35 Years of Wisdom

I used to end my classes at The Max Challenge with what I called power talks. Quick offerings before everyone headed back into their lives. I'd joke that it was my 25 years of wisdom, then 26, watching the number climb each birthday. The thing about those talks is it was almost impossible to sum up everything I wanted to share in one 3 minute talk, I couldn't. Wisdom doesn't work that way. It arrives in pieces, scattered across moments you don't recognize as important until years later when you're pulling on a thread and realize it connects to everything.

So don't worry. I'm not giving you a list of 35 things. I'd bore myself writing it. Each newsletter I send is already a piece of what I've collected.

But for my 35th birthday tomorrow, I want to give you the things I've recognized as the things under the things.

I've been thinking about what it means to arrive somewhere and realize the life you're living doesn't match the picture that society paints for you.

I grew up seeing alternatives. My mom's best friend owned a construction company. Another friend owned a tanning salon. My stepmom ran a daycare out of our house, kids getting dropped off every morning by parents heading to work. I had two moms, which meant I wasn't raised with one particular script.

Here's what I've learned about proximity though. You might not recognize what it's giving you while it's happening. It took me 35 years to see that life was preparing me all along.

When I was 11, I was hanging up flyers for our daycare at the local convenience store. Grassroots marketing before I knew those words existed. Now I consult for small business owners teaching them that very concept that I didn’t learn in marketing 101 but on Bordentown Avenue in New Jersey.

I own two businesses now. And it's only looking back that I can see how many women showed me this was possible before I ever consciously chose it. My mom’s friends. My stepmom. Women in my life who didn't wait for permission or follow a linear path. I absorbed something from being near them that I couldn't have named at the time. It just became part of what I understood a life could look like.

You might not see it now. The proximity you have to certain people, certain environments, certain ways of living might not reveal its purpose for years. Maybe decades. Life prepares you before you understand what it's preparing you for.

Proximity is the first offering. You can become what you're close to or you can do the complete opposite. Not automatically, not without effort, but closeness plants seeds you don't know are growing until one day you look around and realize you've become someone who was possible because of what you witnessed. What threads can you trace in your own life? Who were you near that shaped what you believe is possible?

The second offering is the yes.

I said yes to yoga teacher training in Costa Rica without knowing what I was doing or whether I was ready. I met my best friend Katie there. From that single yes, I can trace a spiderweb of life decisions that lead directly to where I'm sitting right now, turning 35 and feeling genuinely excited about what's ahead. The threads keep going. They always do. You just can't see them until you're further down the road, looking back.

Say no to things that genuinely don't align. But make sure your no is actually a no. Make sure it honors something real in you and not just your fear. So many nos come from I'm scared, I'm not ready, I need more time to prepare, the timing isn't right. 

The yeses are what matter. They lead to other yeses. They open doors you didn't know existed. They introduce you to people who become essential. They teach you things about yourself you couldn't have learned staying where you were comfortable. What would it mean for you to say yes before you feel ready?

Shonda Rhimes spent an entire year saying yes to everything that scared her. She wrote about it in Year of Yes. Not as a rule to follow blindly, but as a reminder that resistance often marks exactly where growth is waiting.

The third offering is safety.

Katie sent me a song when I first moved to Raleigh last year. Somewhere Safe by Nate the Traveler. Every time I listen to it I think about what this past year has done for me. For my nervous system.

Physically being somewhere safe near someone safe has allowed the alarm system inside my body to finally get quiet (I can’t yet say it’s fully off).

I’ve lived with that alarm for a long time. It was subtle at first. Background noise I mistook for normal. Then it got louder and I still didn't hear it, or I heard it and didn't know what to do about it. It took me years to recognize what my body was trying to tell me. It took even longer to take action.

The song says I don't know where I'm headed just yet, but I know it's somewhere safe. I didn't have it all figured out when I made the move. I still don't. But I knew I needed to find somewhere my body could stop bracing. Somewhere my mind could rest. And I found it. Not just in a physical place, but inside myself. A sense of rootedness I didn't know I was missing until I finally felt it.

My wish for you, if you take nothing else from this, is safety. 

Your alarm system might be quiet right now. You might not even know it's there. Or maybe you feel completely safe in your body and your mind, and if that's true, I'm grateful for you. But if there's a signal you've been ignoring, a hum you've written off as just how things are, I hope you hear it. I hope you honor it. I hope you take action, whatever that looks like for you. That sound led me to the magic I've found in all of the different modalities I’ve found, incredible practitioners who I sit with weekly whose presence has aided in my system’s ability to get quieter. It doesn't have to be breathwork or yoga or hypnosis or moving across the country. It just has to be yours.

The thing I cannot thank myself enough for is listening. Finally.

Here's what I know at 35. The life I'm living looks like mine. I followed my curiosities into rooms that changed me. I said yes when I was scared. I got close to people who showed me what was possible without either of us knowing that's what was happening. I listened to my body when it told me something had to change. And I stopped apologizing for the shape my path has taken.

That's my birthday offering. Proximity. Yes. Safety. And trust that life is preparing you for something you can't see yet. 

I thank you, endlessly, for being apart of my village. For your proximity and the things I've likely learned from you without either of us knowing it.