Day 21: Grateful for the Journey: Reflecting on 2024

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Hi @SoulfullyAButterfly,

What are some moments from 2024 that you’re most grateful for, and why? Little moments like hugs with friends and family, feeling safe at gatherings, bonding together ❤️ 

What challenges did you face this year, and how did they contribute to your personal growth? Had to switch jobs which led to lots of personal growth, learned to become more independent, learned a lot of new skills

As you look toward 2025, what lessons or habits from this year do you want to carry forward? It's okay to ask for help. Start with one baby step. Reach out to friends more.

Thank you for sharing this post!

@SoulfullyAButterfly

I am grateful for the time I got to spend with my nephews. I don't get to see them often, but the they are growing fast so every minute I can get with them is precious. 

I am grateful my therapist needed to leave and I had to find a new therapist. I can see now that I needed a different kind of therapist and I am grateful I found one that was a better fit.  

I have faced challenges in balancing commitments in a new way this year and it has given me opportunities to put my skills to use in ways I never would have thought of.

Hmmmm...I think I would like to carry through the confidence I have gained in the last half of the year, that I can manage on my own without my therapist. 

Thanks for the reflection prompt. 

-Griz

Reflective Questions

What are some moments from 2024 that you’re most grateful for, and why?

I am grateful for having the opportunity to travel. It makes me feel alive.

What challenges did you face this year, and how did they contribute to your personal growth?

I faced many challenges this year. I tried to make the best of them. 

As you look toward 2025, what lessons or habits from this year do you want to carry forward?

I want to continue to exercise and meditate.

My therapist moved away, but I was able to find a new therapist two months later.  I don't get to go the community center anymore for the group support meetings, and that's a major problem.  I need to find a constructive way to fill the time I would have been spending in those group meetings.  Maybe something will come up after the new year, but I don't know what.  The community center was in the next town to the north of me, and it's too bad there is nothing in my own town like that.

• What are some moments from 2024 that you’re most grateful for, and why?
• I'm grateful for a trip I got to take with my husband this year.  It wasn't big, but it was fun and needed.
  
• What challenges did you face this year, and how did they contribute to your personal growth?
• I continue the challenge of dealing with my anxiety.  It's not really contributing to much of anything except making me feel bad.  I guess it shows me how resilient I am, but I could really do without it.
  
• As you look toward 2025, what lessons or habits from this year do you want to carry forward?
• I absolutely want to continue my walks in nature.  That is a MUST.  I feel SO much better when I'm outside.  I love the winter but I really am looking forward to when it warms up again so I can be outside all the time.
• My biggest lesson I'm learning is that no matter what my brain is telling me, it's really not the truth, and things aren't as bad as my brain wants me to believe.  And I guess also, I'm going to survive and make it through.
  

@SoulfullyAButterfly

• What are some moments from 2024 that you’re most grateful for, and why?
• What challenges did you face this year, and how did they contribute to your personal growth?
• As you look toward 2025, what lessons or habits from this year do you want to carry forward?

Tbh I am grateful for all moments, all days I could live and enjoy my beautiful garden.  There were many challenges this year like passing of my mother, stepson, illness and the hurricane Beryl. I feel that this year made me grow up more. The year showed me that I can mobilize strengths I did not know I have. I feel much more confident for 2025. Lessons or habits I want to carry forward are special exercises for seniors to stay mobile and strong, making sure that I get the self-care I need, eating healthy and keep learning so that I can support people better here. 

@SoulfullyAButterfly The Bed of Memories

In Pakistan, it is a tradition that when someone passes away, their bed and belongings are distributed among relatives. But how ruthless this practice is. When that person was alive, their life was already filled with problems, and amid those problems, the bed that always reflected their dirt, their pain, and their loneliness could never be cleaned.

One day, during the cold winter days, when I asked for a blanket, the reply came: "We do not have blankets for guests, and if any guest arrives, they will be uncomfortable." I began to think, "If something happens to me, and guests arrive tomorrow, will they manage by looking at my body? Perhaps I will have to show them that when I am breathing, they see my last moment, just as they saw my father's."

These questions submerged me into a deep inner silence, as if I had already died, for I neither felt the cold, nor the heat, nor even the sound of my heartbeat or breath. Does a person truly die in such moments when they begin to understand the reality of their life? Do we really continue to live until someone else can see our suffering?

my bed never returned. i always left it at the hostel, for I knew that these beds, these sheets were not meant to hide the filth inside me. Their smell, their dirt, their wear and tear — all of it was a reflection of my life. Can we ever clean up the ugly parts of our lives, or do we try to hide them so others cannot see them?

i never cleaned those beds, nor did I ever wash them. It was a secret I kept buried inside. Does this secret ever escape us, or do we bury it so deep that its truth never hurts us?

Every time I returned from the hostel, I would give those beds to people sleeping on the streets, so at least they wouldn't have to endure the suffering I was experiencing. Do we really help others by feeling their pain, or does it become just a way for us to escape our own?

Last year one night when I gave my last bed to a woman, known as "the garbage woman." I gave her the bed, knowing her pain and suffering surpassed even my own. i understood that this bed might offer her some peace from the torments of her life. Can we bring peace to others by passing on our pain, or does it only add more to our suffering?

"You will find peace in the dirt," I said with a heavy tone, "the peace that I never found."

The woman took the bed as if it were her right. She lay in the dirt, on the bed that had once concealed the fragments of my life, now becoming a source of comfort for her. i , who had thrown every part of his life into the dirt, had finally buried myself in that dirt, where I had always lived. Do we truly complete our lives by sharing our truest parts with others, or do we keep hiding them in the spaces we have created for ourselves?

It was a strange peace — my final act, a bed, which was eventually given to someone else, so they too could find comfort in the dirt where i could never find peace. Do we ever feel the peace we left for others?

@SoulfullyAButterfly

• What are some moments from 2024 that you’re most grateful for, and why? I am really grateful that I found strength I never knew I had. I am really grateful for my friends and family that supported me through a really tough year because I don't know how I would have survived without them. 
• What challenges did you face this year, and how did they contribute to your personal growth? While I don't want to share directly, I know that I survived something I never thought I could've or would've. I had the strength to pull myself out of toxicity and to take off my rose-colored glasses to realize what I deserve and what I don't. It feels so good to not have to walk on eggshells. 
• As you look toward 2025, what lessons or habits from this year do you want to carry forward? Something from this post really resonated with me and that's the fact that not every moment is going to be perfect, but it's about finding the little moments to be grateful for. I'm starting to understand that I don't like the idea of "2025 (etc.) is going to be my year" because no year is going to be perfect and we can really set ourselves up for disappointment if we expect every year to be perfect. There will be times of disappointment, of course but we have to take everything with a grain of salt and remember the good times roll with the bad! 

@SoulfullyAButterfly

• What are some moments from 2024 that you’re most grateful for, and why?

our dad started talking to us without swearing and yelling at us. as that always way he was with us. so am grateful  for that  as it a big change for him and us. but feel bad that it took this long to happen. he be 82yr on dev 29th.

• What challenges did you face this year, and how did they contribute to your personal growth?

coming to understanding that even suffering is a blessing. as within it we can either grow personally or become bitter within it. with the high pain we live in and other physical  disabilities  it can be hard. we also have hard time communicating at times due to the chronic  traumatic  brain injury  and learning disabilities too. but we learned to tell others to ask questions to help them and us to understand each other. this has helped us have personal growth in a lot of ways,  also ok to ask for help and not feel bad for doing that.

• As you look toward 2025, what lessons or habits from this year do you want to carry forward?

asking for help when we need and telling others it ok to ask questions when they not understand us. being  abler to be honest about our diablities to others so they can understand us better and what we need them to do to be able for us to understand them clearly and us to understand them clearly.