your home. They rob you of the present moment that you're in. They rob you of time and energy, brainpower, inner peace.
Speaker 1:Number 27 whenever I want to know what choice to make, I ask old lady me, and she has always had a pretty clear answer. I actually just read a study about how we are better at solving problems for other people than we are for ourselves, and I didn't know that when I started this practice. But if I feel really stuck, I step into the future of old lady me. Therefore, old lady me is solving the problem and not me, and she does a much better job. She's much wiser, she is much smarter. A good question would be to ask 86 year old you what should I be doing with my life right now? And I bet she'll have some pretty clear and cool answers. Number 28 I thought reading self-help books at the age of 12 was a normal thing to do, but I attribute my early start and personal growth to being where I am today. I still have books on my bookshelf over here to the the right of me that are from 12 year old me Reading self-help books. I thought that was so normal, but I guess that's a little weird.
Speaker 1:Oh, number 29 the grades you got in school don't determine how smart you are. Schools don't measure Everything. They measure how good you are at taking a test. They measure how good you are at putting random facts into your head and then letting them go. They measure how good you are at turning in your schoolwork. They don't measure if you're a good listener, if you're a good problem solver, if you're good at art or music or something creative, they don't measure. If you can Collaborate with people, they don't measure. If you have a personality that lights up the room, they don't measure. If you have good personal leadership or integrity or our hard worker, just because you worked hard didn't mean you got good grades. So remember that the things you were graded on were things of very little value and therefore the grades you got in school Don't determine how smart you are or how worthy you are.
Speaker 1:Number 30. We're in the 30s now. There are things you believe about yourself in the world that aren't true. 31 your life will be run by the expectations of others If you don't consciously choose to have it ruled by the expectations you have of yourself. Number 32 your brains need and desire to feel safe and comfortable Will rule your life if you don't realize that so much magic happens in your discomfort. Stop autopilot, scroll the phone. Your brain will rule the show.
Speaker 1:Unless you choose to rule the show, you are not your brain. Your brain is lazy. Your brain wants the path of least resistance. Your brain does not want change. Yet we know it's when we made that move, or we took that new job or we tried that new thing and we found friends and Experiences and it lit up our life. We know that the Magic is in the change and is in the new and is in putting ourselves into doing things we wouldn't have normally done. Those are the things we look back on and we're like can you imagine, had I never done that? Yet we still fear it. That's our brain telling us. Fear the change, fear the things you haven't done before, fear anything that is not comfortable. But the magic is in stepping outside your comfort zone. And to double down on that, for 33 I wrote the unknown is often where the magic is.
Speaker 1:I have been taught this again and again and again in life. When I signed divorce papers and then two days later found out I was pregnant and then still got divorced, not knowing what my life would look like, I remember telling myself I would have been 23. I remember saying I don't know what my life will look like if I leave, but I do know what it will look like if I stay and I'm not willing to have my life look like that. I'm not willing to have my children treated like that and I'm not willing to be treated like that. I knew the future was completely unknown. I never knew if I'd get remarried. I never knew if I could handle being a single mom. But what I did know is that, if I stayed, I knew what that looked like. And so I stepped into the unknown. And if you know my life now, I've been married for 11 years to my best friend, my teammate, my lover. He is one of the most amazing humans I've ever met, if not the most amazing human I've ever met. Our daughters have an amazing father who has been in their lives since they were 4 and 18 months old. We have our son together. We've been through so much together.
Speaker 1:And had I not been brave enough of stepping into the unknown that I did not know what it would look like but knew that it gave me a chance to write my own chapter? Had I not been brave enough to step into the unknown, I can tell you exactly where I'd be. My brain could have told you exactly where I'd be, and that would have felt safe. Right, my brain wanted to stay quote, unquote safe. Even though being in my marriage was dangerous. The comfort of knowing what it would be like felt less scary than the unknown. But the unknown was a blank slate. It was clean and I could figure it out. Number 34, it's okay to take a nap. Number 35, it's okay to have a day that's completely unproductive. Number 36, piggybacking on that your worth isn't tied to what you accomplish. And number 37, it's okay to feel proud of yourself.
Speaker 1:Pride and being prideful are not the same thing. I think pride is one of the most underutilized feelings that we can create and even cultivate for ourselves. Like if I work out at the gym, I feel proud pretty much every time, and if I go to bed and have done at least one thing in the day that I felt proud of, it really, for me, keeps anxiety, depression, negative spiraling thoughts away. Being prideful means you're full of pride. You probably don't think you need to do anything or change or grow and evolve. You're full of pride. You don't even need to do things that make you proud because you're already full of pride. That is what is being prideful. But feeling pride or feeling proud or doing things that make you feel impressed by yourself what's better than that? What is better than being impressed by your own self or being proud that you showed up You're allowed to be proud of your friends, but you can't be proud of yourself. I call bull on that bull. Do one thing every day that makes you proud, just one thing.
Speaker 1:If you remember the show Biggest Loser and we're not going to debate whether that was a good show or not I mean I watched it a lot. Was it healthy? I don't know, we're not talking about that, but their song said what have you done today to make you feel proud? I think that's a great phrase. What have you done today to make you feel proud? Maybe it was finishing all the laundry. Maybe you're proud that you did nothing the whole day and did not allow yourself to feel guilty about it and allowed yourself to actually enjoy it. Maybe you're proud that you moved your body. Maybe you're proud that you responded in a kind way. And when you allow yourself to feel proud about those actions, your brain is like oh, I like feeling proud. I want to do more things that make me feel that way and therefore you've set yourself up for more days of doing things that make you proud. Okay, those are my 37 lessons that life has taught me up until this point. There's a lot more lessons, I'm sure, but these were the 37 that came to me and these are written in no particular order. There's not one that's more important. Life is Bananas y'all.
Speaker 1:If you zoom yourself back to like five-year-old you, it's like kindergarten and maybe you don't even remember what that's like, but maybe you have a picture of you when you're five, like think back to her. She is you. That is the craziest thing to me. And if I think back to 10-year-old me or 12-year-old me, high school me, 16-year-old me, the me that got married the first time, the me that graduated college, the me that left my religion, the me that got divorced even though I was pregnant, and what's going to be a single mom of two, all the versions of yourself are you. It's one thread and they feel so segmented, sometimes right, like I go back and I'm like that was just a different version of me and the cool thing about that is that that means there's going to be future versions of you.
Speaker 1:And if we just trust and allow ourselves to do the things that make us feel proud, we begin to build self-trust. We begin to realize we're probably wrong about some things. We learn to be in the present moment, like. These all seem to be the overarching themes of my 37 years, like, if we can just learn to speak kindly to ourselves and keep promises to ourselves and do things that make us feel proud and release the expectations of others, how much better would your life feel. Y'all even me like there's always ways to refine and release and allow in and step out of your comfort zone. So I'm excited for the next 37 years halfway to 74.
Speaker 1:37 years I'll be 74. Can you imagine how many versions there will be of you when you're double the age you are now? So many different versions, so many things you'll have been through that you haven't been through yet. So many things you'll have done that you haven't done yet. People you'll meet you haven't met yet. Things you'll try you haven't tried yet and, of course, on the flip side, bad things that haven't happened they'll happen. Heartbreaks you haven't experienced will happen and therefore, like learning to be where you are right now is such a gift for yourself and learning how to step into the next version of yourself by what you do today, that's where the magic is. Thank y'all for being here for another episode of Whatever with Heather. I'm excited for this year 2024, to expand and grow and challenge you and myself and see what these next 365 days bring to us, and see where we are this time next year. And I'll talk to y'all next time on Whatever with Heather Bye.