Life Update. | WAGOS. ep. 99

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

My beautiful brothers and sisters, welcome back to another episode of With a Grain of Salt. Man, it's been some time. It's been some time. I just want to start off by saying how much I truly appreciate each and every one of you and how much I have missed this space and being able to connect with you guys on an every week-by-week basis. Something that I've always tried to be transparent with and open with is that this is my first time living just like all of us. And you know, I think sometimes when you become a creator and you get put in a certain position, sometimes people can look at you as if you're different than them. But I need y'all to understand that I'm still figuring things out myself. I'm still figuring out myself. Um, I'm still navigating certain things within myself and learning how to let go of certain things and cultivate other things. And like I always talk about, we're walking on this journey together, you know, and so the last two months have really been a very deep, reflective period for me. Getting ready for my move, which I'll touch on in a little bit. I really wanted to reflect and take time to process seven years of being in New York. You know, so much happened while I was there and I changed so much. Um, I grew so much, I was challenged, relationships, different situations, different experiences, and everything in between. And I felt like knowing that my time in New York was coming to an end, I really wanted to give myself the time and space to really process everything that I had been through. And I think it's so important to do that because oftentimes we can get so caught up in looking on to the next thing or trying to get to the next thing that we forget to process the things that we've been through. And when you don't process the things that you've been through, that stuff stays within you, right? And it's actually what can hinder your ability to get to where you're trying to go. So, you know, from you know, doing some reflection and learning from my mistakes, I knew that it was vital for me to give myself that time and space to reflect and process. I realized this when I had transferred schools from Adelphi to LeMont. When I went from Long Island to New When I went from Long Island, New York to Syracuse, New York. I spent three years at Adelphi. And after everything had transpired with, you know, my situation, being diagnosed, ending up in a psychiatric hospital, all that stuff, you know, losing identity, things like that, I my ego was like, I just want to get away, right? And it was really an avoidance response. You know, I was trying to run away from everything that I experienced at Adelphi. And when I finally, you know, went home for the summer and ended up in the transfer portal. I remember telling myself, like, you know, I'm done with Adelphi. I don't even have to think about it anymore. I'm ready to go on to the next thing. And when I got to Le Moyne, it wasn't until I got to Le Moine that I realized that I still had so much emotional baggage that I was carrying from my time at Adelphi. I didn't allow myself to grieve, you know, losing certain relationships, losing certain identities that I had built in that environment, right? Losing such a or letting go of such a transformative part of my life, you know? And it's so important to allow yourself to grieve, you know, because that's what allows you to grow through what you go through. A lot of us don't give ourselves the space to grieve because it's uncomfortable, right? When we go through certain things and we experience different things, um, it comes with different emotions. And a lot of us are conditioned to avoid certain emotions and lean into other emotions, like we talk about. And so a lot of times the reason that people can't grieve is because there's certain emotions that they're not willing to lean into because they're uncomfortable or they have the wrong relationship and perspective on those emotions. So I learned from that experience the importance of allowing yourself to process and grieve the ending of something, right? And grief is a beautiful thing, it really is, because it's showing you the love and care that you had for something, it's showing you how impactful something was in your life. And so, although grief is incredibly uncomfortable, it's also incredibly transformative, right? Just like everything we talk about on this podcast, you know, if we want to grow, if we want to be better, we have to be willing to lean into the discomfort of these different facets of our life. And grief is one of them. When you are stepping away from something that you've been tied to for so long, you have to give yourself time to grieve. Because if you don't, you are going to carry a lot of undesired emotional heaviness into the next season. Right? And I think a lot of times because our perspective is skewed because of the society we live in, we look at grief through the wrong lens. We view it as a bad thing, as a negative thing. But grief is actually giving yourself the space to process what was so that you can step into what is. And that's a beautiful thing, my brothers and sisters. So I learned that from my first experience with leaving Adelphi in Long Island and going to Syracuse, the importance of grieving and processing. When I got to Le Moine, I had realized I didn't do that. And then when all this stuff came up and I had a panic attack my first week into school and I was tripping and I was about to like literally drop out and go back home because I just couldn't handle it and I missed the Delphi so much, and I didn't realize I missed the Delphi so much because I didn't give myself the space. Once I, you know, was aware of all that stuff, obviously, you know, once that stuff came up, I, you know, gave myself the time to grieve it while I was at Le Moine. And I made sure that this time with leaving New York and leaving Syracuse, that I really gave myself the space. And that's really where I've been the last month and a half, two months is just really being with myself, you know. And yeah, a lot of clarity came from it, a lot of self-connection came from it. I was able to really purge uh for lack of a better term, and leave certain things in New York that I didn't want to carry with me anymore. And, you know, embrace new things that I really want to step into mindsets, habits, patterns, loops, uh, relationships. So yeah, that's that's kind of you know a little uh update on where I've been. And then obviously talking about the move, like I said earlier. So I've been in New York for seven years, and I knew that long term I didn't want to be in New York. Um, I was in New York for six years for school, and then two years, excuse me, five years for school, and then two years just working, living life post-grad. And I knew that I didn't want to be in upstate New York long term, specifically because of the weather. I'm big on the sun, I'm big on, you know, uh good weather and and and good vibes. So, you know, once I was uh experiencing those winters, I knew, yeah, I can't do this long term. But like I said, I'm incredibly grateful for that time. And I have nothing but gratitude and love for everything that I've experienced and all the people that I crossed paths with in New York. So I think I mentioned to you guys a couple of months ago, I think it was March, I went to go visit my mom in Florida. And it was that, it was, yeah, March. It was that trip that really shifted things for me. March or April, it was one of those. But it was that trip that really shifted things for me. And being around my mom, being in the sun, I just felt this pull that it was time to step away. And, you know, stepped away from a nine to five, stepped away from a stable income. But, you know, I'm at a place now where I kind of have a very clear vision of the things that I want to cultivate and the ways that I want to go about content, but also creating sustainable businesses and things like that. And so I'm really excited for this next chapter. And I think one of the best times to embrace the new is when you're stepping into a new environment. I mean, if you ever have the opportunity to move locations or move into a new environment, use that opportunity to truly let go of the things that no longer serve you and to step into the things that do. You know, that's one of the best times to do it. Because when you stay in a certain environment, what people have to understand about environments is that we create relationships to things in our environment. So if you've been in an environment for a long time and you've been a certain way in an environment, and now you've reached a point where you're like, I want to change, I want to be better, I want to, you know, step into a newer version of myself, it's very difficult to do that in the same environment because you still have the mental and emotional connections to everything in your environment. So when you wake up in the same environment and you say, I'm gonna go left, but you're conditioned to go right, everything around you and in you is gonna be pulling you right when you're trying to go left. But when you go to a new environment, right, you move locations, move states, change jobs, whatever it is, you don't have any of those mental and emotional connections. So you really have a blank canvas and you're able to really maximize you wanting to, you know, change and grow, right? And now take this with a grain of salt because some people don't have the ability to change their environment. And that's why we always talk about being able to cultivate a sense of you know alignment where your feet are, you know, and so don't think that if you can't change environments, you can't grow because that's just not true. And a lot of times, before we change environments, we're put in that environment for a reason or we're stuck in that environment for a reason to cultivate a certain foundation to set us up for the new environment. So don't allow the environment you're in to stop you from growing or make you think that you can't grow because you absolutely can. It may be more difficult, absolutely, but you can do it. You can do it. So, not to ramble on too long. Right now, I'm currently in North Carolina with my younger brother, younger sister, and my stepdad because they're still here. My mom is in Florida, and I'm gonna go be with her in a couple of weeks and move all my stuff down there, and that's kind of be that's gonna be where my home base is for this next chapter, uh, however long that is, because I love Florida, but like my heart is in California. I'm not gonna lie. Like my heart, like where I want to like really settle down is is somewhere like you know, San Diego, Santa Cruz, Santa Monica, places like that. But Florida is beautiful. I love it. I'm so excited. I'm literally going from one end of the spectrum to the opposite. I mean, I'm going from one of the coldest, most snowiest places in the United States to one of the hottest, most sunniest places in the United States. So I'm really excited about that. And I'm really excited to see how we continue to grow. You know, I don't even want to touch on the things that are in my mind because that's something that I learned in my time in New York, the importance of not always speaking about what you're gonna do, just doing it. Because sometimes when you overshare or over-talk, it creates unneeded expectations, and that actually gets in the way of you doing the thing. But when you just start taking steps in the direction that feels true to you, right? Small daily steps, and you just try different things with no pressure, no expectations. That's what actually allows things to cultivate into what they're meant to be. But when we start telling people what we're gonna do, it creates this added pressure. Now it's like if I don't do it, I'm a failure. If I don't, you know, reach what I told people I was gonna do, then I'm you know letting people down or I'm letting myself down. You don't need all of that in your mind. You just need to, oh, I'm interested in trying that. Try it. You don't need to tell anybody, you don't need to share with anybody and get the feedback if it's for you, lean into it. If it's not, great, try something new, right? And I'm not saying like don't tell anybody because you know, there's people in my life, like my mother, I share a lot with, and even my siblings. So, you know, take that with a grain of salt, but just be very mindful of not talking all the time because sometimes you can get so excited by talking, and then when you don't end up following it with action, you don't go back to where you were, you go below that baseline. That's what leads to disappointment, right? When you set an expectation, you create this heightened emotional state of like, oh my gosh, this is gonna be this. And if it does not match that, you don't fall back to where you were, you fall below it, and that's what creates disappointment, right? And so just being mindful of these things, and I'm gonna get into so many things in the upcoming episodes of things that I've learned, things that I want to talk about, things that um I really want to dive into. This episode is more of just like a life update, you know, uh uh coming back to the space, you know, reconnecting with you guys. So yeah, I think that'll wrap up this episode and this yeah, this episode, because I just wanted to update you guys. So that's currently where I am right now in life, you know, navigating certain things. Uh when I go to Florida on top of the mentorship, because that's been going amazing. I've still been doing that, I've really been enjoying that. That's that's really probably something that's helped me step away from the podcast and social media is still having a way to connect with people and uh do this type of work just in a different space. So that was really nice these last two months because I was continuing on with the mentoring and working with people, and that's been so amazing. I have so many ideas for that, and so many things that I want to do with that. So when I move to Florida, I'll definitely uh update you guys on that as well. But yeah, so many things that I want to talk about, so many things that I want to touch on. Um, in this next chapter, it's it's gonna be beautiful. You know why I know that? Because every chapter is beautiful, even the ones that hurt. So we're gonna embrace this new chapter with the right perspective, we're gonna embrace this new chapter with an open heart, and most importantly, we're gonna take everything in this next chapter with a grain of salt. I cannot wait to get back to our rhythm and to connecting with you guys and to growing with each and every one of you. So I love each and every one of you, I appreciate each and every one of you, and I will catch you in the next episode.