Relationship Lessons from My 33rd Year

Today, August 26, is my 33rd birthday! I am feeling so happy, blessed, and content in my life. My family is happy and healthy, I have a great place to live, and I love how I spend my time. It is a great time to be alive! I had an amazing weekend celebrating, surrounded by friends who I love and love me.

While I am feeling very good in my life at the moment, this year was quite challenging. I experienced health setbacks, intense loss, went through a break up, felt extremely lost, and was very sad for long periods of time. I also met the most incredible friends, travelled to New Zealand, Mexico (twice!), and Amsterdam, as well as Boston, North Carolina, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, committed to a really special creative project, did lots of art projects, got un-lost, was surrounded by loving family and friends, and profoundly deepened my relationship with God. It has been fun and transformative!

To celebrate my birthday, I am sharing the biggest relationship lessons I learned this year.

1) The relationship to my body is the most significant relationship in my life. If that relationship collapses, all other ones will weaken. Investments into my health, nourishment, exercise, and healthcare professionals are worth it.

2) All relationships ebb and flow, even healthy, loving relationships. Let them. Friends will enter seasons of their life and step back, and new friends will step forward. Enjoy what is present, without making too much meaning of the changes.

3) I attract aligned relationships when I am being the most me, on my authentic path, living my values. I never have to go off the path for connection. The right people will meet me where I am at. (Similarly, I never need to compromise my values or lower my standards, even in the slightest, to connect with others.)

4) It is better to be alone and be aligned and authentic, then to have relationships that don’t feel right. The correct people will always find me, but I might need to be patient, and in the interim, enjoy life with more alone time.

5) When I prioritize connecting to God and prioritizing Love in my life (and I believe God = Love), I feel clear. My priorities clarify. I get less distracted by things that don’t matter, and more focused on what I do care about. I trust what is unfolding.

6) I don’t need to be afraid of loss or pain. I trust life, I trust myself, and I trust my path. I trust how pain unfolds in my life, because I know everything is happening for me, and there is meaning in everything.

7) I am super committed to healing and integrating my wounds, emotionally regulating, and being the best version of myself I can be. And sometimes I will still snap and fight with my sister (hehe). To quote Ram Das, "If you think you're enlightened, spend a week with your family.” Self work doesn’t make me better than anyone else, nor does it make me perfect. Still, I don’t want to be snippy and each conflict is an opportunity to learn and practice what I preach.

8) The only way to get what you want is to be honest to yourself about it, and then ask for it. It will feel scary sometimes. Also, sometimes people will say no. But more often than you think, they will say yes!

9) Ask people for help. Ask for guidance. Ask for feedback. The people in your life want to help you. Give them the opportunity to support you.

10) The more I connect with my body and my erotic energy as a solo practice, the more I heal and integrate past sexual trauma, the more clear I become, and the more I reclaim my relationship with the divine feminine. Female sexuality is beautiful, valuable, and extremely magnetic. It should be worshipped in society, not shamed or weaponized.

11) Don’t forget to pray for other people besides yourself.

12) Just because I’m 33 and want to get married and have kids, does not mean I need to rush to date. (I’m currently single and while I am open to dating, it is not my focus right now and I’m hesitant to divert any time from my other interests into dating.) I will start dating when I feel inspired to. I trust the timing unfolding. I do not feel the call yet, and I trust that.

13) Whatever is meant for me, can’t miss me. My job is to be honest with what I want, ask for it, take brave leaps forward, follow the intuitive nudges, and work through any intense emotions as they come up. I will never force and swim upstream to get things that are not meant for me. As a result, I don’t need to worry if I am going to arrive at certain outcomes. Either I will, because I will follow my intuition and allow my soul’s plan, or I won’t, because it was never for me anyway. And if it wasn’t for me, then I don’t need it to live a happy life.

Want to hear more on any particular lesson, or the story behind it? Leave me a comment or reply to this email and let me know!