2021 in review
The Jordan Lang Podcast: Episode 09
Hello, welcome back to the joint mine podcast so glad that you're here, and I'm excited to have this conversation with you today so happy, 2022. I can hardly believe that it's another year to be totally honest, and at the same time I feel like I say that every new year, every time January rolls around again, I am blown away at how quickly time passes, and all of the experiences that have been had.
In this episode, I want to give you a recap of my year 2021. I want to share with you some of the biggest lessons and themes of 2021 for me, and share a little bit about my focus for this new year, as well as my word of the year for 2022.
2021 Recap
Speaking of words of the year…I don't think I had one for 2021, to be totally honest. I was even looking back through my previous posts on social media. I was looking through my journals, and I couldn't find a word for 2021. As I was sitting and doing my reflection for the year past, I kept coming back to the word SURVIVE. I do feel like for myself and for many of us in the year 2021, we did what we could to survive. That's not to say that I stopped living and I stopped seeking experiences, and things that were good in my life. I had an amazing year! And at the same time, there was such collective trauma that happened in 2021 - and that's continuing to happen let's be honest - but I feel like there was just this underlying piece of me, that was just trying to make it through in one piece.
The first part of 2021, I was still at home with my kids doing virtual school. It was tough. It was a really tough year, not just for me but for all parents out there who were doing the virtual school thing, who were facilitating classes and experiments and projects, and everything else. From that at home perspective, and experience I really did learn a lot about myself as a person and as a mother. It was also really hard. I had to do a lot of mindset shifts and reflections and really prioritize myself, and a lot of different ways that I never had before.
Obviously, if you are a parent, especially a mother, you know that people will chat all the time to you about taking time for yourself. There's still that shame and guilt associated with it. So having these big feelings on top of a pandemic, on top of living in America, there is always something, and it's hard to get away from it.
“2021 was both an incredible year and also a really difficult year. It was a year of stepping further into my true self - my true true self - and learning to love myself more fully than ever before.”
I've worked on self love practices. I've said the mantras. I've done all of the things, and I don't think I ever fully grasped true self love for exactly as I am right now ever before this year. Really sitting with things like my faith, my passions, my sexuality, my quirks, my body, my truths…all of it, and knowing that I am perfect now, exactly as I am - true self love. It’s still a work in progress. I feel like it's forever going to be. 2021 was an incredible year for really stepping into who I am, who I meant to be, and loving myself fully here and now. Even though it was difficult, knowing now the outcome is really exciting to be able to have had these experiences.
2021 Lessons + Themes
I want to share with you some of the biggest lessons and themes that I experienced in 2021, and there are seven main ones that I want to share that came through when I was journaling it out and reflecting. I'm sure there's more I could share! A lot of these have like sub themes to them as well and go together.
REPARENTING + SELF-COMPASSION
Reparenting and self-compassion were major for me in 2021. I know that I just shared, you know self love and stepping into my truest self and re-parenting has been a vital part of the process. Nurturing my inner child, and speaking to her how she should have been talked to, as a child, right, like, nurturing my inner child and re-parenting myself, being so gentle and giving myself so much grace, so much love and compassion was huge for me this past year.
“I really do feel that the more I focus on being compassionate to myself and reparenting myself, the better parent I am as an outcome.”
Because I can see my kids like for who they are fully, and not expect them to conform to what society expects of them what I expect of them, like just being able to support them in a way that I needed, when I was young, and just listening to them, and therefore listening to myself too. A lot of times when I would have tantrums or get really overwhelmed or really upset, I would just stand there and ground myself, breathing deeply, connecting to my breath and just go: Okay, I'm listening. What do you need? Often the angsty preteen would come through and, she would just be like, NO ONE IS LISTENING TO ME. I’m not feeling seen, I'm not feeling heard, I'm not feeling appreciated. And so reparenting and self-compassion were so big for me in 2021.
SETTING BOUNDARIES
The next is setting boundaries. I am a people pleaser. I have a hard time saying no. I know a lot of people do too. So setting boundaries was massive for me this year. And that goes along with the next theme, which is…
COMMUNICATION
I do feel like communication and boundaries go hand in hand. Because I'm a big avoider, if I'm upset about something, I don't want to upset anyone, so I just avoid it. I won't talk about it. I don't confront it. “Everything's okay. Everything's fine. We're good. We're fine.” I learned that by avoiding and not being direct and clear and being open with communication calling people in rather than shutting them out, it was a disservice to me and a disservice to the person with whom I maybe had a disagreement with or was just feeling off energetically or was just a toxic situation. So I really did learn to set boundaries and have that communication. This is definitely something I'm still working on, just because again I'm a people pleaser and avoider. I don't think quickly on my feet. I'm one of these people who finishes an argument in my head while I'm taking a shower, like, “Oh man I should have said that!” but it's days, weeks, months later and it doesn't matter.
So communication is something that I'm still working on, as well as just checking back in with those boundaries and making sure that it's still in alignment with what I need, and with where I want to be within my life and my relationships.
ACCEPTANCE + LETTING GO OF EXPECTATIONS FOR RELATIONSHIPS
The next is acceptance and letting go of expectations for relationships in my life. So again I do feel like all of this ties in together, but realizing that it's okay that I don't have a closeness with people that maybe I would have wanted to have a relationship with or maybe it was one sided, and it just was exhausting and hurtful and disappointing. So just going, “Okay, this isn't meant to be I'm not gonna worry about it anymore. I'm not going to beat myself up over it anymore. I'm not gonna keep trying to force something that's really not there.” There were a couple pretty important relationships that I really wanted that I just came to accept weren’t going to happen. I had to grieve those relationships, which if you’re in this position too, know that it's okay to grieve it, to miss what could have been. But then also to know that you can love people from afar or you can just break that relationship and move forward, knowing that if it was meant to be it would have been without being such a really hard, painful experience. It would have worked out.
ALLOWING + RELEASING CONTROL
I also learned to allow and release control in my business, and life. Always a work in progress, letting go of control. So that's what I focused on - rather than trying to control something outside of my scope of happening, I just focused on my response and what I could do about it. It really does allow for so much more peace in life, and much more happiness overall.
OPENING UP TO NOURISHING RELATIONSHIPS
Next, I opened myself up to nourishing relationships. I have always found it difficult to make close female friendships, ever since I was pretty young. I never really had close female friendships, and I am calling that in even now. I feel like 2021 kind of started that and brought forth. It was the catalyst. I learned some things and let go of some things and really just called in good, close female friendships, and I'm so grateful. So many of the women that I call my dear friends now are just the most amazing humans. I'm calling in even more of that in this new year because I am so craving friendships, true genuine friendships, outside of my husband and outside of people in my household. I desire to create a community that is so life giving; a group of humans who can just love on each other. So I'm excited for what this new year is going to bring in that regard.
ANCESTRAL HEALING
The last, and by no means least, theme and lesson that I want to share with you for 2021 was ancestral healing. This one is really big and it's one that I'm definitely going to continue with for the rest of this lifetime. I really took a deep dive into breaking patterns and creating positive shifts for my children and future generations. I worked with several amazing healers and intuitives who unveiled a lot of harm that my ancestors caused, a lot of patterns that I have within my ancestral lines, and ways in which I can begin making those positive changes and those positive shifts. A big piece of it centers around how I parent my children and how I'm reparenting myself. This work is a massive piece of why I'm here and what my purpose is in this lifetime.
So that is something that I am honored to be able to do, and I am so grateful for this experience and for the individuals that I've been working with who have provided their incredible wisdom and support along this process. It can be very lonely work, but it's truly one of my main purposes in this lifetime so I'm here for it. I'm going to continue along and continue making positive changes, starting with myself and my family and I know that it's going to ripple and create positive changes in the collective as well.
Focus at the Start of This New Year
So those were seven of the main lessons and themes for 2021 that I experienced and ooh, it was a lot! I am looking ahead to 2022 though! I am so excited for what this year is going to bring. I am not setting any big lofty goals just yet. I really want to continue in this theme of winter time here in the Northern Hemisphere. It's January; it's cold, it's dark and gloomy here in the United States, and I am in this time of rest which is where I want to stay for now. I do have some things that I'm looking forward to doing: my podcasting course, a couple webinars, things like that. But nothing big or lofty like a huge monetary goal. I really just want to sink into this restful energy and replenish and just really honor, where I'm at. Our family is recovering from having COVID over winter break, so I'm just continuing to rest.
Word for 2022
I want to share my word for 2022. It came to me when I was doing a meditation two weeks ago. I just kept having the word JOYFUL come through - joyful, joyful, joyful. I kind of resisted at first, I'm like, “Really? Joyful? Can't I have like a more fun word??” Whatever that means! But no, my guides and spirit team were clear that joyful is what my focus is going to be in 2022.
I tend to be a very stoic, serious, structured person. I've got a lot of Capricorn in my chart, and it's really hard for me to relax and to let go and to really just have fun and be full of joy. So, I am for the year of 2022 I'm really going to be looking to find joy and all moments and experiences, and to release the stoicism and just step into joy.
So asking myself things like:
- what lights me up
- what do I like to do for fun.
- challenging myself to find fun activities to do that are maybe outside of my comfort zone but will bring me joy and light me up.
And again, this is nurturing my inner child, big time. With my upbringing, I feel like I had to grow up pretty quickly, and there was always this fear and anxiety and all of the things (not going to get into all of that at this time…). But because of that, I have a hard time finding joy in anything. Sure there are moments of joy of course - spending time with my children and things like that - but I want to really embody joyfulness in 2022. I’m excited for it! Being able to lean into my fun, quirky, silly side that really only comes out when I’m really tired, and being able to play into that a little more this new year.
To wrap things up…
I’m so grateful for 2021 and all of the lessons and experiences that I had. I’m ready to continue stepping into my truest expression of self as we enter into this new year of 2022. Thank you for being here with me and for sharing this journey with me. I would love to hear how 2021 went for you! What did you experience? What were your themes and biggest lessons? I would also love to know: what’s your word for 2022? Sending you lots of love!
