2016 was a year filled with many ups and downs; steps forward and backward; releasing and reinventing. The year was a difficult one, yet potent in growth and learning. I have come to realize that true learning and change isn’t comfortable at all because it requires the shedding of something familiar.
I have my fair share of struggles, just as the next person. Don’t ever let that perfect facade that social media tricks us with continually, convince you that it’s reality. It’s NOT. Life is beautifully messy, perfectly imperfect, and totally unedited in real time. In 2016 I watched the loss of friendships, and the shifting of my priorities. I sadly saw aspects come out in people that I was not ready or willing to see until this year, shifting the relationship into something completely different than what I had been accustomed to. I have chosen to move forward with love and kindness, as that is my intention always, but knowing that they may no longer be a part of my life in the same way saddens me. Ultimately, it’s about me and not them. It’s my own shedding and growth that results in seeing the world with clearer eyes. Growth aside, the letting go always hurts, no matter how right we know it is for us. I don’t think that deep friendships are about keeping us comfortable or enabling aspects of us that are not serving; I think the deep “sister bonds” are about encouraging growth and keeping consistent. I am fortunate enough to have sister bonds with some women, and those have been consistent in assisting me in my own growth as a woman, wife and mother. As I reflect on these sister bonds, it’s easy to detect who they are in my life. These are the unedited friendships and unedited people that push me into growth, no matter how much I resist. They are those people that are consistent in their behavior and their own growth. 2016 has shown me to align myself ever more deeply to those sister bonds as mortality becomes a reality. I’m grateful that I have these warriors to rely on and look toward consistently. I am also grateful to the friendships that made me aware that anything less is not where I choose to be because it does not serve me.
Here is to those sister bonds that some of us are fortunate enough to have, If you don’t, I encourage you to be one to someone, because that is where it starts. After all, we attract the very thing that we are.
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