Thirty Five - I Survived

This year played with my energy. I felt attacked in all ways. My energy was challenged to keep up, to stay pure, to stay clear and to keep growing, even when every part of me wanted to stop.

Thirty-five didn’t simply challenge me, it stripped me down. It tested my energy, my resilience, my boundaries and every version of myself I thought I already knew. It asked me to keep showing up while feeling like I had almost nothing left to give.

Looking back, I realize that my whole life, I was facing life’s challenges, just like you. Yet, since my mid-twenties, life has brought me challenge after challenge at like double speed. So many unbelievable emotional breaking moments. Moments that emotionally stretched me beyond what I thought I could handle. Moments that broke me open in ways I never imagined. Of course, that’s part of being human, as we all experience heartbreak, disappointment, grief, loss and growth. But these past ten years felt amplified. And this past year? It felt like life had turned the volume up a thousand times.

The interesting thing about emotional exhaustion is that no one can actually see it.

People can see a broken arm or can see tears running down your face but they can’t always see the emotional weight someone is carrying. They can’t measure how exhausted someone’s soul has become. The same goes for our energy. Burnout taught me something I had never fully understood before: I learned people often have no idea whether you’re functioning on 100% or surviving on 1% battery, especially if you still smile, still work, still show up and still shine within their eyes, even though you totally feel like you have lost your spark and are starting each day like a broken lighter which you need to refill (or throw away) but keep trying in the hope it will create a fire eventually.

I have never felt more drained in my life than I did this year. Yet to some people, I seemed just as I always had. That made me realize how little we truly understand about one another’s inner world.

Thankfully, conversations around mental health are becoming more common. More people are willing to ask deeper questions or to dig a lil deeper these days.

But what about emotional health?

What about energetic health?

Not everything invisible belongs under the umbrella of mental health. We also carry emotional health, spiritual health, physical health and the energy that moves through all of it. I believe it’s time we continue expanding the conversation. Maybe it’s time we become just as curious about someone’s inner world as we are about their outward life.

Turning thirty-five gave me exactly that awareness. I met a version of myself I had never known before. I got to know a whole new me: a version of me who felt fragile, broken in new places, alone, misunderstood, drained, bullied, heartbroken, burned out, angry and defeated. I became (was forced to become) deeply introverted. (Being an introvert means you recharge best when you're alone while being an extrovert means you recharge by spending time with others.) After years of constantly pushing through or holding (social) space for and with others, life forced me to prioritize holding space for myself.

Healing those parts introduced me to something even more powerful, as, for the first time in my life, I learned to feel safe in a new way inside my own body. That safety didn’t come naturally. It came because I had no other choice but to stop and look at myself honestly. Yet, this time, from a new place of consciousness. I had to face the reality that my nervous system had been trying to get my attention for months (actually years – but I was unaware). It had been screaming that it could no longer survive in constant fight-or-flight mode. I simply did not know yet how to listen, until my body became so exhausted (as my nervous system crashed the moment it all came down) that it refused to keep going the way it always had.

I had to understand my nervous system in new ways, as it was screaming and shaking at me, which created an awareness I didn’t even know was possible. I became fascinated with my nervous system because I realized it wasn’t working against me; it was desperately trying to protect me. I had to deeply connect with it to understand how I could alchemize some of that draining energy so I could balance out my nervous system again.

Today, I let my nervous system guide many of my decisions. It has become my bodyguard. Yup, I’m that girl who now lets my nervous system decide my next move. It’s my greatest and safest teacher. It’s my reminder that peace inside is more important than peace in the room.

(I used to prioritize peace in the room over peace inside my nervous system.) 

So where am I going with all of this?

During my thirty-fifth year, I learned that life doesn’t stop challenging us. Just when you think you’ve experienced it all, another lesson arrives. But I don’t believe life is meant to become endlessly harder. I believe we become stronger, softer, wiser, more aware, more connected and better equipped. Each challenge leaves us with tools we didn’t have before, and maybe that’s what growth really is: It’s no longer about avoiding pain but becoming the person who can move through it differently. Who can move through it from a place (a nervous system) that feels safe, deeply connected and emerged in trust.

’Cause I know now, once you feel this, everything changes.

So here’s to thirty-six.

Not because everything is suddenly perfect but because I made it. And, after everything this year asked of me… that is worth celebrating!