Slower, Wealthier, Happier

Happy Taco Tuesday 🌮✨

September showed up, and apparently I had other plans. LOL. I am just getting a chance to sit down and write because for the past few weeks, I have had the privilege of being a caregiver to my 77-year-old mom. And I use the word privilege intentionally. Has it been easy? Nope. There is something incredibly hard about watching your parents get older. There are moments when you see things changing that you wish you could keep exactly the same. But right alongside that reality has been this overwhelming gratitude that I get to be here. I get to serve her. I get to love her in this season. I get to show up.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I noticed something else: I am different. OMG, y’all. The internal work is working. The therapy is working. The boundaries are working. The mental health medication is working. All the things I have been intentionally doing to care for myself were not just things that sounded good when life was calm. They showed up with me when life got complicated. Situations that could have once sent my anxiety through the roof didn’t. Thoughts came, feelings came, hard moments came, but I could notice them without becoming consumed by them. And baby… that felt GOOD.

I think sometimes we expect growth to announce itself. We think there will be this big moment when we suddenly realize we are healed, stronger, wiser, healthier, or whatever word we have been working toward. But I am learning that growth is often much quieter than that. Sometimes you discover it when life gets hard again and you realize you aren’t responding the way you used to. The circumstance may still be difficult. You may still be sad. You may still wish things were different. Growth doesn’t always change what is happening around you. Sometimes growth changes who you are while it is happening.

And maybe that’s one of the greatest gifts of caring for ourselves before the hard moments arrive. We don’t do the internal work so that nothing difficult will ever happen again. That’s not how life works. We do the work so that when life inevitably asks something difficult of us, we have more of ourselves available to meet it. We can love people without completely abandoning ourselves. We can serve without disappearing. We can acknowledge what hurts while still noticing what is beautiful. We can hold grief about what is changing and gratitude for what is still here at the exact same time.

So maybe there is something worth noticing in your own life today. Think about a situation that once would have completely overwhelmed you. How would the old version of you have handled it? And how are you handling things differently now? Don’t overlook the small evidence. The pause before reacting. The boundary you didn’t feel guilty about. The thought you noticed without spiraling into it. The help you finally allowed yourself to receive. The way you rested. The way you stayed present. The way you loved someone without losing yourself. That counts. That is growth.

Life will give us beautiful moments, and it will give us hard ones too. Sometimes, strangely enough, they will be the very same moment. Watching my mom get older is hard. Getting to care for her is beautiful. And discovering that I can walk through this season with more peace, awareness, gratitude, and care for my own mental health has been a gift I didn’t know September was bringing me. So if life feels a little complicated for you right now, look closely. There just might be evidence that all the work you’ve been doing is working too. And goodness… what a beautiful thing that is to discover.

Your most magical self,
Treshelle