Happy 2023 dear friends.
I haven’t written on my blog in over a year. But that’s ok. I haven’t done a lot of things on my list, but at the same time, I have. Life is ever evolving, expanding, and forgiving. There’s so much I’ve learned over the past months, experienced many emotions, while going through things I didn’t think I’d make it through, but I did. I did because that’s the beauty of life, it keeps giving you chances, and getting through is most important so that you can tell someone else to “keep going” when they’re at the start of their journey…
They need to hear it, just like you did when you first started.
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Because my life has been a path of repeated tests of tenacity lined with a strong sense of intuition (that I’ve often ignored), I decided that I’d listen to my intuition this year. I began this listening attempt on January 1st, when I decided to participate in dry January for the first time. Every other year I had an excuse, or reason, to not do it. I was often under too much stress; who can stop drinking when you’re stressed out? I always felt depressed, or sad, or whatever heavy emotion for the past 5 years at least. Well this year I had no excuse, it was the first month in maybe my entire life where things were stable; there were no court cases, no one that I lived with causing extreme dysfunction, no job issues (my boss quit the month before), I no longer woke up with anxiety or dreaded going to bed. I could do it. I didn’t have a reason to hide behind the wine. So I didn’t. For 31 days.
It’s always interesting to me to see the people on social media proclaiming their vows on the first day of the new year, rattling off how many of their wins they accomplished the year before, the “how to win” syndrome and “follow me because I did it”….when we didn’t have the same path sis, not even close…
Dry January was one thing, the second thing I challenged myself with was February’s 14 days of reels on Instagram. I did it last year and it was fun. It gave me a goal to create content and a reason to push myself, so I did. Honestly since not drinking and no stress holding me down, I was able to go hard coming up with looks, creating content, and filming it all before February came. It was fun. Even though engagement on IG is so suspect right now, I made some dope content. That’s a fact.
Shop my February faves.
The next thing I had on my list that I pushed myself to do was to write this blog post. I’ve been trying to write a blog post since 2021. If you’ve been around you know that I started this blog around 2014 and used to write all the time, as writing has always been my first passion, behind fashion of course. But that pesty block of life challenges kept giving me an excuse not to do it. “You have other things you need to be doing, you’re too tired, too stressed, no one will read it anyway”…I mean the things I was told by my own brain went on and on. And they were right, until I decided they weren’t. I’m still pushing through on making my intuition the primary leader of my actions, and being a good listener. I tell my 5-year old all the time to listen, listen to your mom. Listen to adults. But if you’re an adult, who gets to tell you how to navigate life and what to do and how to do it? You do. That’s your intuition, and the more healed you are, the more connected you are, the more you love yourself, the louder it is. Some call it the Holy Spirit, God, sixth sense, gut feeling…no matter what you call it, it’s for you. If there’s anything I could tell my younger self, it would be girl clear all that BS out so you can hear it, then listen to it so you can avoid all of those bumps in the road! But maybe it didn’t happen that way because there were lessons, no matter how hard, that I truly needed to learn. I mean, I am a hands-on learner after all lol.
I did dry January. I did the IG reel challenge. I wrote this post that you’re reading. I’m not an “I’m going to do” type of person, I’m more of a “hey, I did this” type of person. My path has been hard which makes all of the wins that much sweeter, that much cooler, and that much more satisfying when I talk to myself and say “Ok I listened. I did it. What else ya got?”
Bag: Cede Supply Co. Use code Yana30
Photos: Pablo Raya
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Shop: my Instagram on LTK
I missed you here.
XOXO,
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