Heal with Grace

54. BTS: What did & didn't work in 2024 and What's ahead for 2025

• Grace Secker • Episode 54

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In this episode, Grace reflects on the lessons learned from 2024 and discusses plans for moving forward into 2025. Key topics include acknowledging and learning from what didn't work, such as overcommitting and not listening to one's own body, and highlighting the importance of being authentic, slowing down, and seeking support. She also emphasises the significance of trusting intuition, building community, understanding the subconscious, and setting personal boundaries for better mental, emotional, and physical health in the coming year.

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Hello, welcome to 2025. We are in the new year. And I'm going to kick us off with a reflection of what worked, what didn't work in 2024. And what are we going to do moving forward into 2025 into this new year? How are we ourselves? What are we doing to help regulate our nervous systems and overall find that, that peace and stability in our lives and our bodies and our minds that we're really looking for and which is really what this podcast is about.

So I'm really excited to dive in and you're going to get a little bit of behind the scenes kind of like what's been going on, how, what things have worked for me, what things have not. so that I hope that this can help you as well. Now, you know, I share things every now and then on this podcast, and I thought that I would kind of go through what I've already been personally reflecting on in terms of, you know, what happened in 2024 that I learned from.

I feel like 2024 was a big year of like deep, deep life lessons. And not just for me, but for a lot of people that I've talked to and, and heard from in terms of just like, Man, things happen that we had to look at and understand and be like, Whoa, why is this happening? What does this mean? How do I handle it?

So that's what we're going to talk about today. So go ahead and settle in, get cozy. And here we go. So let's start with what didn't work. If you've been following me, you know that my life has been a little bit, I mean, jaw dropping crazy. I mean if something went wrong it went wrong that that was me this year you know those people where actually I remember telling a new friend this where I met them for climbing at the climbing gym and I was late and then I get there and my membership is frozen or canceled or something and I have to read do it and I'm extra late and I like.

Forget my something in the car. Just one of those, those moments. And, that's not always me. And I sat down and I was just like, you know what? This is just me right now. I apologize for being late. I'm one of those people that drama is following me right now. And I'm just like in the middle of chaos and it is objective chaos.

It's not, you know, I don't, I mean, obviously I probably play a role in it, but. There's objective actual things happening to me that I have absolutely no control over and I'm obviously attracting some kind of like chaotic energy this year. And so that's just kind of sums up how it went. Like I started off the year feeling like, Ooh, this is my year.

This is like. This is me. I got divorced in 2023, end of 2023 fall. And I was like, I moved to Colorado in December and I was just like, let's go. And Life Universe was just like, no, you're not ready to settle in yet. You still have some lessons to learn here. So just take that into context. if you feel like that a little bit.

You're not alone. I see you. It's, it's been a year of like, what the F? With that comes lessons. I have learned some deep, deep life changing lessons that will be with me forever. Literally has changed me, changed me forever. And so. I'll I'm first going to start with what didn't work in 2024, and then we're going to go into kind of what I learned and what did work.

And all of this is kind of going along the lines of, like, nervous system support, mental health, emotional health, physical health. So, first and foremost. I realized kind of the overarching theme was I was not truly being me. I wasn't being my authentic self and that showed up in many different ways. One was the first part of year of the year.

I found myself really saying yes to so many things when actually I think the true. The true part of me that my true energy wanted to say, no, I felt this pressure to be liked by everyone to say yes to a million clients and opportunities and new friends and, and everything new to avoid discomfort or conflict or, you know, to be accepted and let me tell you, it's exhausting.

I sometimes may be perceived as someone that does a lot, but actually my true nature, if you know, human design, I'm a projector. And my true nature is. Spaciousness in time and the ability to kind of like flow because I, I'm a slower paced person, but I've been operating as this fast paced rushing doing things for being productive all the time, making sure it's all perfect kind of a person, which means I wanted to say yes to everything.

And so. The first half of this year, I really ended up overcommitting and spreading myself way too thin, which left little energy for the relationships that actually nourished me. So the lesson learned is that first and foremost, when it comes to relationships is not everyone has to like me and that's okay.

Now, everyone has to like you and actually. If you are that person that gets along with a lot of people, that's not a bad thing. That's always been me. I've always had like different groups of friends and they're all a little bit different, but I just, I have always gotten along with everyone and I'm kind of like easygoing in that way, which I love.

And I do think there's a part of that where I've dismissed actually what is true to me, who are the people that I can build authentic, connected relationships with. And that goes anywhere from friendships to romantic partners to The way that I hold my family relationships and. This is, I believe, kind of a lifelong lesson, but I really leaned into it and learned it this year.

When we are more authentically us, when we honor our own energy, our own interests, what really lights us up rather than what we think we should be doing or what society or our friend group or family tells us we should do, whether that's verbally or non verbally, we really lean into our energy and that connects us with people that we build connecting relationships with.

So, it is okay to say no. Actually, I think it is incredibly important to say no to things that do not serve you. And you don't have to be mean about it. You don't have to feel like you're, you know, dismissing other people in the process, but setting those boundaries for yourself to truly honor your own energy, your own interests, and your own pace of life will spread in every area, more areas of your life than you could ever imagine.

Ever imagine it'll help you feel more safe in your body. It'll help your symptoms subside because you're truly you. And you're not stressing out your nervous system by being someone that you're not. It goes in so many layers.

Okay. I could have a whole episode on that, but I'm going to move on another tough lesson that I learned something that also did not work this year was trying to be someone that I'm not. This goes along the lines of what I just said, but I want to break it apart and really dive into it because, you may be listening to this, not actually recognizing that you're operating in some way, shape, or form.

As a, as a person that you've learned to be instead of your true nature. And what I mean by that is that society tells us that we're, there's a lot of shoulds in our life. Our family unit tells us that there's a lot of shoulds of how we should behave, how we should think, how she would, how we should act.

And especially if you really, at any age, any generation feels this, but I think especially this kind of like. Especially this day and age, and I think especially for my, for my generation, Millennials and then Gen Zs, is that, we're breaking out of the box. We're breaking out of the mold of who we think we should be, who society tells us to be.

And that means, How much, how much we should work, who we should be in relationships with, who we should be friends with, when we should get married, if we should have kids, all these things that are just kind of expected in life. And we're supposed to be following, we're breaking those norms because that doesn't work for everyone.

And when you follow a path that doesn't align with you, your body responds, your body, your nervous system. It is like. the symptoms are fire alarms going off saying like, Hey, you're not honoring our true needs. There's been way too much stress in life, way too many experiences of inauthenticity. And we need you to listen because this isn't working for us anymore.

There were moments this year where I found myself slipping into sheds and expectations, whether I was changing the way I looked at my life. Previously, or thought I should be on some certain path that I wasn't anymore. I found myself in these expectations playing roles that just weren't me, whether it was in my work or social life, trying to fit a mold that made me feel distant from myself.

And I've realized that authenticity and authenticity. Isn't just a buzzword. It's the key to true connection and fulfillment. When I showed up as someone I'm not, I didn't just lose myself. I also missed out on opportunities for real meaningful connection to myself and with others. And so this might look like spending your day a certain way, spending your weekends a certain way.

Do you spend your weekends trying to be productive and doing all the things or going to the event or the picture perfect place so you can snap it for your Instagram so that you can say that you were there and in reality, actually, you didn't really want to do that. Maybe you just needed a day to rest or to laugh with a friend or be with family.

This is something I feel like I have learned in many, many years in the past, honestly, probably 15 years of doing self development work. I have peeled back the layers of the shoulds and the expectations and tried to be more authentic. And this year was like a whole, just, I laugh now because I have to laugh at it because it's just kind of like, Oh, the universe is like, you.

Thought you knew who you were and you thought you've done a lot of work and you have, you have, you know, what will give you credit for all that. But we're asking you to go deeper, go deep, deep, deep, deep, deep. And really at the deepest layers, I feel like of life is us coming back home to ourselves over and over and over again, which means we got to peel back the layers of the shoulds and the expectations.

So that is something that I think, again, we could probably talk about every single year, but you know, I've realized it with many others. This lesson of just really honoring our own selves and getting out of the way of what our parents thought we should be doing, our families thought we should be doing, our friends group thought we should be doing.

And if there's people surrounding you, judging you and expecting you to be someone that you're not, I would honestly look at those relationships or really set some boundaries because it's not helping you and it's not helping them either. Number three is One of the biggest things that didn't work for me was not listening to my symptoms.

First and foremost, I had an episode a couple months ago, really sharing about the crash that I had and my health this year. And what I really learned from that situation was that I. Didn't listen at first and this is coming from someone that teaches this work. Right. But, I kind of thought I had it all together.

I thought, you know, I'd been symptom free for for years now. And, I was kind of in a place of like, wait, what? No, this can't be happening. I was kind of. And denial of some of the symptoms that were coming up. And, if you know, part of that story, you know, that mold was a big part of that as well. So it's not necessarily something I, everything I, I didn't have control over everything, which we don't usually anyway.

but the whole point was that. I kept trying to push through and be like, no, no, I don't need this. These symptoms, like, that's fine. They, they, you know, I'm just going to keep going in life because that is part of understanding our pain is not listening or not paying so much attention to it. Right. Like not giving it so much power.

But what I learned in the nuance of this is one, Yes, we don't want to give it so much meaning and power and let it take over our lives. But at the same time, we have to slow down and listen. We have to listen at, okay, your body's talking to you when you go do a certain activity or when you are going to work or when you're doing X, Y, and Z.

We have to look at what is that? What's your relationship with that activity? What's your relationship with that person or your work or your life that your body's trying to say, Hey, hold on, listen, right? So a good example is. Aside from the crash that I had with mold, I started having some pain in my neck and my shoulder again.

And this was something that was on and off for a while, but man, it hasn't been this intense in a long time. And I kind of got caught up in like, Oh, this is just me. This is just something I have to deal with instead of really looking at it and being like, wait, hold on. That's not true. It's still this kind of chronic, consistent, persistent pain that is neuroplastic, which means.

It is more brain based because my spine is aligned. I have some scoliosis, but that's not a reason for pain. sure. I have an old injury in my shoulder and old injury in my right, my right arm. but that's not a reason for me to have pain now. So I had to really look at, okay, how am I in a controlled and rigid way in my life for my body to react this way.

So I would pay attention to the activities I was doing. How was I holding my shoulders and my neck throughout the day? I had to really listen and look at where am I pushing myself? How am I expecting my body to act in a way that maybe just isn't needed or authentic right now? And how much am I expecting myself to be someone?

I'm not, it keeps coming back to that. Our bodies don't, our bodies are really specific. They're like, no, we want to be authentic. And when you take us out of that, we're not going to do this or we're going to send you pain. So the biggest thing that didn't work number three is not listening. And in order to listen, we have to slow down.

And you've probably heard me talk about this. I have a couple episodes on slowing down because in order to listen, And to look at some of our lives, part of our lives that aren't serving us. We have to understand when we're pushing, when we're forcing, when we're not listening, when something's really wrong.

And so not listening to their symptoms means dismissing yourself again. Hope you're finding that theme here or you're seeing that theme here. The last one that did not work was relying too much on physical treatment and not listening to actually what's going to help me. So this is a little bit of a touchy subject because I do very much so appreciate and rely on functional medicine and treatment protocols that really help us.

Again, if you followed me, I had to go through some mold detox. So I was doing some treatments that very much so helped me and I'm very grateful for them. At the same time, when I first started crashing, I got really rigid around what type of supplements I'm going to take. How many I'm going to take? What kind of like treatments do I need to do?

Protocols I need to do? What kind of testing do I need to do? And it got really intense and too much. I was overwhelming myself. I'm a sensitive being, and I react really strongly to whether that's a symptom, I mean, I'm sorry, a supplement or a medication, and it's hard for my body to take on a lot. And so even though some of these things very much so have helped me, at some point I had to take a step back and ask myself, okay, am I actually supporting my body or am I overwhelming it?

And the truth is that my body thrives with simplicity, not excess. Sometimes the most profound healing tools are the simplest ones. And with supplements and protocols and medicine, you know, this, please take this and make it specific to you because everybody's body is different. Some people can handle more than others and there's no right or wrong.

But for me, I just had to really realize that this is just going to be a little bit longer road because I need to take things one step at a time. My body can't, my body is already so in the stress response that anything I put in it is going to just be too much. so much. So I had to take my time and rest nourishment and self compassion are some of the biggest and most profound healing tools that we can do.

So a couple of things that did work in 2024, I already addressed them a little bit. when I talk about what didn't work, but a couple of things I want to highlight one, probably the biggest one is that I really leaned into support. We cannot do this work alone. We can't do this life alone. It's, we're really not meant to.

And when you're caught in chronic pain, chronic illness symptoms, you're going through grief, a big life change. You can feel very isolating because you may not be surrounded by people that get you, or you may not really have connected relationships. I'm totally want to be aware and call that out that.

You know, when you've been in this world for a while, meaning the chronic illness and pain world, it does inherently isolate you because people won't understand. You have to cancel. You have to take yourself out of things and you lose momentum with relationships. And so finding support. Is so important. I had, I found a doctor here that I trusted.

They still trust. I leaned on my therapist. I leaned on my energetic guides, and I have more of an intuitive healer that I work with. And, I found. A really supportive embodiment, somatic coach, that's helping me go a lot deeper and to my body and to feeling my feelings and connecting with spirit. And, you know, that might not be online with what you want to do, but just support, support, support, support is just, I cannot highlight it enough.

And it is an investment. It can be an investment. Right. And I understand that. It can be scary because you don't know if it's going to work out and you've probably had practitioners or doctors or support or therapists that didn't work and you might feel a little resentful for that. I get it. I've been there.

but it's not worth just not doing it. It's actually just not an option. I kind of want to just set that boundary. Not having support is not an option in this life and on this journey, specifically, at least it isn't for me. I've always really valued and set aside money and time and resources so that I can have support, whether that means a therapist or a coach or a doctor practitioner, because I really, really value that.

And I learned so much like. There's no way I'd be where I am today without my mentors and teachers and support systems, because you learn something different from each person. So I just have to put that out there because it is just like, yeah, I just have to give so much credit for all the support and the guidance that I've, I've had along my way.

And that's why I love what I do. I just, I can't not. I want to help support people because I've been supported and I've been guided and had wonderful mentors. And I love doing that work. I love working with clients. I love working with other Sarah therapists and coaches and teachers and helping guide them on their way.

some of the favorite. Some of the some of my most favorite work to do and so, if you have been thinking about that, I will say we do have some availability and we would love to help support you. So find the link below to sign up to see if that would be good for you. And honestly, I didn't even plan to.

Plug that I didn't plan to like, say, Hey, we're available, but I can't not, I just can't. cause it's so, so important. So please find your support, whether it's us or someone else, find those people, ask around, it might take a little bit, it might take a couple of people, but you'll, you will find them.

So that's a big, big one this year for me. And there's no way I could have ever done this alone. And another thing that worked really well for me. Is I learned to expect the unexpected I learned to ride the waves, meaning when life just kept throwing me all the shit I, I thought it at first, and I got really hopeless and frustrated.

And I was like, why is this happening to me? Why is this happening this year? You know, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I realized, wait, I'm actually fighting my, I'm fighting the process. I'm fighting myself and that's. It's going to actually make it worse and not allow doors to open. So when I released the need for control and really trusted spirit and life and my own path leaned into that, and believe me, it's a process, it's a practice every day that I do because I'm someone who wants control and I want to control everything.

And I have a really strong analytical mind that will make me do so. But the downside is that. To that is that I go really heavily into fear, right? I have a very strong fear based mind. I get really worried about what if something doesn't go this way? What if my symptoms pop up? What if this happens? What if that happens?

The best thing I did this year was learn to let, let go, let go, let go, let go. And I say that all the time I release, I surrender, I trust. That I am on the right path for me, the universe does not send us lessons that we do not know how to handle. It might feel like that. Oh, 1000%. But we are meant to be here.

We are meant to go through this life the way that we're going through it and to learn. So if we can look at what's going. On if what's being thrown at us, if we can look at our bodies as messengers and start to learn from that, it's the best thing we can do. And that's the best thing that I did. And it's really opened me up the second half of the year where things are finally really aligning and like stepping into place and I'm flowing and feeling better in my body than I have in a really long time.

And if you think about where I was, even just a few months ago, That's a pretty quick turnaround. I mean, I was desperate. I was like, yeah, not in a good place. And I can honestly say today now, and I'm recording this in December that, man, I'm excited for this next year. Like I'm feeling pretty good. That doesn't mean I don't have my days or times, but Learning to let go and surrender that control is so helpful and it helps on so many levels because the reason why we usually have control and rigidness around how things are going to happen is because our nervous system learned that we needed to, to protect ourselves.

But that's an old pattern. We don't need that anymore. And when things happen, the best thing we can do is to learn how to respond differently. So when a symptom pops up, or something happens in life or your relationships, you look at it and you say, okay, all right, let's see. What's happening? Maybe you laugh at it.

Maybe, you kind of become curious about it. Maybe you get angry and frustrated, but you let it pass and you let it flow. And then you just, you just put one step, one foot in front of the other and move forward. So that's the, that and support are the two things that really, really came out of all of this and what really worked.

And so I hope that that helps you too. Okay. So now what's ahead in 2024? What are we doing? Thank you. What are we doing differently? How are we helping ourselves? How are we healing? So there's a few things that I want to touch on that kind of came out of this year, but what I really want to look forward to into next year and what I'm noticing is helping people.

So first and foremost, Trusting intuition, and I know that that might feel a little abstract, but it's one of the best things that we can do for ourselves in this life is learning how to trust our own self, our own body, our own emotions, and that really comes into intuition, whether that means you're someone who feels into what's right.

you kind of just know, or you see signs that kind of flow together. when we're stuck in a lot of symptoms, we lose the trust big time because our bodies feel like they just broke out of nowhere. And that's not true. That's not what's happening, but it does take time to build that trust up. And then.

Honestly, I think it's a lifelong practice, really leaning into those moments where you feel like, yeah, that feels right. Or Ooh, that feels really sticky and that is not right. Or I don't really know. And I'm having a lot of anxiety around it. That means there's a little bit more of a, maybe that's not right for you.

And learning how to do that is. Takes time and patience and just really listening to okay. What is right for me? What is not? What does it feel like in my body to know something's right? And what does it feel like in my body to know that something is wrong? That's what we're leaning into y'all if all of us if humans can learn how to do this.

Oh, man, it would be Like, we would all just have better relationships and, and better. We would just be better humans. So, intuition, we're leaning into that and trusting our own selves. I also really believe the next thing is the next year is the year of slowing down. And I'm not talking about Netflix, binging slowness.

Although You know, let's be real. There's a few days of those and that's totally fine. But I mean that giving yourself full permission to pause, to breathe and to let go of the grind mindset. Slowing down wasn't just restorative to me. It gave me clarity. I found that when I gave myself the space, the answers I was chasing started to find me.

I started noticing When my nervous system felt overstimulated and instead of pushing through, I gave myself grace to step back, whether it was through short breaks, yoga, simply sitting quietly, really not packing my schedule. And I mean, really having open space in the schedule. The shifts became foundational and here's the kicker slowing down didn't mean or doesn't have to mean getting less done It does mean doing the right things for you So I'm obviously coming from a place of needing that slowdown and I'm guessing if you're listening to this too You probably do it might not always look like the perfect way or you might not have the availability to always slow down but with the whole point of it is to be able to teach yourself and teach your nervous system that We can, you can hold more than maybe your nervous system thinks that it can, right?

So when we have a sensitivity, when our window of tolerance is really small, our nervous system and our brains think everything is dangerous and everything is a threat. But when we're slowing down, what we're really doing is saying, Hey, I can handle this. I can be here. Right. And we're releasing the, all of the shoulds that society have told us to be the most productive selves or you're not good enough.

We're releasing that. That's. It's just toxic and we're letting that go. So let's just throw that in the trash and step into the, Hey, I go at my own pace and I honor my own energy. Let's step into that. That's what I'm doing.

Another huge shift for 2025 is leaning into community.

And that's been a big thing for me this year. Like I've talked about around support, but this time I'm leaning in even deeper sharing, connecting, showing up, vulnerable, choosing people that I connect with and not just saying yes to everyone. And. I'm not just saying this as a therapist or podcast host, but truly as Grace, as me, it means embracing the imperfection, letting people see the messy moments sometimes, and trusting that authenticity builds the strongest relationships and the strongest connections.

And we do that in a safe way. And I'm excited to create. Create spaces where both myself and others feel seen and valued and to really not only hold that space for others, but look for the spaces that I can be held. I can be held in my own authentic vulnerability and emotions and thoughts and just me being me.

We need those and whether you find that in person or online, whatever it is, I feel like it's just really important to find that community, especially if you feel isolated around your symptoms. Join a group, get involved in some sort of way, because we all need each other.

And the next thing that I see coming up in 2025 is really understanding our subconscious, how much it's really driving, well, everything. So our beliefs. And what I mean by beliefs are the parts of us that we have really formed actually most likely in the first five years of life, but those go and then they're reinforced over time, but beliefs are things like I'm not worthy.

I'm not good enough. I'm rejected all the time. I feel isolated. I am alone. I'm the outcast all those like core beliefs that get stuck and. Those drive how we think about things. They drive how we feel about things. They drive our fear response. They drive the stuckness in our nervous systems. And when I talk about subconscious reprogramming, I truly mean shifting those belief systems and building the confidence that we need to, in order to actually be ourselves.

So I've been talking a lot about being authentic and being ourselves, but it's not just about changing your thoughts. It's literally about changing the belief systems that we have that drive so much of our programming. And the way that we do that is getting quiet and understanding what those are and going into meditation and going into shifting our beliefs and our thoughts and accepting ourselves and our emotions.

And so this is something I'm going to be talking a lot about more, and I'll probably have some offerings around this. So stay tuned for more. but there's plenty of resources out there as well for this. And it first starts with acknowledging that those belief systems are, are within you. They're there.

They're totally there and, you know, they are, not your fault, but it is our responsibility to look at them and to make some shifts because man, when we can do that and we can give ourselves most compassion around how we feel, what our innermost beliefs are and began to shift them, because we can see that they're actually not real, meaning they don't have to be truth.

So much power comes from it. We get to release the strongholds, the handcuffs around the way that we feel and the way that we think. So stay tuned for more on that because I really feel like this is a big, big piece of so much. And in order to do that, again, we have to slow down. And, show up as our own best friend in this, meaning we show up with kindness and patience and love that you offer others.

You offer that to yourself. And it means silencing the inner critic and replacing it with an inner cheerleader. It means celebrating your wins, forgiving your mistakes and reminding yourself daily that you're enough and just exactly as you are. That's what I'm going to be doing over and over and over again.

So I'm so excited for this next year. Yo, we have some big things coming for the podcast and some more offerings that are, that are happening and really offering more to our private clients as well. So again, if you've been thinking about working one on one with us, don't hesitate to reach out and see if it's a good fit.

We'd love to have you. And so, yeah, there you have it. What worked, what didn't, and what's ahead. 2024 was a year of intense growth and lessons. And I'm walking into 2025 with a renewed sense of purpose and alignment. So I hope that by sharing my behind the scenes reflections, you're, you're inspired to take stock of your own year and dream boldly.

About what's ahead. Thank you. As always for being here with me on this journey. If today's episode resonated, I'd love to hear from you. Shoot me a DM on Instagram. let me know what you're calling in for 2025. And I would love if you could leave a review and share it with other people so that we can reach more and more and more.

I've heard a lot from you that this podcast has really helped you. And I just, I want more of that and I'm so happy it's helping. So. Remember that you've got everything you need to heal, grow, and thrive. It's already inside of you. We just have to bring it out until next time, take care and keep healing with grace.