2020: The Mini Lessons and The Grand One

Let the reflections commence.

The end of year is always a reflective time. And this year is no different.

What am I talking about? Of course it’s different. It’s wildly and insanely different.

In January 2020, I was still trying to convince an emotionally unavailable man why he should choose me.

Cringe. But also pat on the back for finally learning that lesson gracefully—well, sorta.

I haven’t just grown in 2020—I am a radically different person than I was in January. Today, you couldn’t pay me a million dollars to convince anyone to choose me. Now, I wonder why I should choose you.

I’ve been doing “the work” for 5 years (wow), and every year I grow some.

But nothing compares to the exponential growth I experienced in 2020.

And as we all know it, growing never happens without some growing pains.

I called it. In early March, a week before lockdown, I chopped my waist long hair to my chin and dubbed 2020 the year of transformation.

Little did I know.

And I know i’m not speaking for myself when I say:

“NEW YEAR NEW NEW ME WHOA HELLO!”

Forced to sit with ourselves, a lot of us went in. All the way in. Forced to feel pain we’ve been suppressing for years. Forced to get real uncomfortable. Forced to heal when we thought the healing was down. (spoiler alert: it’s never done)

It was a healing shift for us as individuals and as a collective.

2020 taught me so many valuable lessons, lessons I would have never learned had I not been forced to quarantine and really, and I mean really sit with myself. So much shedding of layers. So much regressing. So much, so much, so many revelations.

Many mini lessons:

• I learned online dating isn’t for me. It’s not. I tried it. And no. I’m no longer looking for love.

  I’ll let love find me.

• I learned what my emotional needs are and how to express them unapologetically. That means recognizing, from the get go, who can meet those needs. (And I’m not just talking romantic relationships.)

  I have needs and I will not apologize for them. As a matter of fact, I will express them loud and clear for all to hear.

• I learned homemade food is the best food. I may not necessarily love the act of cooking, but I adore the act of sitting down to a homemade meal.

  I won’t be eating out as much moving forward.

• I learned about Human Design. I have never felt so much inner peace. I know who I am.

  33 years later, I finally know who I am.

• I learned what my purpose is. And there’s nothing I have to do to fulfill it.

  I just gotta be it, and like love, it will come to me.

Many mini lessons. But there’s a grand lesson, the grandest lesson of them all. This lesson gave a whole new lens on life. I won’t be the same person after this one. It was one of the most difficult lessons to learn, one that is still unfolding. A lesson unlike any other.

I don’t need anyone to validate my reality

Me explaining myself, trying so hard for the other to understand me is me seeking someone else to validate my reality.

“See me. Hear me. Understand me. Validate my reality.”

I was, in a way, arguing, debating, speaking too much, too much, too loud because I wanted the other to get me, and in getting me they were, in a way, validating my existence, my reality.

“Yes, yes, yes Janelle. You’re right. What you’re experiencing is true and real. I can see it, so therefore it is real.”

Realizing this was a HOLY SHIFT moment for me.

I don’t need the other to agree with me in order for MY reality to be validated. The other can completely disagree, not hear me at all, and that doesn't take away from what is real and true for me.

Yea. Holy Shift.

Oh, and vice versa. I don’t need to understand or agree with the other. I can listen compassionately, knowing that their truth is not my truth, but it’s still very much true to them.

Something can be true for you that is not true for me. Something can be true for me that is not true for you. I can live with that.

I find myself nodding much more and speaking much less these days. Fully understanding my truth is real regardless if it is true for the other.

Can you imagine the energy I am going to save by not constantly explaining myself?!? Energy I can use on much more creative, useful endeavors.

More important than explaining my truth is living it.

I no longer explain myself. I know my truth. I validate my own reality. And that’s that.

2021. Letting love find me, enjoying homemade meals, experimenting with Human Design, expressing my needs, being my purpose, and silently (& peacefully) living my truth.