Hey folks, happy new year!
I know, I'm a little late...
I was honeymooning with my husband in Hawaii when 2021 turned the page to 2022, and the last thing on my mind was putting out a newsletter. Now that I'm back and settled in the PNW, and most of you have let your focus on New Years intentions begin to slip away into the background, I'm here to remind you that the very real and hard work of cultivating personal development is not something you set and forget.
Growth requires tending, and tending is a dynamic process.
Usually, I share my past year's musings closer to that turning from one year to the next, but my hope with this year's timing is that this Letter serves as a gentle reminder that the work is always there, waiting for you to roll up your sleeves and dig into.
Some romantic, others blunt, all a reflection of my own wild growth adventure, here they are, 21 of the "growth gems" I gathered during this personally monumental past year.
No.1: I like to do hard things for fun.
No.2: Fairy tales are real. And one cannot deny that magic exists when the man you're madly in love with proposes to you in such a wildly romantic way at the Oregon Coast on the Spring Equinox. Despite all of the trials and tribulations of this past year, I did feel like I was starring in my very own fairy tale with the vast amount of romantic and magical experiences I had.
No.3: It’s healthy and necessary to engage in discourse. Our ideas need to be pushed, pulled, prodded at, challenged; for if we are only ever reinforced by those who agree with us whole heartedly, our worldview becomes very narrow, solidified, and lacking in compassion.
No.4: While I work a lot with people on a virtual platform, there is no substitute for guiding people through deeply embodied movement in person.
No.5. A yearly social media sabbatical is necessary. Especially when you use social media as a business tool, it is so incredibly valuable to step away from the screen and recharge one's patience toward navigating the algorithm.
No.6: I have never valued freedom of speech so much.
No.7: Removing yourself from a toxic work environment does wonders for your soul. You should try it sometime.
No.8: Reclaiming my relationship with dance by shifting from a career oriented focus to a personal growth focus has been emotionally complex and incredibly liberating.
No.9: I’ve really grown to love the concept of united polarity. Let’s face it, the human experience is diverse, and with that comes a diversity of perspective. We can no longer afford the games we have been playing. We are all kin - no one wins, if one side loses.
No.10: Even as a woman who keeps her finger on the pulse of holistic women’s health, it shocked me how much I didn’t know about pregnancy until I had the ovary deep desire to prepare my own body for pregnancy. Like why isn’t the whole reason each and every one of us is here on this earth taught to us just a little more in depth?!
No.11: Planning a wedding, even if it’s a very small wedding, is still super stressful. I thought I wouldn’t fall into the classic stressed out bride trap…but I did. When my wedding day was more magical than I could have ever dreamed up, all of that stress was well worth it!
No.12: I am so very grateful for people who hold space for nuance, and think critically.
No.13: My hunting pursuits are where I excavated some of my greatest gems, even if I have no meat in my freezer to show for it. I spent 10 days living in a tipi while hunting elk, and didn't even see a single elk until the last 30 minutes of my last day hunting - that's called character building. I crossed the finish line of my elk season in good spirits, in pursuit of an elk, and feeling incredibly proud of myself for grinding it out in those rugged conditions for 10 days. I sacrificed myself to my future self. I left the elk woods a woman who now knows her strength, resilience, and heart for the hunt.
No.14: Deactivating my Facebook account was a good move on many levels. After watching The Social Dilemma, how can you not want to delete ALL social media accounts?! I decided to stick with Instagram, but that always feels like a tenuous relationship these days.
No.15: People love their little authoritarian band aids. There is a strong parallel drawn between conventional western medicine and other systems in this country. Just treat the symptoms with virtue signaling, censorship, and the likes rather than doing the hard, complex work of getting to the root cause of these issues/illnesses and heal the fractured foundation. Like the body, these different systems are interconnected. We can’t treat in isolation and not expect treatment to affect other systems.
No.16: Nature is my muse. For creative endeavors and business pursuits alike, if I turn to the natural world woven around and within me, I always find my way, my inspiration, my calling.
No.17: It's never a good idea to "other" or dehumanize people.
No.18: Bear tastes like...bear, and it's so, so good. Our first successful big game harvest was a black bear, and while my wild woods man was the one behind the bow, this hunt was an incredibly defining personal and relational rite of passage. Bear medicine is powerful, and to have shared that experience together weeks before our wedding was potent indeed.
No.19: Recreational outrage is not the same as healthy expressions of anger. That fiery feeling that wells up inside of you from time to time, use it to fuel sustainable change rather than acting out like an adolescent by throwing a tantrum in the form of smashing things or slamming your fingers against the keyboard to “yell” at someone about their Instagram post.
No.20: Sometimes, we just need to exist. Snuggling up with my sheepskin while listening to atmospheric music and staring out into space is a great reprieve for the modern human experience.
No.21: "I try more and more to be myself, caring relatively little whether people approve or disapprove." - Vincent Van Gogh
May you excavate your own brilliant gems of growth this year.
Luminous love,
Jessica
|
