Episode Eleven: When Life Holds Two Truths at Once

There are certain weeks that quietly change the conversation you thought you were going to have.

When I first sat down to prepare this episode, I had an entirely different topic planned. The outline was finished, the title was chosen, and I knew exactly where I wanted the conversation to go. But life has a way of reminding us that some of our most meaningful lessons aren't the ones we prepare for, they're the ones we live through.

This became one of those weeks.

Across Massachusetts, the sky looked unfamiliar. Smoke from wildfires burning hundreds of miles away drifted over New England, casting a yellow haze across the landscape and leaving the air feeling noticeably heavy. Everywhere I went, people were talking about it. The sky looked different, the air smelled different, and even simple conversations began with the same observation: Something feels off today.

It reminded me how deeply we're connected to the world around us. We often think our emotional state comes only from our circumstances or our thoughts, yet our environment quietly shapes our experience in ways we rarely acknowledge. Sometimes we feel the weight of something before we fully understand why.

As I watched those hazy skies throughout the week, I couldn't help but recognize that they reflected something happening within me as well.

For the past several weeks, I had been interviewing for a position that genuinely felt aligned with both my experience and the life I'm intentionally building. There were multiple interviews, assessments, reference checks, and thoughtful conversations. Eventually, it came down to one final decision.

This week, I learned I wasn't selected.

I want to pause there because I think it's important to say something that often gets overlooked whenever we talk about disappointment. The people involved in that process treated me with nothing but kindness, generosity, and respect. I left every conversation feeling grateful for the opportunity, and I sincerely hope the person they selected thrives in the role.

The outcome wasn't what I hoped for, but gratitude and disappointment are not opposites.

They can exist together.

That realization became even more meaningful because there was another part of this story that very few people knew.

Earlier this summer, I accepted a different opportunity. After spending time reflecting, I realized it wasn't aligned with the life I'm trying to build. Walking away wasn't the easier choice, especially financially, but it was the honest one. It reminded me that alignment and certainty are not always the same thing. Sometimes doing what's right creates more uncertainty before it creates clarity.

Because I had already made that decision, this recent opportunity carried even more meaning. I wasn't simply looking for work. I was hoping to find something that could exist alongside Thrivewell rather than compete with it. Naturally, I hoped it would work out.

When it didn't, I allowed myself to feel disappointed.

Not defeated.

Not hopeless.

Simply disappointed.

I think we've become so uncomfortable with difficult emotions that we often try to rush past them. We search for silver linings before we've allowed ourselves to acknowledge the loss. We convince ourselves we shouldn't feel hurt because "everything happens for a reason." While those thoughts can eventually bring comfort, they shouldn't become a way of avoiding what we're honestly feeling.

Healing has never asked us to stop feeling.

It asks us to feel honestly without allowing our emotions to become our identity.

At exactly the same time all of this was unfolding, something completely different was happening.

Every spare moment I had this week was devoted to building what has become the biggest Thrivewell project I've created to date. It challenged my creativity, stretched my problem-solving skills, and reminded me just how much I love building systems, creating experiences, and bringing ideas to life. If everything stays on track, I'll finally be able to share it with all of you this Sunday.

As I reflected on the week, something became incredibly clear.

One dream appeared to close.

Another was quietly coming to life.

One part of me was grieving.

Another part of me was deeply inspired.

Both were true.

That's when I realized this episode needed a new title.

When Life Holds Two Truths at Once.

Because that's exactly what life had been teaching me.

For so much of my life, I believed emotions competed with one another. If I was grateful, I thought I shouldn't still be disappointed. If I trusted the journey, I shouldn't question the outcome. If I believed good things were ahead, then sadness somehow meant I wasn't trusting enough.

The longer I walk this healing journey, the more I realize that's simply not how life works.

Life is beautifully complicated.

We celebrate birthdays while missing people who aren't there to celebrate with us.

We accomplish goals while quietly wondering what comes next.

We laugh with friends while carrying worries no one else can see.

Most of us are holding more than one truth far more often than we realize.

Perhaps healing isn't about eliminating difficult emotions.

Perhaps it's about expanding our capacity to hold them with compassion.

That doesn't mean pretending everything is okay.

It doesn't mean forcing optimism or ignoring disappointment.

It means allowing ourselves to fully experience what's true today without assuming today's feelings will become tomorrow's future.

The wildfire smoke eventually moved on.

The skies slowly became clear again.

Not because anyone forced the wind to change, but because seasons are always moving.

I find comfort in that.

Not because it promises life will unfold exactly the way I hope, but because it reminds me that no season lasts forever. Heavy skies eventually give way to blue ones. Closed doors often reveal paths we couldn't yet see. Questions eventually become answers, even if they aren't the answers we expected.

One of the greatest gifts this podcast has given me is permission to share these lessons while I'm still living them. I don't want Becoming the Sanctuary to become a place where I only speak from the finish line. Most of life happens somewhere in the middle, while we're still learning, still processing, and still choosing to keep going.

That's where this conversation comes from.

Not from someone who has everything figured out, but from someone practicing the very philosophy she's sharing.

If you're listening today while holding two truths of your own, I hope this episode offers you permission to stop forcing one emotion to erase another. You don't have to choose between gratitude and grief. Between hope and disappointment. Between uncertainty and trust.

You are allowed to carry them together.

Because maybe resilience isn't pretending life isn't difficult.

Maybe resilience is waking up each morning, acknowledging what's real, and continuing to build the life you're being called toward anyway.

Thank you for spending another Friday with me. Your support, your messages, and your willingness to join these conversations continue to remind me why Becoming the Sanctuary exists. This community has become a place where we don't strive for perfection, we simply practice returning to ourselves, one conversation at a time.

And if you've been following this journey over the past few weeks, I hope you'll join me again this Sunday. I'll finally be sharing the project I've been quietly building behind the scenes, and I can't wait to welcome you into this next chapter of Thrivewell.

Until next week, be gentle with yourself, trust your own timing, and remember that healing isn't found in choosing one truth over another.

Sometimes healing is simply having the courage to hold them both.

#BecomingTheSanctuary #ThrivewellEstate #PersonalGrowth #HealingJourney #FivePillarsOfReturn #Mindfulness #EmotionalWellness #Resilience #SelfDiscovery #AuthenticLiving #GrowthMindset #WellnessPodcast #ReturnToYourself #Healing #Hope

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome back to Becoming the Sanctuary. If this is your first time here, my name is Kelly, founder of Thrivewell Estate and Thrivewell Hub. And this podcast is a space where we explore healing, embodiment, emotional awareness, creativity, human connection, and what it actually means to return to yourself while still living inside a very overwhelming world. I actually had a completely different episode planned for today. If you were listening last week, you remember me talking that today's episode was going to be called The Body Remembers Everything. And I still think that's an important conversation. And I think it's one that we'll have. But then this week, this week happened. And sometimes life has a way of changing the lesson you're supposed to talk about. So today, in Live Time, I'm changing the title. Because what I've been living this week feels far more important than the episode I've I had planned. And if you're listening from Massachusetts, or really much of the Northeast, you probably know exactly what the kind of week we've had. The skies have turned yellow. The air smelled like smoke. The sun looked different. And the air quality was poor because the wildfires burning hundreds of miles away up in Canada. And I couldn't stop noticing how everyone responded. People slowed down. Everyone kept looking at the sky. Conversations changed. Even when nobody was talking about it, there was this strange, almost ominous feeling in the air. Nothing in our own communities had actually changed overnight, but the atmosphere around us had. But sometimes the right decision doesn't immediately look like the comfortable decision. So when this opportunity came along, it felt different. It felt like something that could fit beautifully alongside Thrivewall instead of pulling me away from it. And I hoped. I really, really hoped. And when the answer came back, no, I let myself be disappointed. I'm still disappointed. But here's what's so interesting. At the exact same time I was waiting for that answer, I was also spending every spare moment working on what has become the biggest ThriveWell project I've attempted to date. And if everything stays on track, I'll finally get to tell you about it this Sunday. I've poured everything I have into this week. And that's when I when I realize something. Hope and disappointment can exist at the exact same time. Gratitude and grief can exist together. You can lose one opportunity while another one is quietly being built. Both can be true. And maybe that's actually what healing looks like. Not choosing optimism over reality and not choosing hopelessness over possibility. But learning to hold both truths at once. And to me, that's the middle road. So today I don't want to talk about having all the answers. I want to talk about what it looks like to keep going while you're still in the middle of the story. All right. So let's dive into this. Um yeah. It it's it's definitely a tough day to, you know, normally I have these these pre-recorded um tends to be recorded on like a Wednesday, uploaded, um, and edited by Thursday, and then it's scheduled release for a Friday morning. Um but you know, given what I've already talked about, you can understand how it's a little tricky to push through things. Um and even just that sentence, pushing through something. I I talk so much about how healing is a um healing is a fine line. And I think especially talking about with what I'm working on behind the scenes for Thrive Well, versus um, you know, what I talk about on the outside, you know, what was happening with the job that I was hoping to get. And and man, when I tell you every sign looked like I was gonna get it, I I couldn't I couldn't exaggerate that if I tried. But there was this still this lingering feeling. Uh it just was this I don't know. I I needed, and part of me, you know, I talk a lot about intuition. I don't know how much of it was intuition or or my fear, you know, fear from the past of things not quite working out. And and I of course went down the rabbit hole uh when I first read the email, you know, what's the point? And why did I do all this? And why don't I just stay where I was and you know take slower time to build thrive? Well, you we have a tendency to to go back and replay every decision that made the news that we have at hand feel like a failure, right? Or a mistake or a misstep. And and I don't know if if that's true or not, right? I don't I don't think it is. I I really do believe that there's no such thing as failure. Um, the only failure is if you give up. And for me, I I read that email, and I I did. I I felt it. It felt as ominous as this week has been. And you know, I'm I'm I'm certainly not saying that things can be that connected that to feel what we all felt this week, and because for me, it you know, the whole sky is not turning yellow because I'm about to get bad news on a Friday, right? There's actual real reasons, and and also it's not all about me, there's many other people out there in the world. Um, but I think what I want to explain in this episode, and like I said, I'm I'm really changing this up um the day I'm recording it. So this one's gonna be a bit more raw and not more honest, they're all very honest, but you're you're seeing me working through and living something that I'm talking about in live time. And I think that's really in in the last few months, couple months of doing this podcast. This is the first time that I'm really processing it and understanding what I'm processing, you know, um, as I'm speaking. So, but that's what being authentic is. And with this first part of this podcast, I really want to talk about how the atmosphere, right? How the atmosphere can really, it really does affect us. And and that's why for ourselves, um, because we have our own atmospheres inside of us, and it can change on a dime, just like the the smoke coming in and covering the northeast could, because there was smoke seen all across Massachusetts, um, air quality can you know alerts going up constantly. Uh, businesses thinking about whether they should be open or not. For something that we we can't, you know, we're seeing the after effects, we're not we're not seeing the direct effects. So it it's just it's really odd. And and of course, then you also have the um the emotional heaviness of that cause and effect, right? Like knowing that they're you know, we're getting the smoke, but Canada's getting the fires and and people are are losing homes, um, and they're losing trees and land, and I mean it's just ravaging through it. So we can have that emotional heaviness of yes, everyone is noticing what's happening here. Um, but but we're almost getting the after, we are getting the after effect. It's the smoke coming down and through. So we feel the atmosphere outside. It's it's changing our behavior. Um, and again, this all happening this week and and what today you hear a lot of um, you know, and and I say it too, is is we just try to to help ourselves feel better a bit, is that it can always be worse. And I always have conflict conflicting feelings on that saying, because it can always be worse, right? But how do we acknowledge what we're in? It certainly is worse that Canada is going through the actual wildfires that are tearing through their country. Um, but it still doesn't mean that it's not bad and hard that we, you know, what people are getting headaches and it's hard to breathe. And um again, just that complete ominous feeling that that a yellow sky would would give you. Um so so yeah, I want to I want to talk about here about how the atmosphere can change our behavior. It it almost put everybody on edge a bit in and how quickly that can happen, you know, how quickly everybody was talking about it. And the first day it happened, it wasn't being announced as much. And um, you know, I just really noticed the yellow, the yellow skies. And and I'm not gonna lie, when I first heard it, I mean when I first saw it, saw the yellow skies, it felt very um tornado weather. Anybody who is in the midwest and uh down into the to the south, you know, that tornado alley in there, they very much know know what I'm talking about. But up here in the northeast, we don't see tornadoes very often. But I was living out in western mass when a couple hit um a few weeks back to back, and it really is this like grayish, greenish, very ominous color that starts to appear on the sky. So when I first was seeing the yellow, that's what I thought of. But you know, either or wildfires or tornadoes, um, neither one of them are good. So it's how quickly we understood something was not right, something was wrong. This wasn't just, you know, the sun doing weird things, or but I think we're also at a time now, too, where with everything being so digital and fake videos and fake pictures from AI and and some of the fake stories that are out there, it's sometimes we don't even believe our own eyes when we see something. Um, but I think we're also we often underestimate how much we're affected by what surrounds us. You know, we we were trying to do business as usual, but I'll just speak for myself walking into downtown, you know, walking through downtown Whitensville on that day, that it was really yellow. It was weird. It really, it really affected everybody that I came in contact with. Uh, and this this isn't mystical, this isn't anything that is a belief system. This is just simply human. Um, but you know, the atmosphere wasn't the only thing that was feeling heavy this week. Uh, the story I was living, the week I was living. So as I talked about before, I know I had announced that I had a position that I um was offered, and and that is true. But the more that I was learning about the role and what I needed to do before I started and and you know the the structure of the job itself, I realized even though it terrified me uh to walk away from it, because finances are a very real thing. We can we can all walk towards our purpose and and hope and and put out good energy, but at the end of the day, the world, you know, bills are bills and money is still important. It's a form of energy that we need to exchange for services and goods. So so to walk away from it was was quite difficult. It was a hard conversation to have with my partner. Um, but he was, you know, he was actually quite grateful that I was walking away from that. But I wanted to have at least an interview lined up, um, which I did. And I will tell you, if anybody is listening and is currently in the job market and is trying to find a job, man, does my heart go out to you because it is not easy. And I feel like you can hear the exhaustion in my voice. Um it's it's not hard. I mean, it's not easy. It's it's definitely hard. It's not that it's not hard, it's it's very hard. It's a lot more involved than it used to be. And I've I've had the jobs where I've gone to, you know, when you need to have several different interviews, but now it's just holy moly, you take an entire month, um, not just waiting to hear back, but but actually engaging and having interviews and long interviews and taking assessments and checking references, and and that's if you you get a get an email bot back. Um, but I refuse to go into the doom and gloom. So I'm just saying that we have to stay hopeful. Um, because even though for me, you know, I was waiting weeks, weeks for this news. And like I said, I had the interviews and the assessments and then the references, and then it was down to two candidates, right? Which I didn't really know. Because like I said, everything was pointing towards I was gonna get this. But there was this little nagging voice inside of me that wasn't exactly saying you're not gonna get it. It was more, what's your plan if you don't? And when I would have that thought, I would quickly bat it away because the fear um was f it was hard, it was scary to imagine that. But now we're here, and I did find out that I wasn't selected, and the immediate disappointment that I felt um, the walls came right in, collapsed right around me, and I felt anxious to say the least. My body got very tight and tense, and and then there was just this quietness, right? Like you are only gonna have so much time to feel this because like I said, anybody in the job market or when your back's up against the wall and you're in a corner, time is not your friend. And so I I allowed myself to cry and sit, and and I'm kind of still going through that if you can't tell in my voice. Um, but I knew I couldn't rush to fix it, right? Just by genuinely looking at the time and the day. It's Friday, Friday afternoon. So I could give myself today. I had a project I was working on, so it's not like I wasn't, I didn't have anything. Um, but like I said, it it's nothing to against the company. I just there was someone who was better fit for the job. And this is why I think that it's important to um to put your best foot forward. And I knew, I knew if this moment came, um, and a lot of what I was hearing for myself is do not go back and overanalyze the conversations or the things that you said, because I know I gave it my best foot forward. And and part of it, you know, they did go with the other candidate, but man, I got a really nice email to let me down. Probably the best, the best um email I've ever gotten with bad news, because they really saw who I am and and they understood who I am and what I'm capable of and what my talents are. And to a certain point, and a certain extent, I believe that I'm overqualified for the position. And I think that might have had something to do with it as well. Um, so sometimes that can feel like damn, never thought I'd get to that point that I'd be overqualified. But that's the beautiful thing about growth, is sometimes we're looking for something not easier, that's not the right word, but we grow so much that we don't realize some of the old positions or ideas are from a version of us that is a few years ago. But you can see, and sometimes in the moment where it can feel like it's holding you back, but I have to trust, and I do trust that when when those doors don't open, even though we want them to open so so badly, it is protecting us from something that we're just not aware of yet, or not even protecting us always, but pushing us towards or guiding us towards the direction we are supposed to go in. But you know, I think I think talking about the part that nobody really knew, you know, I had made this announcement that I had found a job and I had a job offer, and that part was all true. And and like I said, it I just walking away because it wasn't aligned, um, and making sure that I am I am choosing alignment over fear every time and and these moments, and and I know this, like I said, this episode is a little all over the place, but I want to really show you in live time what it feels like and what it sounds like to have full acceptance, but having full acceptance without losing hope, no matter what's in front of you, because there is financial uncertainty, right? My back is up against the wall. Thrivewell is is doing well, but to to have a new business be able to support itself and support all my bills and and have this be the only thing in that I do um is not realistic. And that is one of the biggest lessons I've learned as a new business owner is to make sure there's a lot more financial security. And I think sometimes I got lost in the not lost, but I got very hopeful that this was all going to take off. And I think it will, but I wasn't allowing for the time to breathe and to build. Um so I don't have regrets because I don't agree in those. I don't think there's any sense in unless somebody has a um DeLorean and we can go back in time. But I unfortunately do not. So all I can do is take that as a big lesson learned and trust me it's a big lesson learned. But I think there was a little bit of shame. I don't know if shame's the right word. But why I didn't tell you because I I just I had so much hope and I had so much faith that I was going to get this job, this last one. So I was like, well no sense in taking it back and then saying it again. But now I think it's time to because you know my hours aren't shifting yet and um I still have Thrive well right I'm not I have to consider myself grateful for that that it's not just I'm left with nothing. I'm still building this I haven't lit up the gas on that. Um but just understanding that sometimes saying no, right, when we think about the other job that I could have gotten that I could have pushed through what I was feeling wasn't right. But sometimes saying no creates a space for the right yes. And and sometimes that yes doesn't happen either right sometimes you you walk away from a decision to lean into something else and that you know it doesn't mean that the first decision was wrong. It just means these aren't the doors that I'm supposed to walk through yet. And uh that is that's hard to sit with today. I will say that that it's it's hard to sit there today. But again like I said I'm very grateful that I do have what I have to be able to put my energy into um because I don't know about anybody else but me sitting around and and just wallowing in this my victim mentality is is still in me. I just don't I don't engage with that part of myself. But if you want my honest answer this morning when I first read the email it it was I was in it. I was I went right down that dark dark rabbit hole and I was questioning everything. I was questioning being hopeful and and trusting my higher power and and walking this path and I I questioned why to follow your purpose and you know I went down the self-sacrificing avenue and man just all the all the negative took over real quick. But thankfully when I did that I was on the phone with my mom and and you know a little bit later I texted my dad and I said this really sucks. I'm not ready to talk about it yet but right now my energy is putting put into not collapsing that's all I knew I needed to do today was not collapse. I can feel it we can feel it right feel the disappointment feel the fear I almost immediately went back on and started applying for jobs but I but I know when I feel this way it's desperation right and I I need to it's okay to acknowledge that you're in a bit of a dire position but you don't want to move into desperation because if I was to look for a job now I'm not looking at it for the clarity of what the alignment is. Now that being said I don't have all the time in the world um so tomorrow get out of bed and and pick myself back up and I and I keep going because as hard as it may feel giving up or or moving backwards would would feel worse. Right? I kind of think of that with my drinking too when there's a hard situation and and yes I had some cravings this morning um I can promise you that I I have really good practice of seeing it through you know and and understanding that as hard as it may be right now and as as rough as this might be to go through and work through all while still having to carry real life responsibilities and and thrive well um you know if I decided to go out and drink it would make it a thousand times worse. And it's the same thing with collapse and giving up it's it's not really an option because I mean it is an option but it's it's not well none of these paths are going to make it easier or better for me in this moment. And so that's why while I was waiting this last week right because it is very hard to navigate those feelings and not lose yourself in the collapse of it all but while I was waiting I've been working really hard on this big project um I've been building and refining and solving problems and and working on something on the computer that that really is is where my brain can feel challenged um and it wasn't easy to figure out and I was back in the world of um something a little more operational with you know some conditions and workflows and all those connecting pieces that when somebody can look at it can seem really overwhelming and very confusing and and it's difficult to build but my brain just really dives right into it and and I can see the bigger picture but also understand how to tweak and work all the individual pieces and all those threads that are coming together for the bigger vision. So at least I did at least have that this last week to really lean into and even today um my boyfriend and his son stop by uh just to just give me a hug and you know seeing them it is it is very very helpful because I know I'm not alone um to figure this out but I also know what is my responsibility to figure out but seeing them um and especially his son you know who who part of you know I'm responsible for for part of his his security um and and making sure that he is taken care of and supported and and has what he needs. So I got quite emotional seeing them just it was the first time oh the emotions might get me again um that I wanted to just show him strength and but I think what we can do now to help with that is is to show um strength by feeling the feelings and explaining those feelings but knowing that we're gonna move forward either way and knowing we're gonna be okay and that I am adaptable and capable and human beings are meant to pivot. It's just do the bigger feelings of that fear win and and that's something that is within us and and I won't and I'm refusing to let that fear win. And I know that the excitement of what I'm building and um the excitement of what is to come and I know these are not the only job offers that are out there. So for me to keep going is more important. So I will keep applying and I will still have faith in what I'm doing and I will continue to help people. And I'm really excited to announce what I'm building on Sunday. Hopefully I I think my timing is is pretty on track and when you see what it is you'll understand why it's um why not that why it's taking me so long because I've only been working on it for a few days now but for me the speed that I have to build things that's that's quite a bit of time. So um and the timing it does it feels surreal right and and I don't know you know I might announce this and release it and everybody say okay big deal like what what even is this but for me it's it's something that I have since I've started building Thrivewall have really dreamt of of creating and have it be out there. So the timing of it feels very surreal. And if if you've been keeping up with my social media um you will see that there's some pretty wild astrological events happening um this weekend on the 20th which is Sunday and it's all about having you know different different threads all weaving together. So I'm just gonna keep leaning into that because one dream closing while another is growing is um is a is a wild uh I don't know paradox is the right word but it's life right that's life one door closes another door opens and I've been at the time where I was felt like I was in a room with no windows and no doors um in just all darkness and I I promise you this isn't that so if I made my way out of that room once upon a time I can make my way out of and forward through through these feelings too but something that I really like to talk about a lot and and and some consistent themes that are coming through on these podcasts is one is that you know the fine line the fine line of of healing the fine line of life um how quickly something can be from can go from being helpful to enabling right when something can go from therapeutic to escapism there's there's many parts of healing and just life itself that are that fine line and it's it's our job to understand what that fine line is and and try to master it. But there's many times that two things can be true right like we talked about I can be disappointed and grateful. I can feel fear and keep moving I can grieve and still have hope I can wish something happened without believing that my future depends on it I can acknowledge pain without becoming pain. Life is rarely one emotion and from what I've learned healing isn't choosing one healing is is learning how to carry both um and walking forward anyway you know anybody who's dealing with a big life event or a hard time or being a business owner or or a parent um or many many different things in life can understand what it takes when the show must go on right when you are feeling anxious or having a panic attack or are really sad or you know those moments where our emotions are trying to get the best of us but we have to put one foot in front of the other no matter what and I think that that is an important lesson to really lean into and I think back on my own life and really from when I got sober on I stopped wallowing in in those moments and before that I would play the victim a lot and if you gave me a situation that could you know heighten or exaggerate that ability to play the victim um man those were some of my favorites and now it's I just I could be the victim and if something and still not playing the victim if that makes sense because for me it's everything's a lesson and everything is something for us to learn but it doesn't take away how much it sucks in the moment and that's why I like to talk about the middle road so much. We can we can talk about it here too you know not not taking the high road not being like everything's gonna be fine and I'm okay and it's okay and well no I'm not okay I I feel pretty crappy to be honest um because when you're when you're acting like everything's okay that's that's toxic positivity and the middle road is not that and the middle road is also not hopelessness it's not pretending it's not collapsing it's feeling everything but believing not everything and responding instead of reacting so much about the five pillars of return are the middle road um because healing for me is really finding the balance in all of these different parts right because when you're returning to yourself it really means you're not abandoning yourself. Like both of those points are true because right now I could abandon so many parts of myself and that's the easy route right most of the time when we go the easy way and we're going to that our old habits or unhealed version of ourselves that's because to keep going is so much harder. And I'm not here to tell you that it's easy I'm not here to tell you any part of this is easy. Healing is hard it is you consciously choosing yourself every single day for the rest of your life and when we talk about the rest of our lives that's why for me and in recovery and being a recovering alcoholic I have to take it a day at a time I have a plan I have a plan for where my life is headed and what I want to do but I it's too overwhelming when I think about the work that it's going to take every day for the rest of my life but I've already done it for five and a half years I've chosen myself every single day. And and that's the thing about when we keep going right we we keep going um but we look back we look back at what we've already accomplished what we've already worked through what we've already made it through and I've made it through some seasons which I'm sure all of you have too and every time you go through something and you don't collapse and you don't abandon yourself remember those moments and give yourself a pat on the back but also use it as momentum and motivation to know that you can you can do that here too because keeping going isn't pretending it's not smiling through the pain it's not saying everything just happens for a reason it means you cry and then you make dinner you grieve and then you answer emails you get disappointed and then record the podcast anyway you don't ignore that feeling and you don't build your home inside of it either because I do believe like I've said in many times and probably did even in this podcast um everything does happen for a reason but we have to have action right we have to not that we have to if you you don't have to but I choose to understand that everything happens for a reason but still feel what that everything is um because I can't see that reason yet and I know that there's a reason ahead but without knowing it's hard to understand what you're going through is worth it it's it's kind of like having faith or hope itself right we're talking about something that there's no physical proof that it exists. So how do we know that it's going to be okay because we've we've shown in the past to ourselves when we don't abandon ourselves and we we work through what we're doing um and and the season of our life that we have to make it through that our track record if you're here and and still standing has a track record that's showing you it is going to be okay because the smoke will eventually clear and disappointment eventually softens and opportunities continue appearing and life keeps unfolding we just don't know the whole story and sometimes we're standing in the middle of a chapter thinking that we've reached the ending but this week definitely reminded me that healing isn't about reaching a place where disappointment no longer hurts it still hurts healing is trusting yourself enough to know that the hurt won't be the only thing you carry and people often ask me what healing actually looks like and this week I'm giving you a front row C to it it looked like crying over a job I really really wanted and then opening my laptop to keep building anyway not because I wasn't disappointed because like I said I was and not because I ignored the feeling because I did let myself fully feel it and not because I suddenly knew what came next because trust me I don't healing isn't pretending the smoke isn't there it's remembering that eventually the wind changes until it does we keep showing up we keep creating we keep loving we keep trusting and most importantly we keep becoming because sometimes life asks us to hold two truths at once and maybe that's where real resilience is born but thank you for spending another Friday with me I don't take these conversations lightly and I certainly don't take your time for granted and this is now 11 weeks of showing up together and I couldn't be more grateful that you're here. And if everything goes according to plan I do have something really special to share with you this Sunday and until next week keep taking the middle road because remember both can be true