Goodbye 30
30 lessons from year 30
The sun is setting on my thirtieth year.
30 has been a rigorous teacher. Meticulous in her process. Instructive. Corrective. The kind of instructor that goes over the material again and again…and again, until you find her lessons deeply etched into your subconscious. As a diligent student, I appreciate her rigor.
Every area of my life was touched by the transformative hand of year 30.
Although a bit bruised, my victory is found in all for the lessons I am graduating into 31 with. For that, I give thanks.
Here are a few lessons I learnt and re-learnt along the way. Take what serves you, leave what doesn’t.
lessons about self:
Stop holding your current self hostage in a self-imposed prison full of things you’ve outgrown.
Don’t place limitations on yourself based on old scripts of who you've told yourself you are/are not.
You have to be your fiercest advocate, your loudest cheerleader. This is your work. Don’t outsource this.
Ask for what you want but don’t be attached to outcome. Your job is the asking. Release your tight grip on how you want things to go, keep your focus on the vision and pay daily attention to the reality of the process unfolding before you
Your habits are extremely important: audit them regularly. Don’t let yourself get into a rut that isn’t serving your current self.
Be patient with yourself. Life is long and you’re just a human figuring it out for the first time.
Sleep. Nourishing food. Adequate hydration. Moving your body. Reducing your stressors. Those are tangible ways of being kind to your body daily.
Be a good friend to yourself.
lessons about work/career/vocation:
If you’ve been perfecting a craft for up to five years, you know enough to mentor someone else who is just starting out.
Mentoring is such a generative relationship, especially for those who were never mentored. It heals something inside of you to give to someone what you always wished someone gave to you. It also moves your industry forward by giving someone new tangible tools to help them navigate a complex world that you’ve gained some wisdom in.
Leadership, quite simply, is taking people where you’ve been before. Don’t wait for formal titles, look for opportunities all around you to practice your leadership skills.
When you realize that every opportunity you don’t get is simply giving you your time back, you’ll change your relationship with rejections.
lessons about intimate relationships:
The phase of dating where you’re trying to meet someone worthy of your time is so much more draining and dsyregulating than the phase of dating when you’re getting to know your person. Take such good care of your heart when you’re in the “search” and take breaks often. (this is perspective I wish I had all those years ago when I was deep in the search).
Wanting a partner to share your life with is not something to be embarrassed about, partnership with the right person can really be as generative as you imagine it to be.
Compromising on your core values to keep a relationship with someone is a sign that your relationship with yourself needs a little more tending to.
Emotional honestly is a daily requirement for a healthy relationship.
Don’t forget to nurture your own relationship with yourself while you tend to your partnership. Your partner gets to support you in taking care of you, not completely absorb your responsibilities to take care of yourself. Self abandonment is the beginning of co-dependency.
If you’ve been single for a while, you’ll have to re-learn how and when to do shared decision making. There’s a difference between informing someone of a decision and involving them in your process of coming to a decision point. Find the balance that is appropriate for your dynamic.
lessons about the world at large:
Notice your tolerance threshold and work on increasing it. You have to increase your internal capacity to see the world as it is without crumbling and taking it all in. Books help with gaining insight and empathy while maintaining distance when things feel too activating.
Find ways to be of service that don’t involve only a transactional exchange.
Stay curious about other ways of being, knowing, experiencing the world. Your ways of knowing, your culture, your cosmology is just one of many.
Unfortunately artificial intelligence is not the answer, it will not save us. It’s just another tool, don’t become reliant on it.
Fortunately, we don’t need saving. We are all individually resourced with what the world needs to heal and move forward, we just need to all do our part.
Take people off pedestals...it’s dehumanizing for them and for you.
lessons about faith and spirituality
If you want to be a person who has great faith, you have to be comfortable operating at a level of deep belief before things physically materialize. The opposite of faith isn’t fear, the opposite of faith is sight (word to Dr. Anita Phillips for that one).
Relinquish your need to understand how the outcome and the process fit together. Your work is to tend to the work that is yours to do.
Your energy is your responsibility. Not just what you do, but the energy you bring into what you do. Learn energetic hygiene. Learn how to observe without absorbing.
Cultivate an arsenal of spiritual tools and learn what tools you need for each.
Know when things are yours vs. when they’re just passing through you.
Stay spiritually protected (whatever that means to you).
I hope some of these resonated with you (let me know in the comments which ones matched up with some of the lessons you are learning).
My actual birthday is on Tuesday, November 11. If I cross your mind on that day, send a kind wish my way. I feel so blessed, so loved, so grateful to have people who read my words. Thank you for being a part of my community in that way.
You, my friend, are so insightful and brilliant as usual. I couldn’t agree more with so many of these. Looking forward to catching up with you for more deep conversations about this.
Some of these are gently chiding me, all of them are wise. As usual, I am impressed by your ability to articulate what life is teaching/has taught you and thankful that you continue to share. ❤️