Out Here Tryna Survive
Out Here Tryna Survive is a trauma-informed, reflective podcast centering the emotional lives, resilience, and humanity of Black women — especially those of us navigating midlife, healing, motherhood, and healing after survival.
Hosted by Grace Sandra — Mama, storyteller, advocate, and lifelong student of survival — this podcast explores what it feels like to live in a world that constantly demands our strength while offering little protection.
Through personal storytelling, cultural reflection, and nervous-system-aware conversations, each episode holds space for truth, grief, joy, rage, softness, and repair.
This is not a place for perfection or performance. It’s a place for us as Black women to exhale, feel seen, and remember ourselves.
We are braver than we believe ✨
Out Here Tryna Survive
EP 36: Quiet Wins That Made 2025. Let's Reflect!
Let’s tell the truth about a “good, not greatest” year and why it still mattered. We walk through six lessons that rewired how we think about success, love, and healing: movement as medicine for the nervous system, the power of changing your scenery, and why the best highlights might be free. From a poolside summer with my daughter to a hike that started tense and ended in laughter, these small moments outshined the glossy wins and reminded me that you don’t need a new life—you need new inputs.
We also get real about relationships. Dating didn’t end in a ring; it ended in peace. Safe experiences built secure attachment, and gentle, mutual goodbyes felt like progress. I share why I chose myself over a future that didn’t fit, what aging and marriage data look like for women, and how attachment spirals turned into therapy, boundaries, and a calmer nervous system. If you’ve ever wondered whether a short romance can still be meaningful, here’s the case for yes.
Healing refused to be linear. Money stress stayed loud, but the brain changed. Weekly therapy, long walks, sunlight, and podcasts on mindset stacked into tangible calm. Hormone therapy and finally treating ADHD restored precious focus windows, and with them came a new measure of worth: not output, but aliveness. I talk about launch attempts, burnout, and the choice to unlink capacity from self-esteem. The result is a hopeful, rosterless ending to the year, defined by quiet wins, clearer limits, and a plan to start 2026 with simple, free shifts that actually move the needle.
If this resonates, hit follow, share it with a friend who had a meaningful but unremarkable year, and leave a quick review—your words help more people find the show and rethink what a “good year” can be.
So I want to talk about 2025, y'all. Not in a highlight real kind of way. Just in a like, let's talk about what worked and didn't work. This is definitely not in a look how much I accomplished way, but in a truthful way, because not every year is our best year. And this was a good year for me, not my best year, but not my worst year either. I have six lessons I want to share with y'all, and I'm gonna ask you some questions along the way to help you process your 2025 as well. But first, let me welcome you to the Out Here Trying to Survive podcast, episode 36. I'm Grace Sandra, your host, and today we are going to deep dive into 2025. So I sat down last night and I did my highlights for 2025. If you're listening, head over to YouTube and you can see the video version. And I'm showing you guys my bloom planner. So I used the bloom planner for 2025. This was the cover. This is eight and a half by 11. It's a little big, so I went smaller for 2026. But what I love is it has you reflect back at the beginning of the year, like what you rated your year at the beginning and then what you rated at the end. It's so encouraging for me. And then it had me do a monthly highlight. So I wanna, I'm not gonna read this whole thing, but I want to show you what really stood out to me and how I reflected on my year and what I want for next year, particularly because it's my birthday month, y'all. So in eight days, I turn 49 on the 30th. And because my birthday falls literally at the end of the year, I feel an extra surge of motivation to really figure out what I did well in this past year of living and what I want for this next year of living. So this time is always kind of hopeful for me after Christmas, because Christmas has its own issues as a whole other thing we're gonna talk about later. But I did my reflections last night, and this is a monthly highlight. So I went through actually my Instagram feed just to like, because usually I, if something is really good, particularly I share it on my Instagram feed, not just the stories. And so I went through my feed and wrote down the highlights. It was such a good year for me. I realized, and it wasn't because everything worked, it was because so many things clarified. And I realized that some of the things that clarified didn't get shown online. Like I went back and wrote in, like, oh yeah, that was a big deal for me, but obviously I didn't share that publicly because it was quite personal. I think a lot of us miss things because they don't look necessarily like impressive online, and that's what I want to help us dig into today. So if you're ending this year tired, a little bit confused, unsure, but also proud, this episode is for you. So the first lesson that I realized as I look back on my whole year is that movement changes things. Movement changes your nervous system, not just your life. You don't need a new life, you just need new inputs. So let me give an example. I've been listening to this Abraham Hicks video on YouTube that just has constant affirmations. And one of the things she says is, I'm gonna have way more fun. I'm gonna have way more fun. That's just something I've been repeating to myself over and over again in the last few years that I've been really struggling with mental health-ish. And just the struggle it is sometimes to get out when you feel depressed, when you feel sad, you know? You just want to isolate. And I realized that I needed to get out more, so I had on my list for 2026 the desire to just get out of Michigan more often, as often as I could, even though like I haven't had a lot of money to do that. I was like, I'm gonna figure it out. So I started and ended this year with two trips, and both of them were completely covered by other people. That wasn't exactly intentional, but in January, one of my exes was like, Hey, I'd love to see you. I want to, I'll bring you down to Miami. And I was like, Okay, because I had just had a situationship end that was really painful for me, like really, really painful. And I was really sad about it and I was feeling so rejected and so unwanted. And then here my ex comes along. Now listen, is it always a good idea to travel with an ex? No, in hindsight, I don't think that we know each other anymore or get along very well anymore at all. But when he was like, I'll take you to I'll bring you down to Miami, I was like, Yes, sir, I'm going. I ended up traveling like mid-February, and it was when it was freezing cold and in Michigan at least. And just getting down there and going to the beach. By the way, if you're listening only and you want to see some visuals, I'm gonna add some visuals of all the things I'm showing, of all the things I'm talking about, just to kind of give you more of an oomph. But it just felt so good to get out of Michigan. I traveled so little in 2024. And then I ended this year going to Arizona for my master's degree ceremony, and I just could not afford it. So I asked a bunch of different people in my life who have said they love me, they support me, they stand behind me, like, hey, I know you love me, I know you support me. I literally cannot afford to go to my graduation. If you can help, I would love to go. I know times are hard, but I'm trying to just do like a pool. I didn't do a GoFundMe or whatever. I just literally reached out to like 10 people and they were like, Yes, oh my gosh, I love you. I would love to help you. And so like a group of, I would say probably nine or 10 people, and a group of my friends were like, Yes, you should go. And they gave me enough money and I went. And I had the best time, not only just getting to celebrate myself graduating with my master's degree. Again, it's cold here in Michigan, and I was able to go away, and it was 80 degrees at the pool on the day that I was graduating, walking around campus, swimming, just like living my best life. It was so great. It was such a reminder of like how good it is to switch up your environment. And if at all possible, do what you can to do that. But here's the thing, y'all. Those two trips cost money. The other highlights of this year were trips that did not cost money at all. I realized that some of my best moments of 2025 were things that were free. My kids and I went on a hike on Mother's Day, and even though it started off stressful, we ended up having the best time. We laughed together. It was just a great day, and I look back on 2025, and that is literally one of the highlights of my year, and that was completely free. Another thing is I spent so many days at the pool. Our apartment complex has a pool, and I make use of that pool. Yeah, I be up at that pool all summer. My boys are teenagers and they don't really love being at the pool, but my daughter and I do. So we were up there a lot, and when I look back at 2025, me and her just we bonded so much at the pool. I think I probably have like 600 pictures of my daughter and I at this pool over the last six years since we lived in this apartment complex. I also had another trip that I did to South Haven, Michigan, which is my favorite lake in the world, Lake Michigan is so beautiful. If you've never been, you gotta try Lake Michigan. It looks like an ocean, but it's a big, giant freshwater lake. No sharks, no jellyfish. Nothing that can kill you is in there except for the water itself. So you gotta be careful. The trip to South Haven was actually a date. I went on with a guy I only end up going on a couple dates with. But we did have a really nice time. And I didn't get to South Haven any other time this summer. I literally can't believe it because I love going there. It's only a 45-minute drive from my house, and it's so beautiful. But we walked around the sand dunes and we hiked the sand dunes and then just stood out on the hill overlooking the lake. It was a beautiful view. It was a beautiful day. And honestly, because it was the second date and I didn't really know him really well, we had a really fun time. That was before I got to know him better. For me, leaving town, it wasn't about escaping, it was just about reminding my body that life is bigger than the things I have here, than what feels can feel suffocating sometimes here. Sometimes parenting can feel suffocating here, being in the apartment we're in, you know, not being able to buy a house yet. Being in the same place for a long time for me personally can feel very suffocating. So it's about reminding your body that there's life beyond your zip code. So here's one question for you that I'm asking myself for next year as well. Number one is where can you change your scenery without spending money? How can you just get out of town or do something just different enough where you don't have to spend to do it? And number two, let's put this into practicality right away. What's one different day? Just something different out of the ordinary, something you don't usually do that you can plan for next month. Like start in January 2026 with something that's just different enough. If you don't have the money, figure out what's free to do. And I'm gonna do this too. Lesson number two is that the small free moments, again, were really the highlights, the ones that felt insignificant at the time. There was just no way for me to anticipate that when I would look back on 2025, that I would literally see the time that I spent with my girlfriends and with my kids as the absolute highlights. I would have thought the highlight would have been going to Arizona or the Miami trip. And those were great. Like I said, those were so beautiful and so much fun, and I'm so glad I got to go. But honestly, looking back, I spent a weekend with one of my girlfriends in June or July, and then another girlfriend got married in town, and I went to her wedding, and it was so wonderful to be at her wedding. And also that summer, I was dating someone who I really liked. And we went on a couple of dates, we went on four dates, and I had a really good time. All four of those dates, I really enjoyed dating him, even though we didn't keep dating, but it was wonderful, and I loved those little dates. And I look back and I'm like, wow, that was really cool. Like I enjoyed that so much. That hike with my kids again, it's it felt insignificant even that day because to be honest with y'all, I almost blew up at them in the car when we first pulled up. My daughter was acting, I'll just say sassy for lack of a better word, about not wanting to go. And I was sitting there like this trying to calm myself down because I was ready to start screaming and swearing because we had just gone out to lunch. And as things go with kids, I was frustrated. I felt like they were acting ungrateful. I tried to have this serious moment because it was Mother's Day, and I'm like, tell me what you love about me as a mom. And they just were giving me all these stupid, silly answers, and they weren't taking it seriously. And I felt unloved and I was all in my feelings. And then they were just being brats and spilling things, and it just it was like a stressful lunch, right? And so then by the time we got to the park, I was stressed, and then my daughter was acting a fool about going to the park because there was no playground. And I was sitting there fuming, and I was like, Grace, I want you to choose patience and kindness and love right now, and just get out the car. And if they follow you, they follow you. If they don't, they don't. So they got out of the car and they followed me, and then we ended up having the best time. It was such a fun hike, and my daughter on the way back, on the walk back to the car, was like, Mom, that was really fun. We should go hiking again sometime. Mom, life, it's something else. It's something else. But those moments, I remember them so clearly. And I could have just gone home and been like, let's all just get on our devices and ignore each other. But we ended up having a great day. Here's our reflection for my second lesson. I want you to take a minute and just think of three things this year that felt maybe insignificant at the time, but were hugely significant. Also, if you have a journal, I know a lot of people listen while they're driving or doing hair or whatever. But if you happen to be sitting down or you can journal, write these questions down because these are great reflection questions that I asked myself and am asking for next year as well. When you look at things, particularly things that didn't cost a lot in terms of money, maybe yes, time, but it helps us reframe what worth really is, what success really is, and what's really meaningful at the end of the day. I think I've had a sense just for the past two years, I've talked on about this before, but I had a very, very, very close unaliving attempt in 2023. And I think since then, because I came so close to doing it, the closest I've ever been as someone who struggled with very deep depression issues all my life and have had unaliving ideations all my life, especially really bad with PMDD and postpartum. That unaliving almost attempt in 2023 was very clarifying for me in terms of like what I want to live for. Like I'm gonna be here. I decided I'm gonna be here. I'm never gonna let myself get in that place again. Whatever I need to do to treat the depression, the peramenopause, the PMDD, the complex PTSD, whatever it is I need to do to treat all this stuff, I don't ever want to be in that position ever, ever again because I do feel like for me, my kids are my driver. That's what keeps me here. I don't think if I didn't have them, I don't think I would, I would hope that I wouldn't ever do anything, but I y'all, I'm just keeping it real with you. But it made me realize since then, because I did watch some end of life people in nursing homes and stuff like that, they'll do those end of life or like a nurse who's like, Yeah, I worked with people at the end of their life, and this is what they said. And all of them have made it pretty clear. I feel like we all know now. At the end of our life, we're all wishing and hoping that we had invested the time in the people we love and really gave those people our best, really made room for people who make room for us. Typically, that is for women, our children and our grandchildren and our siblings and things like that, and our best friends. So I've known that in a very crystal clear way that I feel like only age can give you since 2023. And I've been, I mean, I knew that before y'all, but I'm just saying it was crystallized in my brain since 2023. And I have really made very concrete, very specific, direct efforts to prioritize these damn relationships and best friendships because I know that for me, women are what save me over and over again, specifically black women. Black women gonna save your life over and over and over and over again. We're literally just the best people. I mean, we really are. So when I tell you I prioritize those relationships, baby, I prioritize them. And that is one thing that I can look back on 2025 and say, girl, you did a damn good job with your girlfriends. You did a damn good job, girl. Good for you. Good for you. Pat on the motherfucking back. Lesson three is that dating can be healing even when it doesn't work out. Y'all, can we just normalize non-dramatic endings? Can we normalize just dating good men and just walking your separate ways because you realize it doesn't work? I met a lot of good men this year. Well, I won't say a lot, but I met good any man who was involved with me at all this year was a good man. I had so many good days and good dates. There was absolutely no chaos. There was one situation that did bring a level of chaos. Like I said at the beginning of the year, a situationship ended that was so painful. But it really was a wake-up call for me in a big way. I had a very brief attachment spiral that I did an episode about I'll post here, which really got me in touch with my inner child in a way that was really beautiful and really healing. But I took the lesson and I have not had anything even remotely close to that since then. I have had no lingering obsessions at all this year, done finito kaput. And I'm ending this year completely, fully rosterless, happy, at peace, with no longing, no desire, no angst, no tears regarding men just feeling good. And when I look back at this year, I didn't find a partner, my lifelong partner. I did have one very brief relationship. I'll talk about that in a minute, but I did find security within myself in a way I have never, and I mean never in all of my life experienced. Never, y'all. Never. I have never felt so happy to be single and alone and secure in myself ever at any point in my whole goddamn life. Okay, let me just make that clear. And it's such a great feeling, and I'm so glad that I got here. So, so, so glad. But one of the lessons that I learned in 2025 is that dating doesn't have to end in marriage to be meaningful, and it doesn't have to last to be significant at all. Because we know now, and science has shown us that safe experiences rewire attachment for us, and that you can build off of those safe experiences to keep having more safe experiences. I also learned that walking away peacefully is progress, baby. It's progress. And there was some point this summer where I dated the guy, the guy I dated in the summer. We'll just call him Mr. Lansing. Mr. Lansing, we had four dates and we walked away so peacefully. Like in our last conversation, we both shed some thug tears. We were just talking about how much we meant to each other and how beautiful the connection was and how peaceful and how much peace it brought and how much we really cared about each other. And part of the reason it couldn't work out, it wasn't because we didn't care about each other, it was because he just is too busy. He is just too busy with his career and was just unwilling, unwilling to sacrifice his career. And he finally was just like, Yeah, I cannot slow it down. And I realized that this is not what you deserve. And I was like, Yeah, it's not what I deserve, it's not what I want. And it was sad, but I was also like, I would rather have him be up front and say, Yeah, I am just choosing my career right now. And that's what he did, but it didn't, it didn't make me respect him any less. I still thought he was a great guy, and we had a beautiful ending. And I thought I would address the elephant in the room, maybe not for y'all, but for me, because I did a whole episode, I did a whole episode, episode 32. I didn't find love until I didn't want it anymore about my new relationship. So I'll just tell y'all the little teeny tiny bit of tea about that being over because I also walked away peacefully, and I'm so thankful for that. And it was a very brief relationship only because I realized that we were not compatible in ways that were really important. But the thing is, is before I got into that relationship, I knew that I would be fine without being in another relationship for a really long time. And I knew I've been kind of slowly coming to this conclusion that I don't think I really ever do want to be married again legally. I have been married twice, and both times were really painful and really difficult. I fought really hard for both of those marriages, and they both ended up in a big pile of ashes and dust and pain and grief and brokenness. They both were so painful while I was married and so painful ending. I take responsibility for my part in both of those, and I know that both of my ex to some extent take responsibility for their part as well. And even when you have people trying, two people can try really hard. Like my first marriage is almost 15 years, and we were both trying really hard for a long time, and it was still so painful. I just, I don't want to do it again, y'all. I I I really don't want to do it again. I just posted the other day something on Facebook, and I said, you couldn't waterboard me into getting married again. It's something that I feel like it's not an experiment that I want to keep going. I mean, in some ways, I'm like one of those people that's like, you know, whatever the universe has for me, I'm open in some ways, but I just really don't think that that's something that I would do ever again. And a few people on Facebook asked why, and I told them, we've all heard this before. There's very good studies, there's heavy statistics about how, you know, women my age, which I'm 48 right now, don't tend to have good outcomes when they get married a second, third, fourth time. The divorce rates for those marriages, for second marriages are pretty high, but for third and fourth and fifth, they're like abysmal. People don't get it right the more often they try to be married. If anything, you get it more and more and more and more wrong. But more than that, the studies have shown over and over again, it's becoming more and more popular teaching that as women age, we are more happy if we're single, if we're not caretaking a man. We are more happy, we're healthier, we make more money, we have better relationships with our kids, with our grandkids, with our girlfriends, we have more hobbies, we are living in nicer places. And because of today's day and age and all the freedom that women have, we just don't need a man or a husband to keep us happier. And we are in fact happier when we don't have them, which is the opposite for men. Men are happier and make more money and have better relationships with their children and all of those things when they are married, and that is typically because the woman is facilitating it. And when they are single, they have worse lives. They die earlier, they don't have relationships with their friends or their kids or their grandkids, and they don't have hobbies. And a lot of times men are unaliving themselves because women are the glue that help them to stay happy and healthy. And that whole dynamic is just so prevalent when I meet men nowadays, especially men my age, and it's so obvious. Amount of emotional labor that goes into not just me but my girlfriends too, my age, like the amount of emotional labor that goes into helping men to be somewhat normal, kind, loving, giving humans, it's really disgusting. Maybe annoying. Maybe that's a strong word, annoying. Anyway, child, that was my long-winded way of saying that I have pretty much realized I don't think I ever want to get married again. And then I met someone who we fell in love and we had a great connection and we were very much moving forward, and he was very marriage-minded and really does want to get married again. For him, it would be his second marriage, and for me, it would have been my third, and just very much on that track of like he was like, you know, we're gonna be together, and it just seemed like this is a great fit. This is what probably what I've always wanted, and what he's always wanted, and this is probably gonna be an amazing relationship and we'll end in marriage. And the more that that idea came forward, the more I was starting to feel like I don't know if I can do that. I don't think that that's where I want to go, and this is clearly where he wants to go. And then on top of all of that, once we had, you know, spent more significant time together because we were long distance and our last significant trip, which was to Austin, I realized that there were some ways that we are not compatible that I think would have made me sacrifice who I am. For him, it was simple, like, oh, we have love. Love is all we need. And I'm like, no, not in 2025. We need more than love, we need compatibility and some major things. And I realized that I was going to have to sacrifice a part of who I am for his aspirations and his career. He has a big career and an even bigger one ahead of him that he's really passionate about. And it's his dream. It's not something that I want to be a part of. And I'm not gonna say specifically what it was, just that he has a future that I don't want to be a part of and it's not a bad thing. It's a good thing, and I think he should pursue it, and I want him to pursue it. And I told him in the end when I ended it that I thought that he deserves someone who is very excited about being the wife of someone who wants to do the big things that he wants to do. But that's not my calling or my direction. And I didn't want to lose myself or suffer as a result of being married to a cishet man after I have already suffered so much, being 20 years combined, married to two cishet men, that honestly both harmed me in ways that I don't care to have happen again. And also, just to be clear, I'm not saying that I did not harm them, but so I walked away from that relationship and that was hard to do. It was a really hard choice. But the fact that I was able to do that after such a short amount of time without just carrying it off and telling myself, no, it'll be fine, it'll be fine, which is what I would have done in the past. I chose myself, and for that I'm really proud. Lesson four is healing isn't linear, and that is not a failure. So I spent this year scripting, meditating, manifesting, going to therapy, trying to make money, trying to manifest money, and I'm gonna be honest with y'all, not all of that came true, not even close. Not everything manifested the way that I wanted to. Some of the stressors about money stayed really loud and did not let up at all. I was provided for, usually just enough and sometimes abundantly or a little bit extra, but not like the abundance that I was trying to manifest. My brain changed, and that is a beautiful, beautiful thing. But sometimes that's not the like exciting stuff, you know, like, oh my god, my brain changed. Yay. But I realized looking back at my highlights, the work worked. Okay, the work was working, the math was math, and in terms of what I was trying to do. I was trying to change my mindset. The mindsets was mind setting, the visions was visioning, the brain was braining. And what I want y'all to know is that we can honor these practices we did and see the value in them, even when it doesn't produce what we thought it should have produced. Even though everything we hoped for didn't come true, there's still so much value in what we did. The journey really is the destination in some way. I also learned that healing is cumulative, not transactional. It's cumulative. And I can see how in the last like three years, especially since the unaliving, like that was a very big time in my life, like that was a very big transition in my life with me realizing if I'm going to be here, I'm going to be here. Otherwise, I might as well just go now. If I'm not gonna live, I might as well just go. It was a very key moment because I really almost died. So I want you to look back at 2025 and think about what are the things you did to serve yourself, to love yourself, to grow yourself that you can see like this had changed. So I want you to look back on your 2025 and ask yourself, what are the things I did that really added to my health and my healing and my wholeness that I can't exactly say, like, okay, well, this happened as a result of this, or what are the things that you can say, I'm so glad I did that, that led to my healing, and I'm thankful, even though it didn't get me exactly what I wanted. And for me, that was definitely starting therapy again. I started therapy after I had an attachment spiral, the last attachment spiral I ever had in my life. Like I said, I talked about that in my inner child episode, and it was a win because I realized after a week that this was not going to be good for me, that this man was triggering some kind of anxiety in me that I had never felt a level of anxiety that I had never felt in my life. And I was like, I cannot go back to this. I'm not willing to sacrifice anything, like I said, for a man that would cause me that much anxiety. So I ended it within a week. But I thought, let me go back to therapy. That's one of the things. You know, it's been a slow process all year. I've basically gone every week since April, with the exception of just like a few weeks here and there. This summer I decided to let myself get quiet. Quiet on these walks. I did so many walks this summer. So many. And I decided to listen to podcasts about manifesting and growth and self-help and self-repair and just literally get quiet and get out in nature. Those things, I can't even put a price tag on it. It was so worth it. Besides the fact that I did lose 15 pounds this year and have kept it off just through walking. So there's that too. Lesson number five is that clarity is a win. So if you are a creator, a mother, someone who's trying to do stuff, trying to do the things a side hustler, because I'm a hustler, baby. And I want you to know. If you are a hustler, just like me, I'm always involved in some kind of hustle. I'm trying to hustle, I'm trying to side hustle. Your girl always got like two, three, four side hustles, okay? And if you're trying to do that while you're a mom, and for me, I was trying to finish my whole ass master's degree this year. You probably experienced, you know, some level of exhaustion and burnout. At our age, we're in perimenopause. We're tired. Our moods are swinging like big balls, okay? We got ADHD up the wazoo. ADHD as a result of paramenopause going fucking haywire is a big issue for me. It has meant traditional nine to fives are not an option for me. I do not have that kind of focus. I am literally so happy that I can say I can now focus for maybe two to four hours. Maybe. That's huge for me. In the last four years, it got to the point where I could barely focus on anything for 15 minutes and then I would start feeling massive anxiety. If you never experience it, don't even try to understand what that's like. But you cannot do a nine to five job when you can't focus for more than 15 minutes without experiencing massive anxiety. So Paramenopause ADHD has severely displaced me and really fed up my life in so many ways. I cannot even describe. Even this podcast, y'all. Like, I feel like I could have probably done it consistently and be in a place where it's literally paying all my bills by now if I had been able to literally just focus on the podcast. All I'm saying is this shit done fuck me up. But anyway, let me get to the good part. This year, I was like, I gotta figure out what works for me and what doesn't. I really did set aside a tremendous amount of energy and effort trying to figure out what would work for me. And a couple of the things that really have worked for me are getting hormone replacement theory and then also finally getting everything in order to get medicine for ADHD and finally getting diagnosed and medicated for ADHD, which was a big deal. And then also just deciding to try things anyway and keep going when they didn't work. I decided to launch a digital products business and I got really frustrated after the first week and essentially stopped marketing the products I made, which is ridiculous. But one thing I realized this year was that my capacity was not equivalent to my worth. What I make or don't make is not equivalent to my worth. Just like I can say now, like, oh yeah, I'm not in a relationship or I'm not married. That's not equivalent to my worth. I really took a deep dive at how my worth is tied to my humanness and my aliveness and not tied to my output. That might sound like a really simple thing for you or maybe most people, but for me, it really hasn't been because I felt really bad. Like, why can't I work? Why can't I hold down a full-time job? Why is everything so overwhelming for me? Why can't I make this shit work? Like, why can't I monetize my podcast the way I want to? Why can't I even be consistent at this shit? Why can't I make this digital products business work? Why can't I figure this out? Because I'm so tired at this point. I was thinking that I was just so tired of struggling, being on the struggle bus financially, even though I was trying a lot of different things. And I just decided at some point I cannot make this about my worth, otherwise, I'll stay stuck. So I've been doing a ton of meditations about worthiness and I've been listening to things about worthiness. My self-talk has been really monitored. I really, really monitor my self-talk and I do not let myself tell myself anything other than I'm a worthy ass bitch. That's it. I'm a worthy ass bitch. And if you, any girlfriend, which they would never do, any man in my life, anybody in my life tries to make me feel anything other than I'm a worthy ass, beautiful ass bitch, then they got to go. You got to go. Because I am. I'm a worthy ass bitch, and that's just it, no matter what. So as I think about wrapping up this year and heading into 2026, I've realized that I'm very, very hopeful. I'm very hopeful because 2025 was such a good year after all. I feel very grounded in my hope. And I feel like I'm walking towards peace. I'm walking towards secure attachments with all of the men that I date and or meet. I'm walking into fewer obligations because I'm pacing myself and not trying to perform more than I can, realizing that my worth is not tied up in how much I can produce or how many side hustles I can have or squeeze into a day. I'm ending 2025 with no roster, no roster at all. And it feels so good. It honestly feels so so good. And I'm really just pursuing sexual freedom. And when I feel like enjoying my sexuality, then I enjoy it, but it's still rosterless. If you know what I'm saying, like I'm not terribly interested in emotional connections, so that's a beautiful place to be, especially as an aging woman. Baby, it's nice, it's nice. I'm also going into 2026, listening to my body and continuing to listen to my body and what it's telling me, and that has brought beautiful rewards this year. I'm also being honest about my limits. Like I said, what I can handle and what I can't handle, and only taking work and side hustles and obligations and things that really, really, really serve me and prioritize me. As we wrap this up, what worked for you this year that you almost dismissed because it didn't look impressive? Is there anything that worked for you this year that you were close to dismissing or writing off because it didn't look impressive? I also want to invite you to journal, take some time and journal your quiet wins. What are some of the things that were very quiet, the battles you waged quietly and won quietly so that you can give yourself some props and maybe even tell someone about it if you haven't yet. I also want to invite you to DM me or email me a moment from your year that you loved. You can email me at outhere trying to survive at gmail.com. I would love to hear something that went well in your year, something that you're just happy about, something that you're proud of, maybe something that you don't get to hear enough that somebody's proud of you. Tell me and I will tell you that I'm proud of you because I know how much I need that and how much it means to me, especially as someone who doesn't have parents around. And for some reason, you know, I really wish I could hear it from my kids, but my kids don't don't, they don't never say nothing like that. I mean, I think maybe my daughter has. I don't know, but like sometimes you just want to hear it. I'm just keeping it real. So, like, yes, please let me know so I can give you your flowers while you're here. And I want to also invite you to share this episode with someone who may have had an unremarkable year. And I want to invite you to share this episode with someone who may have had a meaningful but unremarkable year. Someone who didn't have like a big thing happen, but they still grew and showed up for themselves and kept themselves alive, kept their children alive. Those are not small things. You know, as I look back at my past year, obviously I think the big thing for me that was like my big impressive thing was graduating and getting my masters through some really hard years. Honestly, these last years have been hard. But I have just wanted to find joy. And I do think that you can have joy and find joy and be grateful for all these things in your life without toxic positivity. You don't have to go around be like, everything's great, everything's wonderful when it's not. But you can find gratitude in the little things. And that is something I want to keep encouraging you to do that I have done. And honestly, I feel like I've done really well. In some of the hardest times, I've still found so much joy and peace and gratitude for the things I do have. And if you made it this far, don't forget my book, Grace. Actually, this is available on Amazon in hard copy or PDF for your Kindle. This is a memoir of Love, Faith, Lost, and Black Womanhood written over the course of the last 10 years. So there's a lot of stuff in here. A lot of my old stories, y'all. A lot of my old stories. So pick this up. If you like my podcast, then I have a feeling you'll really like this, especially if you're a reader. One thing I want to start doing in 2026 is writing on my substack, baby. So if you like to read, please sign up for my newsletter. I'm gonna try to put fun stuff in there and just some sort of incentive. So sign up now. I've never been good at keeping a newsletter, but sign up for my substack and you won't be disappointed. I promise. If you made it this far, thank you so much for coming with me on the podcast journey. If you're on Apple, please leave me a review on Apple. If you listen on Spotify, do what you can do on Spotify. If you're on YouTube, give me a like, share it, let YouTube know that you like me. You really, really like me. And I will see y'all probably in 2026. Bye.
