Journey To The Soul

The Year That Asked Us to Let Go

• Jacenda Marie

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The year felt heavy for many of us—like wading through mud with a backpack full of old stories. I share how a stubborn leg pain pulled me out of my routines, forced me to pause, and ultimately revealed the deeper work beneath the surface: unraveling the tie between productivity and worth, learning to ask for help, and practicing a slower, kinder trust in my body. What began as a hunt for a diagnosis—chiropractors, PT, travel compromises, and an MRI—became an invitation to surrender control and listen within.

As plans crumbled in Dubai and Ireland, I met the fear beneath my constant motion. Days on crutches turned into a quiet apprenticeship with rest. Small wins—an easy shower, a short walk, a gentle Pilates session—became teachers of gratitude and presence. When the MRI showed nothing, I let go of the need to fix and chose to heal from the inside out. “Pause, what a gift” became my grounding mantra, reminding me that even this discomfort could refine me rather than define me.

We also zoom out to the larger energy of the year. A universal year nine asks us to shed: beliefs, habits, and identities we’ve outgrown. The new cycle ahead invites beginnings—clear intentions, fresh foundations, and a more honest relationship with our bodies and our time. I share reflective prompts to help you release what’s restrictive and call in what feels true, so you can step into the next season with courage and clarity.

If you’re tired of hustling for your worth or ignoring what your body whispers, this conversation is your permission slip to slow down and listen. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs gentleness right now, and leave a review with one thing you’re ready to release before the new year.

Podcast mentioned in this episode:

The Call to Embody Your Light

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SPEAKER_00:

Hello everyone, welcome to this week's episode. Thank you for joining me today. I have been wanting to record this episode for a couple of weeks now, and the timing just hasn't been right, but I feel like now is the perfect time. Mostly as we get ready to close out the new year. And I wanted to share with you why that was, what I've been working through, and what has been coming up for me as December slowly comes to an end, or the year slowly comes to an end. And I've mentioned in other podcast episodes too how the energy of this year has been more dense. There's been a lot of things that we've all been moving through collectively and individually, and it's not without reason. So for me, 2025 has really been a year of evolution, of expansion, and of healing, more healing. And if you've been with me from the start, you know that that's been a huge thing in my life for the last few years in many different ways, mind, body, soul, and there was just more of that in store for 2025, and I'm all for it. So we actually came back home early because over the last couple of months I've been having a hard time with my leg, my right leg, and doing everyday things like walking or exercise had become more and more difficult. And I mean this goes back probably six months now, and it slowly progressed into something more over the last really the last two and a half months, it got worse and worse, and when it first started bothering me, I actually went to the chiropractor here because I was just having a hard time walking, and I walk a lot. So the more that I went, the more uncomfortable it became, and I wasn't walking normal, like my stance, my walk wasn't normal. So my chiropractor is like, it's probably just something called runner's knee. Your knee is probably just a bit bothered because that's where I would feel it was in my knee, which was a new thing for me. I never had any discomfort in my knee when I ran, when I walked, or anything. So it started manifesting as discomfort in my knee, and it would just get worse, you know, depending on what I did and things like that. But he's like, you know, lay off of what you normally do, you know, the walking and this and that for a month, and it should be better. And a month later, it was still not better, and I was seeing him probably like every week because something that he did, like just at least the imbalance that I was having, something that he did make like he would just put me back to place, even if it wasn't like a permanent fix. So I was seeing him quite regularly too. But when I went to see him a month later, he was like, you know, if it's still bothering you, you should probably go see an orthopedic doctor. And when I went back to see him, it was bothering me, and I still wasn't able to walk as much as I was before. I was having a really hard time actually just walking at all, and I mean after a month of laying off from walking, I thought, you know, hey, it would get at least a little bit better, but it didn't, so I decided to see an orthopedic doctor, and this was in August, and they did a X-ray and things like that, and you know, she checked and everything came back fine, and she's like, you know, I think you should do maybe some physical therapy to help the knee because there's probably something still there, and she also just suggested that I lay off of walking or any other kind of exercise that would aggravate it, and it was kind of hard because even certain things that I was told could help did make it worse at times, like Pilates or yoga or even stretches, like even things that you're like, okay, this should help when you're taking a step back, and they weren't really helping, they would make it worse. So I did PT that the PT she suggested for about a month because at that point, at the beginning of August, we were supposed to be traveling to Dubai and then to Ireland and then to Italy. So we had a long six weeks of travel planned, and when you travel a anywhere, but you know, to Europe as well, it's very walk-heavy. So my only concern was trying to feel as good as possible and not push myself and not really knowing and understanding what was going on too much then, but not push my body to make this any worse than it needed to be. I just wanted to kind of rest, hang out, take it easy, so that when we left on our trip, I would be good as new, you know. So that's what I was focusing on. That was my intention. So I started going to the physical therapy people and working with them and different things like that. And the physical therapist thought that maybe it was more of a hip thing, so everyone thought that it was something different as well. But in this space of resting and taking a step back before my trip, I had a couple of weeks, you know, there was just lots of resting and being and reading and hanging out, and this space really highlighted to me that I still had a lot of fears that I hadn't really worked through when it came to rest, because I was resting in a way that I never had in my entire life before, and it came to like me truly not doing anything some days, but simply just laying or sitting somewhere because I couldn't really walk or do much, and it was something that I really resisted at first because I've always been someone that moves my body every day. I need some kind of movement in my day-to-day life. I'm a pretty active person, so when I was, you know, trying to just not push anything or not try to make things worse, but just trying to make this uh as seamless as possible so that you know when our trip came, I would be good as new. It was just super difficult for me, and it brought to light again certain things that I already knew but really needed to face, and it is my fear of resting, you know, my fear of like if I'm not doing anything, then I'm not lovable or worthy. These are some deep-rooted fears that I've had throughout my life that I've worked on a lot, especially over the last, you know, six, seven years, but that still show up, you know, and I also realized that a lot of the things that I did on a day-to-day basis in the name of health were actually still toxic addictive patterns that I was feeding, like the need to move or the need to do something, this constant need to push and do anything in the smallest way, so that I couldn't feel my fear of unworthiness sometimes. And these are the survival patterns that are in me that have constantly pushed me to perform. I've mentioned this as well in other episodes. I've opened up about this, so these are just some of the things that came up while I was being, while I was resting, and couldn't do more than the basic things every single day. I couldn't, you know, do this or do that. I had to just hang out and you know, ask for help and just focused on being with myself, you know. Also, for me, like the overindulgence of having time to just do whatever I wanted to do because that's really what I could do. So all of these things that I was aware about and familiar of came back again, and they just showed me again how I needed to work through some of these things, and I started to see how this experience that I was going through with my body was a manifestation of my inner turmoil, so this was a manifestation of thoughts, beliefs, mental patterns that was creating this reality. And we've talked about this before. I've I've talked about you know, Louise Hay, but I believe that every disease in the body is simply dis-ease, so an uneasiness, it's tied to something emotionally that we are going through. So when the body shows us something, it's simply showing us something that is going within an emotional pattern, something that we are trying to work through. And I began to understand over the couple of weeks that I was moving through this, that this was a spiritual experience that I needed to work through, that I needed to once and for all really move through these limiting beliefs, these mental patterns that I had had for so so long, and that became clearer and clear, and intuitively I started also feeling like this leg thing, this knee thing was going to simply resolve itself with time. I didn't know how, I didn't know when, I just felt that in my body. So we got ready to leave for our trip at the end of September, and we were in Dubai for three weeks, and as we were getting ready to leave for our trip, my leg was not any worse, but not any better. I had good days and I had bad days, so I just knew that for this trip I needed to be super mindful about you know not pushing myself, not over-exerting myself, and just listening to my body. If it needs a breaker, it can't do certain things honoring that. So while we were in Dubai, I started feeling the discomfort in my knee more and more. So I decided to see a chiropractor there because I know that whatever they do, even if it's temporarily, it gives me temporary relief. So I went to the chiropractor there and he wanted to see me a few times while we were there because he believed that what I was working through was an old trauma, like I had fallen or hurt myself while I was in sports or something like that, and I told him, you know, that I don't ever recall having any situation like that, but I did see him a few times while we were there, but it was really the last week and a half where it got the worst that it had ever been at any moments in time. Like just over the course of a couple of days, I started feeling the discomfort in other places that I hadn't like way outside of my knee, like all along my leg, so it became even more uncomfortable. Something had shifted, I don't know what it was, but something had shifted. So the last week and a half that we were in Dubai, it was just a little bit more difficult as well. We were kind of just laying low, but we headed on to Ireland because that was our plan and that's where we were going to next, and you know, I was a little bit worried about the next half of the trip because okay, being in Dubai, it just being my husband and I, you know, if I needed to rest or just lay low or not really do anything, that's fine and that's easier to do. But the next half of our trip, we were gonna be with friends and doing more things, and you know, once we got to Italy, it was gonna be even more walk-intensive, so I was a little bit worried about that as we were leaving Dubai because I'm like, Sheesh, you know, here I can take a step back if needed, but as we're getting ready to go and do the next half of our trip, it's just gonna be a different trip. And I was already really uncomfortable and having a really hard time because I was starting to feel this discomfort and pain like all over my leg, not just in my knee anymore, and putting weight on it was hard, and walking was hard, and all of these other things, so I was really kind of thinking about that. But the first three days that we were in Ireland, we were actually gonna be alone, just my husband and I, before we met our friends, so I was looking forward to that because then I could rest before we carried on with our travels and everything else that we had planned. And going from Dubai to Ireland and doing that day of traveled, I really struggled to walk and to move around. And you know, when you travel, especially have long travel days to different countries, there's a lot of walking and things like that, and I was having such a hard time. By the time we got to Ireland, I could barely stand on my leg, and I just wanted to sit and lay and be because I was in so much discomfort, so I was really looking forward to those three days alone with my husband and hoping that more resting would just help a little bit, but uh we basically spent the three days that we had in Ireland by ourselves just being at the hotel, which was super cute. We had booked something in a tiny town outside of Dublin for a few days, and I had you know all these plans, things for us to do, you know, in the tiny town, and us just doing things and exploring and all those things, and that's so not how it ended up being because I was still in a lot of pain and discomfort at this point. I really was just for the most part just completely sitting. We really only went to eat in the hotel, and even that was difficult. Sometimes walking to go get lunch or breakfast, so those three days did not go as blend either. We basically just vegged out at the hotel because I couldn't do anything more. Which when you travel and you know you go and exploring and experience the country and all of those things is like part of why you go, so I was a little sad about that, but I was just hoping that my leg was gonna at least get somewhat a little bit better so that we can have the next few weeks and the next few days with our friends. So the next three days with our friends when we met them, my leg just got even worse and worse. I basically couldn't do any of the plans that we had because I couldn't walk still. I was just I really was just hanging out in the hotel room. I did a few things with them one day, but hang hung out in the car when they went to go things that required walking and things like that. And it was just very hard to get around. I was limping, it was just not what I planned. So it was at that point to just accepting that okay, this trip wasn't going to plan, and that okay, that's okay, I need to honor everything. And listen to what my body is telling me. So at that point, as we were getting ready to do our Italian escapade for the next two weeks, that became more and more concerning to me because I was going to need to walk. Italy is not a very friendly country to like not be accessible or not for you not to be able to move around freely. So that was really what I was thinking about. And I started debating about seeing a doctor in Ireland when we were in the last few days of our trips because it's the human part of you when you are in pain and discomfort and going through something where you want understanding immediately, right? It's like what's happening to me? How can I fix this now? Right? It's like we immediately react and we want to do something, we want it to go away. So two days before we were meant to leave Ireland, I decided to find a doctor to try to get an MRI because I wanted to know if there was a tear or something, you know, something that someone hadn't caught, or maybe there was, you know, something that no one had seen before. I was gonna get at least a little bit more insight into what was going on because I just wanted to have as much information as possible so that we could decide if we were gonna go home or keep going with our travel. Because if it was something that could be manageable, which you know I didn't think it it would change significantly, then maybe we would stay. And I was able to actually find a doctor in Dublin to see me, and they were supposed to do an MRI, and they ended up not being able to. That was like the main reason why I went to them. It was like it was not easy to do this as well. The healthcare system in Ireland doesn't make it very easy. But when I got there, and when the doctor came to see me, he's like, We can't do an MRI because we only get one slot a day. This is like an emergency clinic that they have, and I'm like, Ugh, okay. But the doctor did his examination and he looked at it, and my leg had been on and off swollen for the last couple of weeks. He's like, We don't know because there's no MRI. He's like, but I feel like it's probably some kind of small tear, and they gave me crutches, and he offered to give me an anti-inflammatory, and I'm like, no, that's okay. So my husband and I basically made the decision to come home early, which I was really bummed about initially, but I knew that that was a better option than staying in Italy and trying to make that trip work, you know. Um, trying to move around crutches in Italy is just not ideal, and a part of me still wanted more understanding too. So when we got home, my intention was to schedule an appointment with the orthopedic doctor here, but we came home because the pain and discomfort was still so prevalent, and it had been at this place of like unbearableness for three weeks at that point, and it was hard for me to do anything that required me being independent, so the crutches were actually very helpful, and you know, making the decision to come home and not try to figure it out or push myself to be in an uncomfortable situation when my body was clearly like not having it. I knew that that was also part of me really listening to my body and what it was telling me, which is something that I've worked on so much. So when it tells me something, I listen because that was not always the case. I didn't even know what my body sounded like or was telling me for so so long. It was something that I worked really hard for. So, and even though at moments it's been hard for me to accept, like, oh okay, this is what you need, I honor it because I haven't always had that communication. So I knew that making the decision to come home when this was a reality and this was what my body was telling me and showing me, I know that that was also part of this this healing, this process that I was going through. So we came home and I was in crutches, I was in a wheelchair, it was like this whole thing, which I just had a really hard time with. I couldn't believe that this was happening to some degree, but I knew that it was what was meant to be. So when we got home, I did make an appointment to the orthopedic doctor, and I wanted to get an MRI, I wanted to know if there was something, you know, that they had missed. I just I wanted a deeper understanding, more clarity, anything, so that I knew how to work through this. And at this point of me going into this orthopedic appointment, it had been almost six months of me working through this. It had been six months of me not really being able to exercise or move my body. I've had to modify all kinds of movement, you know, of taking a step back, of resting, of you know, trying to do certain things, and then it actually hurting my body more. Like, so it's been six months of these ups and downs, and you know, trying to know what I can and can't do, and I just there's that human part of me again that simply wanted answers. There was a lot of frustration, there was so much frustration, especially in the first few weeks when I was going through this, because I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere, you know, doing the PT, not doing any exercise, resting. It was just very hard for me. And I moved through a lot of these emotions over the last few months because I also knew that it was part of my medicine, you know, dealing with the frustration, listening to my body, and choosing to honor it and what it says, what what it needs, it's showing me what it needs, choosing to come home, you know. So at this point of having the second orthopedic appointment, yes, I have frustration and I want clarity and understanding, but I'm also more at peace with it in so many different ways, too, than I had been when I was first working through this because, like I mentioned, I had worked on this a lot. So I went in with a completely different mentality, and I talked to my spirit guides, the creator, God, whatever you want to call it, all the time for guidance, you know, just trying to get clarity or understanding whenever. And I was asking whether or not I should do this MRI or not, and I was told that I should do the MRI, but that it was probably gonna come back fine, that nothing was gonna show up on it. So I went to the appointment, they did the MRI, they called me back with the results and everything, and when they went in to also do the exam, they couldn't see anything, find anything, but there was definitely discomfort and all of those things. So when they called me with the MRI results a week later, I wasn't shocked. Everything came back fine, they couldn't see anything abnormally, and they wanted me to do a cortisone shot, more physical therapy, and um take anti-inflammatories, and I knew that I was not gonna do that. I knew in my heart and soul that I just needed to hang on tight and keep softening to into this experience, as I had been learning how to do over the last few months more and more to really let go of whatever story pattern was creating this once and for all. So I knew that me going to get an MRI was really just me kind of closing this bubble of just being like, okay, this is between myself and my inner experience that I am going through right now. So that's what I've been doing, and it's been about five weeks since we got back, and it's been about four weeks since I had that orthopedic doctor. And the first three weeks that we got back from our trip, there was a lot of ups and downs physically. There were days where I could do very little still, and I was still in a lot of pain and discomfort, you know, not really able to stand and cook or shower or all of these things, and there were a few days scattered in between where I did feel relief, and the last two weeks have been by far the best, and I've slowly been improving. I've been able to walk around more, do things outside of the house. I've stopped using the crutches, which I'm so grateful for. I've been able to stand up straight and comfortably shower again. I still feel some discomfort in my knee a little bit, but I am definitely doing so so much better. And the last week has been by far the best, and I even did Pilates a few times this last week. I walked for over a mile a few days last week as well. Not fully like at my full speed. I've had to stop when I feel discomfort, but that's okay, and it's just slowly, slowly healing. But it leaps and bounds better from when we got back five weeks ago, and every single day I keep approaching it with this compassion and this love towards my body and everything that it does for me and for my being, for my being, for my soul, the one that's working through this. Because you know, healing is never linear, and I know that it's gonna continue to improve on its own, just like it already has, and there is so much that this has taught me or brought to light once again things that I was already working on or had worked on, you know, but needed my attention again. And one of those things is that I am worthy simply because I exist, you know, I was born worthy, and my worth is not dependent on what I do every single day, and that really came up for me as I was sitting there laying day after day reading, asking for help, realizing that your worth does not come from what you do every single day. It is something that you are born with, you are intrinsically worthy, and I've worked a lot, a lot on myself worth on these things because that has been one of my biggest wounds in my life. But it's stuff like this that are your biggest wounds, take so much time to fully hear, and I I get that, I honor that, so I really feel that more in me than ever. I also realize that it's part of our spiritual experience to not always know. You are not always meant to know every single thing. Sometimes you just need to trust and to have certainty that whatever you are going through will pass and believe it with your heart and soul. And this is like the ultimate surrender that we hear about in so many Eastern philosophies or even in religions, right? But this is the ultimate surrender, this is ultimate spiritual lesson, is not having to know, not needing to know every single thing, it is surrendering. I found as well a newfound love and appreciation for my body. I realized just how sacred my body is, and every single thing that it allows me to do is a gift, you know, even the smallest things, and I found a deeper connection to that with every movement, everything that I was able to do, even if it was only 20 minutes of stretching in a day, and I started just when I caught myself in those moments of like, oh thank you for just letting me do this again, because you take certain things for granted. But when in my day I was able to take a shower comfortably again, or stand and cook dinner, or just stretch, or just not have any discomfort when I walked, those were the moments where I stopped and I just I said a little prayer to the universe, to my body. I thanked it for every small thing that it does for me, and it continues to do because we take all of that for granted until we can't do what we're so accustomed to doing so much of the time. One of my other things that I took away from this experience was actually something that I heard or David Guillaume shared at the his event that we went to while we were in Dubai. I talked about that in my last episode or two episodes ago, but it was something that he shared and I I just really loved it. And he says, whenever we're going through a difficult experience in that moment, pausing and instead instead of reacting, just simply say pause. What a gift, and it truly is a gift to be able to go through whatever experience we are in, to be able to move through any challenging thing, challenging in our mind, you know, good or bad, however we may color it in our mind, it is a gift to be able to move through this. Because from this experience, we grow, we expand, we elevate to our highest evolution. You know, everything that we go through in our life has a reason because it's pushing us to be who we are meant to be, and that's what I know intrinsically with this experience as well. Is this just kindly trying to push me in the right direction? So that was one of my biggest takeaways from the David Kiam event, but that became my mantra throughout these last couple of weeks when I would feel the frustration coming up because I couldn't walk, or I felt the discomfort, or all of these things. It's just simply saying, pause, what a gift, and letting you realize that in this moment what you are going through is truly a gift. I also realized again, or it was highlighted to me once more that rest is so essential, and that if you have never allowed your body to truly rest, it will ask it of you or it will force your hand if you don't heed the call. I also realized that it's okay to ask for help, you know, especially in moments when uh you can't do as much as you're used to, or like for someone like me that is so used to being self-sufficient and all of these things, it's okay to ask for help. It's okay to have other people to lean on, or to do certain responsibilities that you usually do, even if you're the one that normally does them, because of something that you're going through. It's okay to ask for any kind of help when you need it because there are people in your life that want to give it to you. And the last thing that this truly brought to life is that all the divine guidance that I need is within me and around me. I can find the comfort, the guidance that I seek within myself, but really with my spirit team, the creator god. The world can tell you what you need, but all you really need is within you. It is around you, it is the energy of the creator of your spirit team, whatever you want to call it. But everything that you need is within you, and I think that became more and more apparent and imperative when I realized more and more that what I was going through was in fact something. Spiritual and not physical. So even though everyone felt like I should deal with this in a certain way to deal with the physical, that was actually what I needed. What I needed was something very different. And as I was working through all of these things, as I've been sitting here thinking about doing this episode and just getting ready to close out the year, it's really the same thing for all of us. Because what is this moment teaching a song? I just shared what this has been teaching me, this the last year, the last few months, what I've been working through the last couple of months. But we are all of us letting go of so much right now. This is a universal year nine in numerology. 2025 was a universal year nine. That is a year of shutting, of letting go. It's the end of a chapter. And 2026 is a universal year one. And it's also the beginning of a new nine-year cycle in numerology. But one is tied to new beginnings, fresh start, more independent energy as well. It's a little bit more masculine in nature, more initiative. So this year we have all been letting go of so much, working through so much. And that is why this year has felt so dense because it's brought all of these things to light for all of us to have the opportunity to really work through them if we're brave enough to do it. So to end this episode, I just want to leave you with some questions that you can journal on or just meditate on. But knowing what energy we're leaving behind this year and what energy we're walking into, what are you ready to leave behind this year? From a place of honesty and compassion. And it doesn't have to be anything big. It can be the most subtle and quiet thing that's come up for you over the last year. That thing that you are aware of in the back of your psyche, something that perhaps you've already given too much space and attention. These can be thoughts, beliefs, mental patterns, addictive tendencies. What have you outgrown that now feels restrictive? And really think about that. And next year is the first year that we get to play with that. How exciting is that? So, what are you calling in for the new year? What new seeds do you want to plant? What foundation do you want to create for the next nine-year cycle? This truly is a new chapter of your life. What version of yourself do you you want to embody? Perhaps there's an energy that you want to call forward for 2026. Maybe it's softness, strength, creativity, abundance, healing, expansion. And right now, you know, these last few weeks before we go into the new year, it really is a threshold. We're creating space now, we're letting go, we're purging, we're working through all of these things to let in the new. So this really is a threshold, a moment in time for us to really make space for what we are welcoming in. But I know that next year is going to be such a different year for all of us that we are going to walk into. And I hope that this year you gave yourself the space, the ability to move through whatever you needed to move through. That you were brave, that you were compassionate towards yourself, you know, and to just really sit with that energy, you know, before we move into the new year. Really sit with that energy, allow yourself to be with it before we step into the year to come. But I am sending you all so so much love. I hope you are enjoying this time with your family, enjoying Christmas, which will be upon us soon, but also just enjoying the energy of where we are as we think about where we are going, where we've been. This time of year brings up so much stuff within each and every one of us. But you know, we're all walking this path together, even if it looks a little bit different from the outside, we're all walking this path together. I'm sending you all a big hug until next time.