2024: A Year in Motion

Mountain biking with Chewbacca

It's wild to look back over 2024 and marvel. 2024 was a year in motion! 

• We spent a full 7 weeks out of the country between trips to Mexico, Kazakhstan, and China
• I almost completed the classwork portion of my Master's in Clinical Mental Health (42 credits done!)
• Sam moved out of the house into his own apartment
• We renovated the entire main floor of our home (i.e., no kitchen or living room for 4 months)
• I closed the full-time corporate work chapter of my career
• Within a week and a half, Steve and I had completely switched roles, with him working full-time and me working none paid hours.
• I still managed to clock 1800 miles on a bike!

Receiving a Decade of Impact Award

My focus for 2024 was to attune inwards more. Even though the year was a blur of activities, I feel like I was able to ground more and handle the bumps and turns because I had specific goals to pause and look within to how I was feeling and what I wanted. I still want to learn to listen to myself better, but I've come a long way. 

Looking back on all of these changes leaves me with two big feelings: gratitude and empathy. I feel wildly grateful that time and schedules and budgets and desires all aligned for us to take three big international trips, two of which were homeland trips for the girls. As the kids grow, I recognize that these big family adventures will probably become fewer and farther between; the kids will have their own schedules and homes, and I won't be able to assume they'll come on every family trip. So I'm wildly grateful that 2024 was the year we were able to make all that travel happen and spend time together all over the globe. It was hard work and a ton of money and we made it happen.

Exploring the Forbidden City

Secondly, I feel empathy and tenderness toward myself. The anticipated and unanticipated adventures of 2024 were a lot to handle. I managed to work full time (for 11/12 months), complete 15 hours of graduate coursework, travel a ton, and stay pretty darn healthy. That's a big deal. And when I look back and remember the stress or the anxiety or the times that it all felt like a lot to carry, well it was! And I have more empathy for that gal who was coping with so much change in so little time.

Another birthday in Mexico!

So, farewell 2024 with your high highs and your low lows and all of your stressy stresses. You were a wild ride! I feel grateful for what I've learned and experienced, and I enter 2025 as a wiser (and more tired) person.

Quality time in nature with the puppers

Drinking fresh-milked mare's milk in the Kazakh steppe. I told you 2024 was an adventure!

New Year, New Focus: Inward

 Keep your heart with all vigilance,
  for from it flow the springs of life.

Proverbs 4:23

It's a whole new year. I love stepping back at the start of the year and choosing a focus for the brand new year before me. Not a resolution. Not a goal. A word or concept to hold before me as a theme and an aspiration.

As I work through my counseling degree, as I refine my vision of the next chapter of my life, as I gain age and perspective, I recognize that I have spent a lot of time and energy trying to arrange and control my emotions. Some of this is crap from both Christian and western culture about emotions being bad (and intellect being good). Some of this is that I spent a lot of years just trying to hang on and survive, and being in touch with my feelings and wants just didn't make it to the agenda. 

So this year, in a continuation of the "slowing down and simplify" themes that have permeated my new years reflections for many years, I'm focusing on going inward. Attuning to myself. Giving my emotions space to breathe inside my heart. Letting those emotions flow. Nurturing my heart. 

Hello, 2024 - I look forward to all you want to show me.

Year 1 Complete

This weekend I completed the classwork for my first year of graduate school in Clinical Mental Health!

Like most such things, the past year has passed in a blur and also a laborious series of daily choices. I have thoroughly enjoyed my coursework and the delight of stretching and growing in new ways. There are assignments I've had to gut out and some that have written themselves. I've had to prioritize very carefully to maintain a schedule of family, hobbies, work, and school that I can enjoy. I've had to declare "good enough" on some papers that I could have poured into (I am terrible at this). I have grown as a person and as a professional. 

If I could distill these 21 credits, 7 classes, thousands of pages read, hundreds of pages written into the most profound lesson learned it would be this: we need each other. There are many factors that contribute to the efficacy of counseling, but more than counselor experience or advanced certifications or the techniques used the best predictor of whether a client will benefit from counseling is the strength of the therapeutic relationship between the counselor and client. We were made to solve problems, grow, mourn, heal, and celebrate together. 

God created us this way! He created us to do life in relationship. In Western thought it's so easy to believe that the best way is to figure everything out solo and, if you can't cut it on your own, then, fine, call a friend. But, no! That is not how God designed us. Relationships are not God's Plan B - relationships are Plan A!

One of the greatest and most unexpected joys of my counseling program has been my intensive group. We have walked through classes, personal wins and losses, and a million tough assignments together. I thought I was starting grad school all on my own - and I gained a phenomenal set of sisters, friends, and colleagues.

I'm an introverted gal. I don't need or want to be surrounded by people constantly. I need less chatter and noise in my life. Less chatter, and more deep interactions. And as I've learned more about the power of deep and mutual relationships, I've invested more in purposeful check-ins with Steve (nod to the Gottman Institute!), creating a life team of gals for support and encouragement and accountability in growth (thanks, Townsend, for the concept), and being more present in my relationships.

I am grateful that I have survived this intense year. I emerge with excellent knowledge, deeper skills for helping people, more meaningful relationships, and some serious prioritization abilities. Bring on year two! But, first, let me disconnect for two glorious weeks!