173: Finding Gratitude for 2020

//As we close the door on 2020 and cross the threshold of 2021, I address the gifts that we can gain from seasonal transitions and look at what we can gain from letting go.  

• What can you look back on with gratitude?
• What did you learn? 
• Are there successes you can celebrate? 
• How have you emerged from this year stronger for what you’ve experienced?
• What things can be released to make space for new opportunities?

Join me as we wrap up this year and kick off a new series!

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Transcript

Hey there!  It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.  I am not sure where you’re at right now when you’re listening, but today, when the show comes out, it is almost 2021.  And I don’t know about you, but I’ve certainly been ready to close the chapter, close the door on 2020 for quite a while.  It’ll be interesting to see in the future how history books talk about 2020.

But I know how I feel about it.  I feel like I am ready to be done with it.  And yet, there is this part of me that always still wants to know, “What did I get out of it, though?”  Is there anything that happened in 2020, this past year, that helped me, that grew me, that pushed me further along my path?  Is there anything that I have to be grateful for?

There are a lot of things I don’t like.  It was a year ago that we had to move my mom into an assisted living facility because she has Alzheimer’s, and it was an incredibly painful time.  And in the beginning of 2020, that’s what that was.  It was worrying about her, knowing that she was angry with us and feeling that kind of tension.  But knowing that that was what we had to do, knowing that we did the right thing because she really needed other help.  So, that’s kind of how my 2020 started, and then we hit, you know, everything else that everybody knows about.

But when I look back still, even on that particular piece of my story, I am so grateful that – though the first two months were really hard with my mom – by the time we hit about mid to late February, she was actually really settling in.  She kind of realized where she was at.  She was more comfortable.  She wasn’t upset with us.  She wasn’t asking us every time we would come and visit, telling us that she was ready to go with us, or “Let’s go, let’s go out to eat,” or whatever it might be.  She was in a place where she felt comfortable, and we had the opportunity to really see that in her before the doors shut, and we had to be locked away from her for months.

And then another piece of that story that we’re really grateful for, though, is that we did get to see her again for a while.  There were a few months in the summertime when the restrictions weren’t so tight, and we were able to spend time with her and others that we love who are in assisted living or nursing homes.  And then the doors had to shut again.  And let me tell you, I am ready to sit there and hug my mom.  I am ready to be able to touch her again and spend time with her again.

It’s hard because she has a disease that makes it really difficult for her to connect in any other way besides touch.  It’s hard to talk to her through the window, which we’ve tried a number of times.  But sometimes we can get a smile from her, but oftentimes she is not completely there, and she kind of starts to wander off.  And we’re standing there at the window, watching our mom walked down the hallway because she doesn’t realize that we’re still standing there and that we’re her daughters, or her family, her husband.  And that’s really painful.  I’m ready.  I’m ready to get back in the door.  I’m ready to be able to take hold of her again.

When I think of this little period of time that we have – this transition around the holidays – I’m really grateful for the opportunity that we have to look back on what has happened, to reflect on the beauty that may have come in the past year, but also the grief, the loss, the pain.  I kind of love transitions for that reason.

So, today, my thought was, in preparation for some things that we’re going to talk about here in the coming weeks and kind of looking back on the past year and the things that we experienced, what if we took a little time today to reflect?  What if I give you a little time today to think about, “What is it that I need to and want to let go of so that I can take hold of something else?  What am I willing to let go of so I can take hold of something else?”

I remember that when I first started thinking more about writing and taking time to actually invest time and energy into something other than my family and the other things that I was invested in…  When I came to that point in time, it kind of occurred to me that there were a few things in my life that I loved…. even relationships that I really valued, things that I loved in my life or even some things that might have caused a little bit of stress that I realized that if I were to let go of those, that would free my hands, free my heart, free myself to be able to take hold of this new chapter of something new in my life.

So, I had to make a real kind of intentional decision about letting go of things that I cared about in order to be able to take hold of new things.  And it wasn’t so much that the old things were wrong or bad or negative in any kind of way, but I felt led, I felt called, I felt propelled forward into something new.  And every time that’s happened with me, I’ve had to do this sort of letting go.

So, what if we were to look at the end of this year, this transition time that we have right here with us right now…  And if you’re listening to this at a different point in time… really any time as a time to be able to say this, but especially when we feel like we’re ready to turn the page on that chapter of our lives and move into a new chapter, it’s a great opportunity for us to think about this.

So, if we think about this past year and kind of who we were before, we were really disrupted.  2020 really came in like a wrecking ball, like a cog in the wheel, and it said, “Hold on just a second, I’m gonna make you stop.  I’m gonna make you pivot.  I’m gonna make you think.  I’m gonna make you have to relook at things and figure out what you really want in your life.”

Some of us are going to come away from this year going, “I want everything back.  I want everything back exactly the way it was.”  But I think that we can also take a look and say, “Well, what was it before that I might want to let go of that maybe I don’t have to keep holding on to?  That maybe I could take this opportunity to be free, free from that so that I could take hold of something else.”

So, my first question for you is what is it from this past year, what is something that you’ve learned about yourself?  Have you become more self-aware in some area of your life?  Did you find out that you actually don’t mind being by yourself a little bit more and maybe you need more alone time in the future?  Maybe you were already kind of isolating yourself before this all hit and not having the option to be around people, maybe that gave you the awareness that, “Maybe actually, I want more time with people.  I do want to connect.  I want to throw parties and go to ball games and take time to experience life.”

We all probably found different things that we would want to embrace more.  So, what have you learned about yourself?  What have you learned about others?  Maybe there are people in your life that you realize now some need that they have you didn’t realize before.  Maybe you’re like me.  This is something that I do all the time.  I realized that I get tensed up and concerned about my kids.  And I’m not like that all the time, but that does happen.  I get worried about my children, or I react to them maybe more harshly than I need to, or I put a stop to things more quickly than is really necessary.  And what I really want to do is I want to be able to let go of the expectations, sometimes really high expectations that I have on my kids so that I can delight in them more.

Are there other people in your life that you really value and you want to delight in more?  Are there expectations that you can let go of about them, about your relationship with them that would allow you to be able to truly delight in them in a deeper way?  So, what have you learned about yourself?  What have you learned about others?  What have you learned about the world around you?

This year has brought to the forefront so many big problems that we have in the world.  Regardless of what side you fall on on different kinds of issues, is there a cause or a problem that you see in the world that you want to be a part of solving?  What have you learned about the world that is propelling you to move forward and engage, and maybe even make you feel like you want to be a Voice of Influence in some area of the world?  What is it that you have found about yourself this last year, about others, about the world and how you want to engage with it?  You have an opportunity to think about what you want to let go of so that you can embrace something else.

I would encourage you to have this conversation with somebody that you love, somebody that you walk through life with, somebody you care about, you trust.  What do they want to let go of so that they can take hold of something else?  How would you want to encourage one another, share with one another, speak life into one another so that you can move forward in gratitude?  In gratitude for what has been, and in gratitude and anticipation for what is to come.

I wish for you a beautiful New Year, because your voice matters, and we need you in the world!