My 2025 Word of the Year

 Do you choose a word of the year? An intention? A focus for the coming shining new year?

This year I am. And it's extremely special to me.

My 2025 word is:

Life has been pretty chaotic for me for quite a while. You may have seen the polished up version of my life on social media over the years. Looked pretty great, right? Well, underneath it wasn't so great.

Truth be told, I was in an abusive relationship for over 20 years. I was abused in about every way possible: physically, emotionally, financially, sexually, psychologically... I was controlled, isolated, lied about,  smear campaigned, gaslighted, betrayed, traumatized over and over and over, struggled with PTSD... I won't go into all that here (you can read it all when my book comes out in 2025). My point is that what you saw on the outside was not what was going on behind closed doors. 

I have gotten out, I am safe, and I have broken the unwritten contract between every abuser and their victim: I told. 

I have started telling the truth, telling my story. And I won't stop. 

You may have noticed a difference in my social media. I now discuss holistic abuse recovery instead of just health and fitness. I hope sharing my experience will help others in various stages of abuse and healing. This blog, my podcast, and youtube will likely take that shift too.

So, why build?

I saw a quote when I first went into counseling after beginning to break free from my abuser, it was:

This speaks to me SO LOUDLY at this stage of my healing journey!

When things came to a head in my life in 2022, I spent  a lot of time thinking I could "help" my abuser. That he could be converted into a non-abuser. I spent a lot of time waiting for him to change. Then, I spent a lot of time trying to understand what has gone on in my life the last 20 years. I did a deep dive into studying people like him and how they do what they do. I read books on the various types of abuse I'd suffered. For a while I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that not only are there actually monsters like that commonly out there, but  I wondered how I wound up with one!! I'm smart, I'm so normal! How did I wind up living a life that should be a Lifetime move?! I wondered how I had become so brain-washed. Why I didn't see so much. How I could have stayed so very long. Etc, etc. 

Then, finally, I moved onto how to heal, change, grow, improve my life and begin to live again. That shift from focusing on the old to building the new was such a healthy mindset shift for me! I don't want to "pick up the pieces" as they say. I want no part of that broken past. I want to rise from these ashes and build totally new.

So, build. Yes.

I look forward to a 2025 of building new. Building a new me. Building a new life. Building new friendships. Building new relationships. Building a new presence online. Building a new career....

I hope you'll follow along. 

Luke 6:48 (Passion Translation with pronoun change): She is like a woman who chooses the right place to build a house and then lays a deep and secure foundation. When the storms and floods rage against that house, it continues to stand strong and unshaken through the tempest, for she built it wisely on the right foundation.

PS coming soon...