Peace Out ✌🏻 2023

Dear God,

Give me the strength to leave it all on the table. The rickety old table in a house that's all boarded up now. A place I haven't lived in for a while. A place that has crumbled - broken bricks lying on the ground. Let the seeds of what has been planted here take over. Let it grow into something beautiful. Let it be lush and replenish the earth so that if someone else needs this space, they can plant their seeds and have them grow beyond their wildest dreams.

Amen.

I can't help but start with a prayer - last year needed one. I wasn't writing much. I didn't have it in me for a few reasons. I feel like it was a rest season for me. A time to sit back and breathe. I'm not sure I've done much of that over the last few years. It seems weird, reflecting back on it all. The body and mind in a constant state of stress and hypervigilance looking for something to be wrong. It felt good to just sit in the stillness, and have the body and mind take a break. I started another writing project very different than this one. And I also took time to reintroduce myself to...myself. It seemed a slow reintroduction that I've thought about many times, but last year I could finally see and experience the whole picture.

The other part of last year was a final shedding. Things that weren't meant to continue on in this journey with me fell away. I know for a fact that I wasn't the only one who was going through this. Last year felt like ten years rolled into one. Like, the last of whatever wasn't serving people to step into their best self needed to leave people's lives.

I had a different plan for this post. This post, the first in 2024, was supposed to be about 2023 and how hard it was (not just for me but for others). How I, affectionately, called 2023 "the year of the crumbling". It all seemed like a good place to start. But it didn't feel right - and I struggled to type.

Until I was on Instagram. I saw a post from this Pastor, Keion Henderson, that I follow, great speaker and his reels are motivational. Now those of you who are close to me know I haven't been to church in a very long time. We grew up attending service and as soon as I got out of my parent's house, I only went back on Christmas and even that slipped away. I would say I haven't attended a service in close, if not actually, 15 years. Until that day on the Gram, there was a post that he was excited for people to hear what he had to say at service that day. All I knew about it was that was it's title, Bad for Business, and I knew I had to watch it.

I told myself, "ya ok, I'll look it up on YouTube later and see what it's all about." I got groceries, did some other things around the apartment and decided to play it while I was meal prepping. But, meal prepping didn't happen. I made it on time and decided to be present during the service - I attended church for the first time in 15 years. I knew I was right where I was supposed to be.

He spoke about Paul's second missionary trip and his time in jail with Silas (Acts 16). He preached about how Silas wasn't supposed to go with him originally. He preached about continuing to show up. He preached about being thankful for rejection. He preached...right into my soul that day.

The last piece of my thought puzzle around of what 2023 was, was when he said, "There are some people who got assigned to your first journey that are not assigned to your second journey".

I cried.

During that sermon, I made a promise to myself:

I am ready for this second journey.

To be invited into rooms I need to be in, never feeling like I have to force my way in.

I am ready to share my words and voice - more freely and candidly than before.

I'm coming back, but I'm not coming back the same.

I have been through it and have arrived.

That's what 2023 was - whether it was a person, a job, a habit...it is no longer assigned to your second journey. And, holy f*ck can that hurt to think about. The struggles that happened in that first journey that got you here can hold a lot of memories, stick with you in your heart. And, that's ok, but that road really just prepared you for this second journey. I feel like in people can hold tight to loyalties to what happened in the first journey. The good, the bad and the ugly - all happened to get you here today.

I encourage you to reframe it to gratitude. Be thankful for what happened and keep going. I'll paraphrase Pastor Keion here: if you have to drag it with you into this second journey, you're going to have to beg it to stay. So let's make a promise to ourselves to let it go with gratitude and move the heck on. Jelly Roll said when he won 2023 New Artist of the Year at the CMA's at the age of 39:

The windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror for a reason. Because what's in front of you is so much more important than what's behind you.

I've said it before and I'll say it again if you want to sit in what 2023 was for you...do it! I'll wait for you to find your shit gift. But let me tell you - the sooner you realize that 2024 is a refresh, you're on the go square and you roll the dice - endless possibilities can happen.

If you made it this far and ar thinking, "kind of preachy Sasha"... I will just say yes it is! Welcome to my fight song. And you are more then welcome to write your own verse for it too.

See you on the path to finding joy.