28 Things I've Learned In 28 Years.

1. You have to figure out who the fuck you are.

Figure out who you are, what you stand for, what you love, what you like, what you don't, and what you want a part from who you were raised and conditioned to be.

Find your glimmers, find your spark.

Give yourself permission to, give yourself grace in finding that.

You have to learn how to love yourself so you stop abandoning yourself in the process of trying to keep others comfortable. To do what makes you feel like you without fear, without guilt, and without regret.

I promise it’ll all be okay. I promise it’ll all workout.

Be patient with yourself. Trust the process.

2. It is not your job to fix people who won’t fix themselves.

And trying to fix them or teach them won't make them like you or more attracted to you. You can't love someone into loving you better...

Changes made for others are temporary. Until they come from internal reasoning and decisiveness they won’t stick.

Their pain is not your responsibility. Just because you can recognize their pain, just because you can resonate with it doesn't mean it is your diy project.

You cannot connect with someone who can only see their point of view.

Just because they are a priority to you doesn't mean you will be to them.

3. Your idea of someone will never be the reality of who they are or will become.

Allow people to show up as they are and how they will and then decide if that is enough for you.

Learn to stop before you fall in love with the idea of someone and who you want them to be.

Learn to embrace and accept who they are, who they are showing you they are without trying to change and control that.

You cannot save someone if they aren’t willing to save themselves.

You have to meet someone where they are, not where you want them to be.

4. You cannot make someone understand something they are committed to misunderstanding.

You cannot bring clarity to someone who hasn’t found clarity within themselves. You cannot bring peace to someone who hasn’t made peace with themselves.

Those who are in the space to meet you will approach to seek clarity through curiosity through miscommunications instead of leaving it to misinterpreted assumptions.

Nothing gives you a clearer look into who someone really is than how they misinterpret things and how they handle that.

5. Love takes effort, but love doesn't make you have to earn acceptance and approval.

You have nothing to prove, nothing to earn. You were always worthy, you just have to learn to believe that. If you have to beg, you're better off without.

The right people will never feel like you have to explain why you deserve to be loved.

The sooner you stop believing you have to earn people’s love for them to like you, the sooner you will find people who actually value you for who you are rather than what you can do for them.

Love is seen far more in the little moments and little things than the show someone puts on for the world more than for you.

Love is respect, consideration, consistency, and appreciation. Love is reciprocation.

Love is being seen. Love is being heard. Love is being valued. Love is mutual.

High standards only threaten low effort.

Love should never feel like disrespect in any form.

Learn the difference in being able to love someone but recognize when they don't serve you anymore.

6. Everyone shows up differently. It isn't a question of if it is right or wrong but more-so if it is a fit for you, if it is enough for you.

Abandoning yourself will not help others see you more if they already can't appreciate and see you in the ways you want.

Most people won't that is the reality, but trust that what is meant to will.

You learn to trust yourself when you do what feels right on a deep level, not on the surface, people-pleasing, ego protecting, self-numbing level.

The giver in you isn’t something that you should ever abandon but it is something that you should be selective with and create boundaries or you’ll always find empty people who leave you empty.

Avoidance isn’t regulation. Let them without let me isn’t keep your peace, it’s rejecting accountability and fear of vulnerability disguised as regulation.

You can’t make other people show up the way you want them to.

7. Learn to align with your nervous system. Learn to listen.

Learn to listen to your body, it usually knows when something is off far before any other part of us registers it. Trust it.

Learn to regulate your nervous system instead of trying to get everyone else to for you.

Regulation doesn't mean you'll be perfect or always be okay. It means that you will be able to sit with and move through discomfort and unease without fear of being consumed. It means you can stay grounded enough to respond rather than react.

It means trusting yourself to weather the storm with the waves instead of being drown by them.

It is learning how to ground yourself.

8. Invest in experiences, make memories.

They will bring you more life and happiness than being in a room full of gold.

They will keep you afloat in the moments that feel hard to get through.

They will become way more valuable to you than things could ever be.

9. Give yourself space and freedom to change, to evolve and learn to love every version you become as a new chapter.

Change is inevitable, resistant doesn’t have to be.

You will change, that is inevitable. But, it is how you embrace that and how you allow it to shape you that will allow you to become the best version of yourself in every era.

Give yourself space to adapt, to pivot, to just be.

Own your past. Accept your flaws. Be honest about who you are. Make peace with your trauma. Make friends with your feelings. Take accountability for your part.

Forgive yourself for the things that your past self with the tools you had.

Let go of the shame that once served your past selves.

That voice in your head, your fear is lying to you. It isn’t going to keep you safe, it’s going to keep you stuck. It’s going to keep you stagnant.

It’s going to keep you silent, more palatable and father from your authentic self. It’s going to keep you submissive to your fears that fuel narratives you were never meant to believe.

Let yourself feel without judgement.

10. Learn how to communicate with honesty but also with kindness.

What you need, what you want, what you feel, and where you’re coming from in a way that respects yourself and respects others.

Quality over quantity. Just because someone is a frequent communicator does not mean they are a good communicator in the ways that matter or will be in the moments that test that.

Learn how to say what you mean without being mean. How to be direct but still convey empathy, still show consideration of the feelings involved.

Learn how to communicate where you are at without needing to cross the line of what you need.

Learn how to communicate honoring your own boundaries but respecting the time and efforts of another.

Learn that the right people in life will always value honesty over avoidance.

Healthy people don’t respond to criticism or you expressing yourself as an attack, period.

11. Protecting your peace doesn't include disrespecting others in the process.

Avoidance regarding conflict or something you did wrong isn’t protecting your peace, don’t let anyone try to convince you of that.

Discard, dismissing of feelings, gaslighting, ghosting, deflection, manipulation withholding communication are all disrespect.

People who choose their own comfort over your connection are not your people.

12. Take the time to process and heal. Learn to pause.

Shifting your perspective to “what is this trying to teach me” will change your life. Reframe the stories you tell yourself.

Shifting your default from reactions to responses and take your power back.

Don’t make permanent decisions based on temporary emotions.

Learn to pause so you respond out of a place of clarity instead of chaos. A state of intention instead of emotion. A way of intention that will align with impact. Not a place of insecurity, fear, or impulsivity.

Learn to pause so you can reflect before reacting before responding.

Your trauma isn't your fault, but your healing is your responsibility.

Reflect so you can recondition and rewire the parts of you that you never had a choice to be to begin with. The cycles and change the mindsets that were never yours to bear.

It’s is so important to be able to find a place in your journey where you can reclaimed memories, things, and places that once were altered by others taking the power back to things you once loved and enjoyed, reclaiming the power.

13. Life is about so much more than falling in love.

Make time for yourself and for your friendships when you’re single and when you’re not. Do not lose yourself in relationships.

The right person won’t ask you to abandon yourself in order for them to feel chosen. They will want you to choose you and also choose them.

Life becomes more peaceful when you stop expecting everyone to be you and just let them be them and letting that go if it doesn’t match your expectations and values.

Life is just as much about Unlearning as it is about learning

14. Date yourself first.

Go out to restaurants alone. Buy yourself flowers. Take yourself on a cute picnic. Go see a sunset. Buy yourself that expensive gift.

Live for yourself.

Experience things with your friends. Experience things with who you date. Experience things with family. But most of all, experience things alone.

Choose you. Cultivate a life that feels nourishing.

Learn what love looks like to you.

Learn to be gentle and kind with yourself.

Learn how to show up for yourself, unapologetically and without question.

Learn how to build an unshakeable sense of self that is never dependent on anyone else.

The real you, the truth of you will only offend people who don’t want you for you. And that isn’t something you should ever settle for.

Learn how to love yourself.

15. Learn how to feel.

Give yourself permission to feel.

Learn to be friends with your emotions. Learn how to channel those things into art, into expression. Let them flow through you and not build up in you.

Learn to love and heal your inner child. Until you do that everything your present self is will be derived from that version of yourself.

You'll misidentify your ego and patterns for your personality. It's being reluctant to change because you would rather be complacent than uncomfortable outside the walls in your mind that have kept you safe all your life.

Healing isn't linear and neither will any of the things you feel. They aren't meant to make sense. You cannot rush the process, timeline.

Learn to embrace the gray, the in between not the extremes. Life is a journey and we are all only human. It isn’t about perfection, it is about progress.

Letting go will happen over and over and every time you will heal more.

Letting go is an act of love. To yourself, to create space for new.

To everything that was, wasn't, and was hoped for.

To trust yourself more than your fear that you will find better in the unknown and uncertainty of taking a chance again.

Your ability to be intimate is directly tied to your capacity to sit with uncertainty, to be comfortable with the uncomfortable. To choose what is difficult not what is easy in the moment.

Effectively learn to sit with your feelings and move through not around them. With labels, without judgement, without assumptions. Give yourself space to feel.

When we choose discomfort over the safety of our ego. When we choose presence over abandonment. When we choose clarity over chaos. When we stop chasing what is not inherently choosing us.

Learning to befriend your emotions makes them a hell of a lot less scary when they come and go because you welcome them with open arms.

Learning to hold space for the fact that Two conflicting truths can exist and be held without needing to be right or wrong but being able to navigate the feelings and why’s behind both.

Most of your pain isn’t who you are now, it is your old pain trying to continue a narrative and that’s when you have to make the conscious choice to repeat or rewrite.

Trauma isn't over until the nervous system says it is.

16. You attract what you are, not what you want.

Continuing to attract toxic and emotionally unavailable people is because a part of you is and until accept that hard truth and stop denying and figure out, the cycle will continue. Because projecting the problems that are inward externally will never actually lead to any escape.

17. Be honest with yourself so you can be honest with others.

Don’t over promise, don’t overcommit, don’t overextend out of fear.

If you continue to make others happy before you make yourself happy, you'll never fully be left happy.

If you fill other people's cups before your own, you'll constantly run dry.

You can only connect as deeply with others as you are connected to yourself. And that is a two way street that is why it isn't always a matter of "will" but more a question of "capacity."

People cannot meet you where they are terrified themselves to go no matter how many times you promise to hold their hand.

The narrative doesn't change until you do.

18. Your boundaries need to be stronger than your feelings.

Learn to life for yourself and not for other people, that is where you’ll find your confidence. That is where you will stop tolerating less than you deserve. That is where you value your peace over the approval and acceptance of others.

You have to respect yourself before you can ever expect others to. Self respect is not allowing people to have access to you that don’t deserve to.

That is where you’ll find a level of inner peace that you’ll want to protect that at all costs.

You stop giving access to people who continue to cross the line, where they mean to or not.

Nothing changes if nothing changes, sorry hold no value without changed behavior.

You'll no longer be willing to sacrifice your peace for people who only want pieces of you.

Choosing peace over pressure. Presence of promises. Self respect over validation.

19. Learn to separate comfort and compatibility.

In friendship and in love.

Just because something feels easy or comfortable doesn’t mean that it’s always right for you.

Things that often feel familiar, comfortable, and easy aren't always for the better. Certain mannerisms, characteristics, cycles, patterns...

Will you thrive or will you just survive? You cannot shift people if they are stuck in survival mode, you have to leave them there.

People's reactions and responses usually have a lot less to do with you and more to do with them. Learning to pause will help you see this more clearly rather than the illusion that they want you to often believe.

Other people's projection should affect your own perception of reality and yourself.

You can love who someone is without knowing how to love them in the ways that they need, without seeing them in the ways they need to be seen, and without being able to show up in the ways they need.

It will be easier for you to walk away rather than forcing things that are never meant to align and only hurting yourself in the end.

When you lead with a conscious approach to connections it will allow you to see more clarity in where someone is at and who they are and if you are going to be compatible rather than being blinded by chemistry or clouded by your ego.

You can love someone without being in love. And sometimes the most loving thing you can do is to let them go.

Change is only scary if you’re too attached to your comforts.

Settling ins't safety, it's sacrifice. And you deserve more.

Often times what you think is right isn’t always what is healthy.

Love is not ever just enough.

20. Valuing emotional safety above all else.

Chemistry, fun, common hobbies...are all things easy to find in people but the intangible is if someone feels safe.

If someone makes you feel seen, if they make you feel heard, if they make you feel valued, if they make you feel appreciated without judgement in your entirety.

Do they truly see you for who you are? Without this, you won't ever feel fully chosen or seen.

Physical safety isn't much if your nervous system doesn’t feel safe, if you emotionally don’t feel safe.

Emotional safety isn’t something someone can fake.

Emotional safety is something found and fostered in consistency in someone's energy, intentions, and actions all aligning.

True empathy is about taking the time to try to understand the "why" not excusing the "what."

It is there or it isn't.

21. Closure is taking your power back.

Closure in something you have to give yourself, trying to find it in others will never leave you with the peace you truly desire.

Forgiveness is something you give without needing their acceptance. Forgiveness doesn’t equate to reconciliation or access again.

22. It takes an incredible healthy person to be-able to recognize when something is not compatible.

Learn how to let go and leave when things no longer serve or align with you without needing anything to be inherently wrong or in flames.

Grow to be able to have the clarity to be able to call a spade a spade while labeling a behavior without blaming the person but also having enough self respect not to pity them.

Manipulation is manipulation where it’s from a place of wanting control or dysregulation.

Learn that whether something was intentional or not, it does not change the reality. And their reality does not have to be your reality.

Someone being a good person has nothing to do with if they are healed enough to be right or ready for you. Learn to separate and recognize the two.

Someone does not have to be a "terrible person" for you to see their pain and trauma that is bleeding out and recognize that it is not yours to clean up and show them.

Learn that you do not have to villainize and set the house on fire before you decide to walk away.

Something doesn’t always have to be wrong for you to realize that it’s not the right fit for you and end something. You can end things peacefully, with mutual respect.

It is learning what is yours to hold and what isn't.

23. Friends will not always be forever.

They will ebb and flow in your life and you will have no idea what their role is.

You can’t control how long they will be in your life no matter how much you try. It is also okay to outgrow people. Not everyone is going to grow with you, no everyone is going to go with you.

Don't devalue yourself in trying to be available for people who only show up when it’s convenient.

The sooner you believe who people "show" you to be and not who they "tell "you they are, the less time you'll spend telling yourself you should have known better.

Efforts speak louder than ears could ever hear.

Not everyone will value friendships as you do, not everyone will have the same ideas of expectations.

"some people are meant to be chapters in your story, not the whole book...honor the lessons they brought without forcing them to stay."

Stop running into burning buildings for people who are comfortable staying in their fire

Learn how to release what releases you.

Not everyone deserves your grace at the cost of your truth.

Everyone has something to teach you. Sometimes you see it right away and sometimes you see it in time.

Friends will not always be forever and you have to learn to accept that.

Everyone won’t be for you. Everyone won’t see your value. It is not your job to change that. Go where you don’t have to beg to be valued.

Friendships will disappoint you, that is inevitable. Some will work to repair and some will not.

Learn to value yourself enough to never be afraid to walk away when someone’s actions question that without hesitation.

Let the last time be the last time without guilt.

24. Loss happens in many ways, not just death.

Give yourself grace to grieve the loss of friendships, family, opportunities, places, and animals.

All of it is equally valid and just as real.

25. Learn how to not care about being right all the time.

It isn’t ever about who is right. It’s about repairing and finding understanding.

It’s about figuring out if there is space for both of you to feel seen and heard.

Don't internalize rejection and criticism but learn from it.

26. It is less about having your shit together and more about showing up for yourself.

It should never be about falling into the trap of life's normalized milestones or societies standards of success if we aren't happy with ourself to begin with.

We cannot show up fully for others if we aren't even showing up for ourselves.

27. Being secure doesn't mean you don't get triggered.

It just means you know how to pause before burning the house down.

Everyone has triggers, it is learning how to navigate those triggers when they are ignited, to control them rather than let them consume you.

Being secure is learning to teach your triggers.

Learn the art of observing and not absorbing.

28. Not everyone who appears "emotionally intelligent" is.

Many know therapy language and healing rhetoric but that is why you have to look for consistency to actually see if someone has grown to be able to embody the things they say they have learned rather than putting fancy bandaids on decade old scars.

Safe people do exist but so do so many people who appear “safe.”

Emotionally intelligence without attunement can easily be weaponized self awareness in a covert way.

Just like emotional availability without emotional openness is at its core emotional unavailability to an extent.

Knowledge without practice is negligence.

Everyone wants connections, but few know how to create that, how to actually foster that.