Hi everyone! Hope everyone had a great weekend. I am coming down from the high of all the birthday festivities, and I wanted to share this post with all of you since every year, on my birthday I share a post about the things that I have learned from the year before. This year was different than most due to the plain fact that I clearly have some emotional (in a good way) and physical changes going on. I am currently 26 weeks pregnant (more than half way there-woo!) and obviously there are so many life changes going on for my family.

I feel blessed, to say the least. I feel blessed that I am able to carry this sweet baby in my belly. I feel blessed to be surrounded by so much love and support from not only our families, but also our friends. Ryan and I have always had an amazing support group of people, and that alone is a gift. I think the hardest part of this year for me, has definitely been all of the changes that have gone on. As I said, I feel very blessed so please don’t take this the wrong way when I say that life has been- well, overwhelming. 

As someone who works full time and also blogs full time, it’s very hard to find a balance. Most of my days are spent exhausted, trying to find time to fit everything in, whether it’s typing blog posts, or shooting videos, editing, etc. It’s all just so much. On our days off together sometimes I don’t want to think about “work” but if you own any type of business, or consider yourself an influencer, you’ll know that a day off doesn’t really exist. I’ve worked through every holiday, every vacation, and every life event I can think of. When your body suddenly starts telling you to “slow down” it’s very frustrating. The internet world can be so daunting, and intimidating. You’re always in this race to keep up with everything that’s new and fancy, or even just creating new content. Not doing all of the things that I normally do, makes me feel like I am falling far behind. Throw in some weight-gain, sleepless nights, changes in your body, and you’ll stop feeling less and less like your old self. 

I shared these feelings with a group chat of blogger friends I have made for the past year or so. These girls are always there to bounce ideas off of, to chat about all things blog related, and to just talk about life, because we’ve all become friends. When I shared these feelings a few months ago with them, one of them told me to give myself grace. I didn’t know at the time what this meant to me, but as time went on the saying really resonated with me. To me this means allowing myself to just be. Allowing myself to be without criticizing myself and being hard on myself for everything I don’t do correctly, or don’t have time to do.

Instead of sharing all of the things I learned this year, I really wanted to focus on this simple saying, because it can be used so many ways. We all want to be our best selves, but sometimes life has other plans. It’s okay to take a step back and allow yourself to just live without any expectation. This too, is a part of our process. 

Another year is in the books, and every day is another learning experience. I am thankful for everything in my life, including the bad days, because everything serves a purpose. 

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