December Stand-up: 2023 in Review

in's and out's for 2024, year highlights, and a plea

I beg of your mercy and grace as I write my 2023 in review, more than a week into 2024.

It’s been 5 weeks since I broke my weekly writing and publishing streak. My goal is to make it a 51 week publishing streak this year… Which is feeling impossible right now, as I’ve entered my annual post-holiday slump.

I saw the sun for about 5 hours, 3 days ago. Before that, it had been a week since I got some reprieve from grey clouds. I sit in that same greyness now, that looks like shades of blue in the early mornings. That used to be my favorite time of day, but now I sleep through it and have no motivation to get out of bed. I fight through intrusive thoughts of wallowing in bed all day, doom scrolling through TikTok. When I do, I either fuel up with my usual banana/peanut butter/toast breakfast before hot yoga, or I doom scroll a bit more, just upright this time.

My few moments of joy come from making something yummy, watching bread dough rise, seeing my boyfriend’s smiling face, laughing with friends when I can. I used to think I could rely on attending yoga class for that joy, but on my 27th birthday last week, I had an intrusive thought sneak up on me during child’s pose: “what if I just ended it all for good? Oh wait, but then I’d leave my boyfriend paying rent on his own”. I guess that’s no longer a safe, happy place for me.

This is my super long way of saying I have little creative juices left. I have almost no drive. What’s left of my joy and energy is dedicated to looking for a meaningful next role, planning the yoga classes that I do teach, being a tolerable partner, and meditating… which I think is the thing that’s going to save my life.

With all of that being said, I’ll be sharing…

• 31 days of meditation: week 1 lessons

• Highlights of 2023

• In’s and out’s for 2024

On Meditation

Of the 22 days of my yoga teacher training, I meditated during 20 of them. I didn’t realize the profound effect of a regular meditation and yoga practice until I left our little yoga shala on the mountain. It was a week after training ended that I was in Panama on a little holiday with my boyfriend. We took a domestic flight to go from the city to coffee country, and as our plane started backing up, I looked out the window and saw my backpack and a few other suitcases sitting on the runway. I told the flight attendant, who of course, could do nothing about it.

For the next 10 minutes, I felt frustrated, scared, angry, annoyed. I counted the flights I had taken that year— 28 of them, all of which I’ve checked a bag on. I worried about not having clean contact lenses to wear, and I felt like I wanted to cry. But the tears didn’t come, and the anger didn’t bubble over into a screaming rage or anger towards my boyfriend. My previous conditioning told me that I would have acted that way before, but my chemically altered brain from meditation said, “wait, but why?”.

The rest of the flight was spent laughing about the ridiculousness of it all, planning the backup plan for not getting my bag back for the duration of our trip, and reflecting on my initial reaction. We landed and I calmly explained to the airport staff what had happened. The bag was returned to me 24 hours later at the hotel I was staying at.

Meditation has changed how I see the world, and that’s why I think it’s going to save my life. I notice things more with little discernment, only witnessing. I pause and ask questions or think about the words I’m receiving. I can watch movies and TV shows with more focus and immersion than I ever have before. I feel like I receive the energy of other people in a room and am conscious to it.

Luckily for me, one of my teachers from yoga training leads a 31 day meditation program starting January 1. The purpose was to go through different meditation methods as well as the philosophy of meditation, and of course, challenge us to practice presence and a meditation practice every day for a month. Some days I struggle, some days I wake up excited to meditate. It’s how I’m finding some peace or some light in a world that can feel so dark and heavy sometimes.

Highlights of 2023

• Got slightly better at surfing and built my confidence trying to catch my own waves

• Reunited with my good friends I met traveling over the years in Nicaragua, Ecuador, and France

• Learned more about growth marketing at my job at Feeld (before my role was eliminated lol)

• Traveled a lot with my boyfriend (Ecuador, Portugal, Croatia, Panama)

• Went to Vietnam to celebrate my grandpa’s 95th birthday. Spent 2 weeks of quality time with my mom and my extended family

• Celebrated one year with the love of my life, moved in together

• Ran my 2nd half-marathon!

• Finishing Cohort 11 of Write of Passage and starting my writing streak

• Completed a 200-hour yoga teacher training

• Left the year feeling more in love with myself than I ever have before (a big goal for me)

  

  sitting on the ground, blowing into a conch, drumming, singing… so much love.

In’s and Out’s for 2024

These are huge in the IG/Tiktok world right now, and given that I grew up in a time where reading “in and out” lists in little preteen and teeny-bop magazines, they speak to me. I have resolutions and goals as well, but here are my in’s and out’s for 2024 and my 27th year of life:

Out:

• Overposting and over-sharing on socials

• Forcing myself to wear hot trends even if I don’t fully like them

• Overtraining my body

• Eating because it’s meal time, not because I’m hungry

• Being afraid of putting myself out there

• Hanging out with people who drain me

• Almond milk (that shit is killing the environment more than my frequent flights fr)

• Refined sugar

• Forced relationships

• Complaining about the weather

In:

• Reading A LOT, journaling about what I’m reading about even more

• Getting outside regardless of what the weather is like

• Mindful, gentle movement that challenges and restores my body

• Not wearing a bra (I hate it like a lot)

• Eating whole foods

• Not beating myself up if I don’t eat “perfectly”

• Relationships that give me energy and space to show up for myself and the other person

• Seeking out challenges and unfamiliar situations

• Peso Pluma

• Saving to buy a little piece of equity in this crazy f’ed up real estate market

Planning and Plotting

Thank you for being here for me while I crawl out of my hole and find my voice again. I plan on using this month to find my writing habit again, find inspiration and excitement, and find a routine that really speaks to me.

If you’re in the area, I teach yoga at Vitality Village in Cambridge Tuesday/Wednesday evenings, and Saturday at 12 PM for a pay-what-you-can class. I’d love to connect either online or in person as I know that would really fill my empty cup right now.

With love and good intentions,

Julie