GOODBYE 2025: Not the achieving. The becoming. And I love that for me.

Well… here we are. New Year’s Eve.

And I feel like I need to do a year wrap-up on some level — or maybe it’s more of a recent happening wrap-up… because in some ways a LOT happened, and in other ways… not much has changed at all.

Last year, I remember looking back at my New Year’s post and feeling sick — like I never want to be in this place again. I want my life to be completely different by next year at this time.

And what’s interesting is… in some ways it is different.

Not in the physical sense.

In the mental, emotional, spiritual sense.

I’m different.

This was the year I learned what existential pain actually is. Existential crisis. What’s required for real change. What it takes to move forward without pretending you don’t have blind spots.

This was the year I finally opened the door.

And honestly… I never wanted to waste my time looking back at “all that stuff.” I’ve always hated the whole keeping-score/victim-energy culture. It used to disgust me, quite honestly, because it felt like… shit or get off the pot. Like… I did not have the luxury of a breakdown. I was trapped either way. And if you’re trapped, sometimes it feels easier to not know.

Which is probably why I didn’t want to open the bad f***ing door.

Because I knew there was stuff in there. And I knew I didn’t want to see it.

But something cracked open for me this year — layer by layer. Micro memories. Micro “ha ha’s.” Pieces unlocking in my psyche in a way I couldn’t ignore anymore.

And it wasn’t dramatic at first. It was… unsettling. Like a sonic blast. Like buffering. Like you’re not where you were, but you’re not where you’re going yet either.

Then, right before Thanksgiving, I had a full-body freak out around money — one of those punch-in-the-gut moments that makes everything really real. And it doubled me back into search mode.

Like: what the actual f* is still hiding down there?**

And the answer — the one that kept showing up in different disguises — was this:

A core wound that has tentacles… but it roots down into feeling invisible.

Feelingunworthy.

Feelingunprotected.

Like the feeling of a baby crying and crying… and eventually stopping.

And you have to ask yourself… why does a baby stop crying?

That’s been the through-line.

Not just in relationships — we already know that — but in how I show up in business and groups and certain rooms. That place where I go offline. Where I accommodate. Where I overgive. Where I get “too nice.” Where reciprocity is… mysteriously missing. Where my body goes small even if my mind knows I have something real to offer.

And seeing it this clearly has been cathartic… and painful… and honestly wild.

Because once you see the pattern… you can’t unsee it.

And you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.

But here’s what I also know now:

The breaking is necessary.

Not because it’s punishment — but because it’s the only way to stop living from the part of you that learned to survive by needing nothing, asking for nothing, and staying palatable.

2025 didn’t make my life “perfect.”

It made ithonest.

And that honesty is the beginning of everything.

I feel a deep sense that 2026 is going to ask me to trust what I cannot see… and surrender even more deeply to the uncertainty that a previous version of me would have tried to control.

But I also feel this:

I’m done being small to make life easier for other people.

I’m done building from desperation.

I’m done being the “easy” version of me.

And I’m learning — slowly, but for real — what it looks like to let the awake version of me drive the bus.

And I love that for me. 🤍