This Was Not Eat Pray Love

This was not the year I imagined. I did not drift through it with perfect clarity or have some cinematic moment where everything suddenly made sense.

This year felt more like walking into a room and realizing the lights were brighter than I expected. I could suddenly see things I used to ignore. Parts of myself I used to outrun. Truths that showed up at my door and refused to leave.

I wanted ease.
I got honesty.

And in hindsight, I know that is how it needed to go.

I spent a lot of this year learning how to stay with myself instead of sprint away from the parts of life that did not feel like me. I stopped trying to outrun them. I stayed, I listened, and I learned. That is where the clarity came from. That is where the honesty came from. That is what got me here.

It was not romantic or cinematic or beautifully packaged. It was real. And real has a way of reshaping you in places you did not know needed reshaping.

The truth about December

There is this unspoken expectation that women should roll into December with clarity about the next year, every goal defined, every intention sorted, every step mapped out. I do not operate that way and I have stopped pretending I should.

I do not put my Christmas tree up until Thanksgiving is fully over. I do not thrive in December chaos. I do not make resolutions while I am basking in my daughters’ awe of the magic of Christmas. I let December be December. I let the noise settle before I try to hear my own voice again.

I actually start the conversation with myself in November and December, but I let it be just that, a conversation. I do not force answers. I let ideas show up and settle in. By the time January arrives, I have a whole different level of clarity to work with.

At the end of January, that is when I sit with my wision board and ask myself what feels true for the woman I am now. What aligns with her. What she is capable of holding in this season of her life.

I used to think I planned honestly in years past, but this year showed me that honesty has layers. I was honest for who I was then, but now that I know what I know, I will be approaching this next chapter with a different version of myself. What I know so far is that planning from honesty always lands differently. 

I am a woman living this life for the first time

Women forget this part. We think we should already know better, be further along, have cleaner answers, smoother reactions.

But I am living this life for the first time.
And so are you.

We are not supposed to be experts at our own evolution. We are supposed to learn as we go, messily, bravely, imperfectly.

And that is the part I bring into my coaching. Not the performance of a perfect life, but the presence inside a real one.

If this year felt confusing, heavy, surprising, unplanned or nothing like your Pinterest board, know…

You are not behind.
You are not failing.
You are not lost.

You are a woman in motion. A woman in truth. A woman who is feeling her way forward one honest moment at a time.

Sometimes the year that refuses to behave is the one that gives you the most clarity about who you are becoming.

What comes next…

I do not have a grand ending for this year and more importantly I know I don’t need one.

I have myself.
More honest.
More unfiltered.
More willing to stay with my truth instead of trying to outrun it or distract myself from it.

If you came here hoping I would tell you exactly what to do next, the truth is simple. You do not need my answer. You already have it, and you knew it before you opened this blog. My work is just to help you notice the truth you have been avoiding saying out loud for longer than any of us want to admit.

See you in 2026