2020 Reflections: Looking Back to Move Forward
I’ve been putting off this episode because I’ve wanted to create something exciting + inspiring as we head into a new year. But if I’m being honest, I’m exhausted and burnt out. I feel like I crawled to the finish line of 2020. In that, as much as I want to move forward and forget about 2020, I can’t. Before we can move on to a new year, before we can cast new vision, we have to pause, and LOOK BACKWARDS BEFORE MOVING FORWARD.
The Class
I do this workout called The Class by Taryn Toomey—it’s yoga meets cardio meets therapy. What I love about the class is that Taryn understands that the physical is never just about the physical, but an invitation to the spiritual.
The beginning of a path towards growth + breakthrough begins when we leave our comfort zone—and leaving our comfort zone is UNCOMFORTABLE. (good quote for graphic)
When all I want to do is quit (+ sometimes I do)—it never fails—I always quit within the last few beats + it makes me wonder in what other areas of my life do I almost get to the finish line + want to sit down? And sometimes I don’t and surprise myself at how strong I am.
2020 Reflection Questions:
What does discomfort teach you?
What did 2020 teach you?
What did this global interruption bring up for you personally?
What did the discomfort show you about yourself?
What are you like in conflict?
How do you respond when things don’t go your way?
What lessons could you not have learned about who you are if you didn’t go through 2020? What is the one lesson going into 2021 that you want to take with you?
My lessons from 2020:
I am not in control. I never was. A big theme for me this year is this: trust and surrender. Especially in dating. (You can listen to my episode all about those lessons here.)
I can listen to my body. My body has been screaming at me for a long long time, and I made a drastic change recently when I heard a whisper from God…”When are you going to start listening? Your body is speaking truth to you.” And so I left my home of 7 years and moved out of New York.
Nobody can tell me how long my grieving process should be. I walked through one of the most painful grieving processes of my life in 2020. It was hard to balance professional commitments with the grief of personal loss.
“For in grief nothing "stays put." One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral?
But if a spiral, am I going up or down it?
How often -- will it be for always? -- how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, "I never realized my loss till this moment"? The same leg is cut off time after time.”
- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
Will it be for always?
I remembered the squats from The Class. Everything is temporary. Discomfort, frustration, and pain aren’t the end.
God is committed to making all things new. And that means all the things.
My tattoo
“Selah” // inhale se- exhale lah
It’s a Hebrew word used in the poetry book of the psalms in the old testament of the Bible.
It reminds me of a yoga class—the savasana: the final resting pose. What’s rest got to do with working out + getting stronger? Perhaps everything. Perhaps the growth happens in the being. In the being still and the surrender.
The psalmist says, ‘Be still and know that I am God’—not DO MORE + TO PROVE MORE + EARN MY LOVE…the invitation is to be.
But the surrender feels uncomfortable. It’s in the being + in the surrender that our hearts have the space to process, to feel, to grieve.
All I want to do is move on from last year and have 2020 be the year that must not be named. But 2020 did happen. The entire world shutdown + it sucked— it sucks—and I walked through some of the deepest heartaches of my life this past summer…and I’ve cried until there were no tears left—and somehow another wave would come. I’ve grieved deeply, processed…and now I'm ready for it to be over. I'm ready for the breakthrough…no more breaking please—I'm ready for the breakthrough. But I wonder if part of the breakthrough is having the courage to be in it, sit in it, feel all the feels—like an ocean wave—let it wash over us, look back through it, dissect it, ask it—what are you trying to teach me? Before we move on, what if we stayed a little while longer + squeezed out all the learning that it has for us?
So maybe don’t rush out of this place.
trusting that it won’t last forever + that God is making all things new + that the growth begins when we step into the discomfort + we must move through it to the other side…can you pause?
Can you be?
Can you be still.
Can you be still and know.
Can you be still and know that God is God?
Breathe into it.
Spend some time looking back before moving forward.
Your breakthrough is coming—but first there must be a breaking + it’s not often we get to experience such a collective breaking. But it makes me hopeful that God wants to do something new in you, in me, in them, in us.
Here’s to 2021.
Resources
Check out C.S. Lewis’s book A Grief Observed.
Pre-order my book, Sexless in the City, here!
Listen to the lessons I learned about dating in 2020 here.
Email social@therefinedwoman.com with a copy of your receipt if you pre-ordered my book so I can make sure you get some surprise goodies. (Also, email social@therefinedwoman.com if you want to be on my book launch team as an ambassador!)
For $5/month, you can get access to exclusive video content for Patreon subscribers. Like… how to answer the question “why are you still single?” How to know if your standards are too high. And an update on my dating life. YUP! There will be a new video every week just for Patreon subscribers. Don’t miss out! Head over to Patreon.com/therefinedcollective to learn more and sign up!
I was tired of hearing male pastors preach about waiting until marriage for sex when they had gotten married in their early 20s and had no idea what it was really like to date in today’s culture! I wanted to hear from someone in my shoes— so I wrote a book! It’s called Sexless in the City: A Sometimes Sassy, Sometimes Painful, Always Honest Look at Dating, Desire, and Sex and it’s coming out in April 2021! Head over to bit.ly/kat-sexless to pre-order now!