103 - What This Season Has Been Teaching Me

August has always felt like a reset for me.

Maybe it is because I spent so many years associating August with the beginning of a new school year. Maybe it is because my birthday is in August. Either way, this month has always invited me to look at where I am, where I’m going, what has changed, and what I’ve learned along the way.

And this August gave me a lot to reflect on.

I started the month by helping our youngest daughter, Jane, move to Texas for law school. What began as a long road trip and a week of helping her settle into a new home became a powerful lesson for me about loving the people closest to me without taking responsibility for carrying their stress.

I can love someone deeply. I can encourage them, support them, listen to them, and help them think through what comes next.

But their stress does not have to become mine.

Then I came home just in time for my 48th birthday and discovered another lesson. For years, I had moved away from making a big deal out of my own birthday because I wanted someone else to celebrate me.

This year reminded me that two things can be true at once.

I can celebrate myself, and I can allow other people to celebrate me.

I also learned something about rhythm.

After being away for more than a week, I expected myself to come home and simply get back to normal. I could resume my routine, but that did not mean I immediately felt the rhythm again.

There is a difference.

Sometimes I am not off track. I am simply between rhythms.

August also included celebrating 30 years of marriage with Cliff and reflecting on the life we have built together through so many different seasons. One of the things I appreciate most about our marriage is that we have made room for one another to continue becoming. Neither of us is the same person we were when we got married, and I don’t think we were ever supposed to be.

Then came another significant step for me.

I attended Empowered Podcasting 3 in Charlotte, my first conference since 2019.

My goal was simple. I wanted to start being in rooms with people again.

What I did not expect was the moment when I looked around and realized:

These are my peers.

I wasn’t there because I was Cliff’s wife. I wasn’t just tagging along.

I have been podcasting for 20 years. I have recorded more than 1,500 podcast episodes across multiple shows.

I am a podcaster.

I am a speaker.

I am a coach.

Somewhere along the way, I had become disconnected from parts of that identity. Going to the conference did not magically turn me back into a podcaster. It reminded me that I already was one.

Sometimes you have to step back into the room before you can remember that it is a room you belong in.

August held travel, motherhood, stress, celebration, marriage, friendship, identity, transition, reentry, and a whole lot of becoming.

It did not fit neatly into one category.

But it was drenched in lessons.

In this episode, I invite you to consider a few questions alongside me:

What has this last season been teaching you that you may have missed because you were too busy living it?

Where have you absorbed someone else’s stress and made it your responsibility?

Where have you stopped allowing yourself to be celebrated?

What part of your identity might need to step back into the room to remember who you already are?

Sometimes the lesson is not simply in what happened.

Sometimes the lesson is who we discover ourselves to be while it is happening.