The Universe is Speaking

"The universe is always speaking to us, sending us little messages, causing coincidences and serendipities, reminding us to stop, to look around, to believe in something else, something more."

I have high hopes for 2025 but right now, this year is majorly getting on my nerves. I have been going through a metamorphosis of sorts. My word this year is learning. I wanted to get back to the place where I had opportunities to learn about things that lit my fire again. I wanted to find that passion for living an abundantly happy life that I had a few years ago. ( I have been admittedly in a funk lately.) So I set out to dig through some baggage and sort it out with the intention of releasing it and creating space in my life for all of this good stuff again.

Apparently the Universe has jokes.

I have found that the opportunities I have been stumbling into are filled with moments of me digging up all of the “crap” of my emotional self. I have had podcasts that make me feel personally attacked. I had random text convos with my sissy about how utterly screwed up our family is. Deep conversations with my kids about emotions and growth. Moments with the hot hub that dig into my already active brain and stir up buried things from my past and my present.

2025 has already been a pile of sheer, transformative growth and learning for me….and it’s still January. That scares and excites me in equal amounts.

I have always struggled with feeling very impacted by the opinion others have of me. I couldn’t ever pinpoint what made me put so much stock into the opinion of others. This has been one of the things that try as I might, I have never been able to put down and walk away from. I am also certain that it has made my darling hub bat shit crazy. In walks Mel Robbins and a podcast of Jay Shetty that she was a guest of.

She was sharing her thoughts on the “Let Them” theory.

In the hour that she and Jay were filling my car speakers, she pretty much pointed at every single one of my self struggles. Over Caring. My need for approval…and why I apparently do this to myself. Social Media. Allowing others to have such big influence in my world. ALL OF IT.

In this one podcast, I realized how much of my time I have wasted being hung up on what others think of me…and what they could potentially think of me. I put energy into trying to manage other people’s thoughts, not because I am some high level control freak, but because I have programmed my own brain to believe that their opinions are valuable…including worrying about the opinions of strangers…and even worse, people who have repeatedly shown me that I don’t matter one lick to them.

My big epiphany moment came when I realized that this was the exact reason that I was considering pulling away from social media. People were angry and ugly and I no longer had a way to “control” the way I was received…and it terrified me.

I could share the joys and triumphs of my life and others would comment that I was fake. I would share the struggles and I was a whining bitch. I could share that my kids were doing well and I was “clueless about the real world”. No matter what I did, there was always someone that was out there trying to tear me down…and THAT would make me spiral into this place that I didn’t like. I became consumed with the idea that someone could think/say those things…and often, I would have to prove them wrong.

My epiphany: Who cares what they think? Let them think whatever they want to think. It’s not my problem. It is theirs. And this time, in those quiet moments in my car on the way to Gainesville, I heard the message.

Let Them.

Why on earth have I wasted so much of my beautiful life worried about people who have proven over and over that I am nothing to them? It doesn’t mean that I am nothing. Just nothing to them….and that is 100% ok.

Finally, I realize that it is ok. I am still something. I am worthy. I am a good human. Happy. I don’t have to be anything to everyone to matter in this world. If I only inspire one person, it’s 100% ok. If I only help one other human in my entire lifetime, it’s ok. If only one other human in my entire pile of experiences feels loved by me…or feels kindness from me….or feels seen by me….it is ok.

And in that moment, I realized that I have already put my mark on this lifetime.

My husband has felt all of that. I drive him crazy. We have screamed and hollered at each other. I have been less than perfect but…..he feels every single moment that he is loved, completely unconditional. Just as he is. I know that.

I have sometimes been suck ass at being a parent. I don’t always respond in a textbook manner with things my kids have done, said or tossed at me. But I know that all 3 of them feel my love. My acceptance. My 100% feral need to protect them with every breath. They know that I have given them the very best parts of myself every second that they have been a part of my world.

I hope that I have inspired my husband…and my kids. I hope that I have helped them to believe in themselves. I hope that they love themselves as much as I love them.

And anything - anyone beyond these 4 other humans is simply a bonus for my already amazing life.

I have felt such a pile of emotions since my mind blowing moment in the car that day. I have cried quite a bit. Sad that I have spent so much of my life concerned with this. I think part of it is grief too. Grieving the happiness and joy that I allowed to be ripped away. Part of me also wants to scream it all from the rooftops so that maybe someone else can hear the lesson.

And this is why I write.

Mel & Jay spoke a bit about social media in this podcast too and their lessons really drove home some of the things I have been struggling with on that front. I will be writing about that later. Those thoughts deserve their own space.

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