Gratitude

This past year and a half has been the most challenging of my life - there's no doubt about that. In the last six months though I've started to feel more settled and less anxious. I'm learning my new job. I'm putting myself out into the community around me more and more. I'm finding gratitude in the little things, like the varying colors of leaves outside my apartment. I love the early morning fog. I'm grateful to be stable enough financially now to put a little bit of each paycheck into retirement and my own savings account. 

I'm hopeful that the year ahead will bring more growth and change. As painful as it can be, it also creates the most profound effects. 

xxo

Falling For You

I think I've made the majority of my new friends through Instagram at this point. I love it. I've met so many creative people, doing amazing things in their lives and in our community. I met Kyra initially through Instagram, and then at social meet-ups. We got together the other weekend to shoot and I'm in love with how they turned out. 

xxo

Regret

I was talking with a coworker this weekend about life experiences and choices. We talked about regret and decisions that lead to pivots in life. I've often heard people say they have no regrets in life, even having been through painful, difficult experiences. But I don't really agree with that. There have been plenty of things I've said or done that I regret. I have hurt others, ignored my intuition, made mistakes, and experienced true heart break. 

That being said, I do believe that, for the most part, we're all just doing the best we can with what we've got. So although I regret things in my past, I don't know that I would wish them away. I made decisions that I thought were right. I spoke heatedly, in the moment, charged up on emotions. But these experiences have taught me great lessons. 

I've learned to be less judgmental. I've learned that we're all going through our own struggles and insecurities. Regret has taught me to be more patient and open minded. Through heart break I'm learning to keep myself open and vulnerable - but only to the right people. Regret is dangerous when turned into guilt and shame. But I think regret can be powerful when it moves us to grow and evolve emotionally and spiritually. 

xxo

Apple Hill

I love this place. It's been in my life for as long as I can remember. Many of my fondest memories from my childhood take place here. We went every year growing up on the day after Thanksgiving to get out Christmas tree from McGee's Christmas Tree Lot. After we'd strapped down the tree to the car, we'd walk through the orchards to High Hill Ranch to get caramel apples and, my favorite, apple donuts. 

xxo

The Second Agreement

2. Don't Take Anything Personally

"Nothing other people do is because of you. It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind; they are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally, we make the assumption that they know what is in our world, and we try to impose our world on their world.

Even when a situation seems so personal, even if others insult you directly, it has nothing to do with you. What they say, what they do, and the opinions they give are according to the agreements they have in their own minds. Their point of view comes from all the programming they received during domestication."

Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

xxo