#YNF EP13 - 2021 Takeaways

Brittany wraps up the 1st season of YNF with helpful lessons learned in 2021. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:12

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the year, not finished podcast. My name is Brittany Franklin and I am the host of this podcast. And I wanted to do one last episode of year, not finished before the year ended. I took a little while after the semester was over to reflect on my experiences through 2021. And I wanted to share some things that I want to take with me into the next year that I think will be helpful to anyone who listens. I wanted to start with the biggest lesson that I've learned, which is how important it is to set boundaries. I talked about this on a prior episode, but I didn't realize how much impact that would have on me personally, when I started to set boundaries within relationships and express how certain things made me uncomfortable or that I wasn't okay with certain things anymore, I noticed that people would either withdraw completely, or we would actually be able to have a tough conversation, but move forward and continue to grow together. Looking back on that, I realized that I lost a lot of friendships this year. Now I believe that I should take part of the responsibility for that. Because for years I've been someone who just accepts things or roles with punches or someone who has tried to be as adaptable and as accessible as possible in order to prove that I have some kind of worth or value. I so needed to prove that I was worth ticking around for and felt sorry, or guilty. Anytime someone had an adverse reaction to a boundary that was set or anything in me that revealed a flaw now that I obviously stems from childhood trauma and that little Brittany inside me was doing whatever she could to make sure that no one abandoned her now. And this is very hard to say and doesn't hurt any less, but it's true. But now I'm a lot more willing to let certain things and certain people go for the sake of grow and peace. I still struggle with feeling guilty for that because I never wanna be the reason that anyone feels the pain of the abandonment that I felt in my relationships with my father, other family members and former friends. But I realize now that there are better, more healthy ways to cut ties and change the relationship with people and that I don't have to become like the people that I've been hurt by additionally, I will always do my best to operate in a way where I can admit fault when necessary change behavior, give others a chance to apologize and change behavior and try what ever possible to maintain the friendship or relationship before a tie ultimately needs to be cut. If it does the second biggest thing that I wouldn't say that I've learned, but I've actually been reminded of, is to always say, I love you, especially when you mean it. And regardless of how you feel in the moment, a few people know this story already, but I wanna share why this is so important to me personally, I was at my grandmother's house taking a nap one day when I was 13. And when she woke me up to say goodbye, I got really upset and eventually left, still angry. And without saying, I love you two days later, she passed away. And since that was the last memory I had with her, I, from that point on never walk away from a situation, regardless of if the moment is heated or not out saying, I love you, especially when I know it's true. And even when it hurts to say, and I don't share that story for like shock value or anything like that, I share that because you just really don't know how much time with a person that you have left. And to me, it's more important and to preserve the relationship with people than to hold onto the offense. I think for next year, I'm really gonna be more intentional about distancing myself from people who cannot express love to the people that they claim to love or withhold love in order to protect themselves or have the upper hand in relationships. Now that doesn't mean that I won't show come passion to them. It just means that they won't have access to me. Withholding love to me is such a violently intentional act that causes way more harm than people realize in the midst of their mistakes or bad choices. People still need to know that you love them at the end of the day. And in order for your heart to not grow cold, you need to be vulnerable with your love. Now, obviously it's important to remove yourself from a situation that is toxic or unsafe, but even then you can still do so out of love for yourself and the other person there's just way too much going on. And so loss happening in the midst of a pandemic. And that should remind us how fragile and temporary life is. So we should love freely and openly while we still can. The last thing I wanna share is about success, and I wanna start it off by reading a part of an Instagram caption from one of my favorite actresses that I follow keeping my, this is translated from Korean. So it may not be completely perfect. And I apologize about that, but she wrote success and failure seem so simple by the standards of the world in real life. The distinction between success and failure is not so easy. One of my favorite sayings is that life is not a race, but a sum of moments. How can I win every time in life and how do I succeed every time, even if the failures that I count for half of my moments are bad by the world standards. Wouldn't it be precious to me. In other words, can I cherish the moments the world labeled as failure? So in those moments that were my best shouldn't I do my best to be proud. Again. What makes this more powerful is that she wrote this after the K drama, she was filming wrapped with a 0% watch rate, which the world would of course label a failure, but she found herself proud of the work that she, and those who she worked with accomplished. And honestly, I'm proud of her too, because I thought it was a really good show that I'll probably watch again, but I really love her mindset and her response to the criticism that she faced. If I apply to my own life, it's very easy for people to label me as a failure or see me as having a life that's less than ideal. I'm 35 years old, single with no children and marriage and kids matter a lot to people, especially in the Christian community. I'm just starting to get my bearings financially. This year. I'm still in college, even though I have one semester left and I'm still living with a mare and cause success is often determined by something you can visibly measure. And I don't really fill people in on what's going on behind the scenes. It's very easy for people to believe that it doesn't matter that I've maintained sobriety for eight years. I'm one semester away from my degree, earned a 3.75 GPA this semester and have overcome quite a few mental and personal battles in the last year alone in order to prepare for the life that I'm purpose to live. It doesn't matter to others that I work for a great company, and that I've accomplished the goal of being able to make living for myself while still being able to be generous to others. It's easily dismissable because I don't my life in a way that is appealing to others. It's all about optics for most. And that comes with a belief that if there is an evidence that something or someone is valuable to the world, then that automatically means that it isn't. But after reading that caption, I imagined how out of my mind I would have to be to let other people define success for me. I really have to have an attitude of gratitude and thank God for the small and big victories, knowing that, uh, even bigger victory is ahead of me, does the lack of support or how other people perceive me hurt at times, of course it does, but I always have to remind myself that my purpose supersedes of co-sign or the public stamp of approval, it really is bigger than the limits other people would like to place on it for myself. And for all of you who are listening to sum it up, I would say that for 2021, I learned to set clear boundaries in order to have a healthy love for yourself and others. And in order to not be influenced by as traumas or continue to carry unhealthy thoughts and actions into your future relationships. I learned to love yourself and others freely and openly. And finally, I learned to not let anyone define success for you. Cherish every victory, small, big cherish, every relationship, and find someone who can celebrate with you and hold them close. Cuz they're a real one. Next year. I'm excited to continue Y F episodes with a variety of topics. So make sure you follow or subscribe and stay tuned for more great content surrounding mental health until then if you need additional resources for mental health addiction and suicide prevention, head over to www dot you're not finished.com and click the get help section. If you wanna share your story or your journey as someone with a diagnosed mental health or mood disorder to be shared publicly or anonymously on the Y and F website, shoot me an email to you're not finished@gmail.com. Make sure to follow me on Twitter at YN finished and on Instagram at YN F cast to stay up to date on the latest episode and for encouraging content. And I will see you guys again next time. Thank you so much for listening and I hope you have a great start to your new year. Bye.