When was the last time you thought you couldn’t do something anymore?

Today I want to introduce you to Heather, Heather is someone that you could walk by her office and ask for her help, someone who would listen and genuinely seek to show up for you. She is one that has a smile, will share a laugh with you, and one that has lived life enough to know, there isn’t only one way forward

We chat about the joy in celebrating adulthood and getting to pursue new things, even if they are unplanned or scary. We chat about showing up and stepping towards a need instead of away, and what it looks like to know the love you give matters.

She shares about life shifting, about a young marriage, about learning to lean on family, about trusting yourself enough to accept help, and how music and its connection to her faith bring her peace

She shares about how life shifted after brain surgery and how the reminder from someone who is for her, shifted how she chose to move forward in life. How life may have new methods or different paces, but that we get to find new ways forward even in change that is out of our control

This conversation with Heather felt like a theme lately for me, a voice of things I needed to hear, to be filled with hope, to cheer yourself on, and to show up and love with an eternal optimistic light

So tune in today and meet Heather, and I dare you to walk away from this conversation without a smile on your face. If this impacts you half as much as it did for me, you will be reminded what it is to do what we can, to love well, speak openly, and to be community, both to and a part of what is around us.

And to you Heather thank you, thank you for the reminder to hold deeply on to hope, to be my own cheerleader, for taking the time and agreeing to a conversation you knew little about, for being fully you, and for allowing me the honor of sharing a part of your story with others. I’m so glad I get to know you and see you in the office.

Have you ever felt like life is happening to you and not for you?

Today I want to introduce you to Elona, this is actually the first in person conversation I got to have with this sweet soul and I am truly grateful that life continues to bring people like this into mine

Elona is one that chooses to use her life, her experience, and all that has existed in her life, to hold space for others and demonstrate the value of humanity

She shares how loss at a young age, and having to face her own mortality pointed her to growing in knowing, and loving who she is inside and out. How mental peace creates clarity, how clarity allows for compassion, and how we can be afraid of something and embrace it at the same time

We chat about how confidence and desperation can coexist within us, how time can heal all, but only if we do the work in that time, and how we can often allow ourselves to believe the lie that, “if we were known” we would somehow be less worthy.

She shares wisdom that speaks of times in her life no one should have had to endure, of empathy and value for humanity regardless of how it differs from her own values and experiences, and the beauty that comes when we allow ourselves to exist in the silence.

I’ve grown a fast and deep respect for the way this human chooses to show up in the world, for the way she has chosen to use her voice and her work, for how she holds space for others, and for how she holds space to be herself. I find often we forget the value in our own peace, the impact in our own understanding, and the compassion when we are loved from a place of being known; Elona is one such human that is this and more.

So tune in today and meet Elona, a human that is a living example of what it is to see value, compassion, and empathy in one who does not look like us. She is someone who gently and with understanding reminds us that if we allow ourselves to see it as so, that life happens for us not to us, and how deeply that can change life itself.

And to you Elona thank you, thank you for the reminder to be our own best friend, to speak to myself the way I would speak to those I love, to press into the silence of peace in meditation, and for the absolute joy of sharing time with you. Thank you for allowing me the honor of knowing more of your story and allowing others to be impacted as I have been. You are a human choosing to leave this world with an impact of love and healing, and for that you are among what makes humanity truly full of love and beauty.

So much of where we are going is impacted by where we have been, I can't say I'm one to think I have grand advice worth listening to, but these are things I wrote down at the beginning of the year and as I read back through them recently; I wanted to share them.

They are things I think I want my future self to hold on to, things I want to guide my choices, and things that are true for all of us.

But let me know which one resonates with you the most?