LIFE LESSONS I KEEP FORGETTING

One of the more frustrating parts of evolving as a human being is that a lot of stuff doesn’t stick the first time around. Sure, there are some singular aha moments that totally change your mindset and behavior. Like the time my mom’s hospice nurse explained that palliative care requires a totally different approach than curative care and that shift can be hard for people to come to terms with. Or when I realized I shouldn’t put aluminum foil in the microwave because it can burst into flames. I am now different than I was before I had that conversation and kitchen fire.

Unfortunately, most of my growth hasn’t been as linear. Instead, I find myself having to revisit lessons I thought I had already absorbed. While this can be frustrating, I don’t think it’s helpful for me to beat myself up for not getting it right the first (or eighth) time. Lasting change is difficult, especially when we are fighting against our internal biases, societal messaging and emotional vulnerabilities. So in an effort to normalize the messy, inconsistent work of getting closer to who we want to be, here are some of the life lessons I seem to always need refreshers on:

MY FRIENDS ACTUALLY LIKE ME

This is an embarrassing one to admit I still struggle with considering how much I’ve already written and seemingly processed it. But, alas, my friendship insecurity remains an Achilles' heel. I continue to find myself shocked when my friends show up for me, like they did this past weekend when celebrating my birthday. As I sat at a table surrounded by eight of my closest friends, I took a moment to remind myself that I have strong, mutual friendships and it’s time to release myself from the narrative that no one cares about me as much as I care about them. Will this be the last reminder I need in times of doubt? Probably not! But mindfully collecting this kind of evidence helps me build a stronger case for when I start to doubt myself in the future.

THEY CAN’T ALL BE HITS

This is a useful distillation of a larger life lesson that was first introduced to me by Caroline Cala Donofrio’s essay of the same name. The basic idea is that everything you put out as a creator isn’t going to have the same level of success. In fact, it is impossible and unfair to have that expectation for yourself and your work. As someone who can get into unhealthy loops obsessively checking my social media metrics, Goodreads reviews and podcast ratings, it’s been valuable for me to have such a tangible way to relieve some of the pressure to always outdo myself. I find myself returning to the phrase they can’t all be hits multiple times per week. Does this practice completely relieve me of my irrational fear that one poorly received essay or post proves my career and creativity are on the decline? Nope! But it does lessen the intensity of that fear, which seems like I’m heading in the right direction.

MY WORTH ISN’T DIRECTLY TIED TO MY APPEARANCE

Now this is a particularly painful one because I really thought I had moved past an unhealthy relationship with my looks (and more specifically, my weight). Back in 2023, I proudly defied the pressure to lose weight for my wedding, and found a lot of peace around accepting my new body. And then…the old thoughts came roaring back. I’ve recently found myself fixating on what I used to look like in my twenties and believing that if I could just be thin again so much of my life, from my wardrobe to my popularity, would improve. I didn’t want to be back here, but here we are. I’m clearly in need of a new approach to balance my (understandable given the nature of our society) desire to look a certain way without letting it take over my life or self-esteem. I haven’t figured out exactly what that looks like yet. But knowing that my end goal remains a clear separation of worth and appearance is useful as I find my way.

I AM NOT A SOCIOPATH

This one might come as a surprise, but I often find myself questioning if I display sociopathic behavior. This fear mostly pops up when I see other people having emotional reactions to something that makes me feel nothing. I have gotten worrisomely good at shutting down and feeling numb, especially in the wake of my mom’s death. When other coaches or clinicians talk about the toll of having to hear their clients’ struggles, I feel guilty that I am so easily able to leave my work at work. Wouldn’t a truly empathetic person struggle more with the state of the world and the pain of those around them? What does it mean that I am as not deeply feeling as so many people I admire? I don’t know exactly, but it doesn’t automatically mean I am a sociopath. There is a wide spectrum of how people experience empathy and just between I am clearly not at one extreme doesn’t inevitably place me at the other. Logically I know this, but that isn’t enough to stop some occasional reassurance seeking from my husband.

So that’s where things stand. Maybe some of these lessons will finally stick in my 36^th year and maybe I will continue to struggle with them throughout my life. Perhaps they will stick for a while only to disappear again during a time of stress or major transition. Knowing that some lessons have to be learned over and over again has surprisingly made me more open to change in general. I now understand that just because something doesn’t land the first time doesn’t mean I won’t slowly come around to it in the future. This knowledge allows me to take more time to digest other people’s insights and new experiences without putting pressure on myself to transform right away.

Sometimes we plant seeds in each other and ourselves that take a long time to grow.

xoxo,

Allison

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