Best Lessons of the Year

As we are in the final weeks of 2023, I have naturally been thinking about the year—the things I did, the choices I made, the results I have created, and especially the lessons I have learned.

Today on the podcast, I wanted to share the three lessons that have meant the most to me this year. These are the things that changed me the most and made a huge difference in the way I think about myself and my life.

Every once in a while, it’s powerful to stop and notice and record what you have learned, what you know now that you didn’t before, and what you are becoming. Our brains want to minimize our accomplishments and tell us we aren’t changing, we aren’t growing, and we aren’t learning. But we always are.

Come listen to the lessons that helped me the most this year and then make some time to appreciate and notice the lessons that you have learned as well. Whatever happened, whatever choices you made, you learned something valuable and now’s the perfect time to reflect on those things.

Transcript

Welcome to the 100% Awesome podcast with April Price. You might not know it, but every result in your life is 100% because of the thoughts you think. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome.

Hello podcast universe! Welcome to episode 242 of the 100% Awesome podcast and Merry Christmas, I'm April Price. I want to wish you the very Merry Christmas. I hope that your holiday season is full of all of the best things, all of the best circumstances, all of the best thoughts, all of the best feelings and that you are creating the holiday season that you want. And for those of you that are not really feeling that, not feeling like it is the best, I hope that you are being patient and compassionate with yourself because it can be a lot this whole month.

This whole season can be a lot. It can be stressful, it can be hard, there can be a lot of emotion. And sometimes we make ourselves wrong if we're not having the best time, right, there's something wrong with us. If we aren't just like, fully loving every moment of it and if I can just be totally transparent and honest with you for a minute. For the most part, this holiday has been pretty challenging, at least emotionally for me. And the other day I was even just complaining to David like, I'm just not feeling it right.

Like, I don't know why we have to do this every year. Like, why can't Christmas be every other year? Like it's just so much, right? And then it feels like we just keep doing it again and again. And it's so important in those moments to just recognize, hey, exhaustion is just as much a part of the joy. And it's okay. Wherever you're at, it's okay. Whatever you're feeling and you're not doing it wrong, you're not a bad person. You aren't the the hallmark movie failure. It's just it can be a lot. So be patient with yourself, be compassionate and just recognize that wherever you're at is right.

And I always find that makes it easier to transition to the next moment. If I'm okay with where I'm at, it makes it really easy to make the choice into joy when it presents itself, and into peace when it presents itself. Like you just let yourself be where you're at. Okay, before we get to the episode, I just want to give a big thank you to those of you that have left a five star rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. We're getting a few more ratings since I put out this request, and I hope that for those of you that don't know, I'm just asking if you love the podcast and it's like blessing your life, you're getting something out of it that you'll just scroll down to the bottom of the page and leave a five star rating.

It just takes a few seconds. If you're on Spotify, you have to click those like three little buttons, and then it will open up a place where you can leave ratings and it's super easy and I would love it. I would love to hear the feedback from you. I'm. The goal is to get to 250 ratings before the end of the year. So if you've been thinking about what is the best gift for my favorite podcast host, this is it, right? If you've been wanting to get me the perfect gift, this is the way that you could do it. So I'd love it if you would take a minute and just leave me a five star rating.

Okay, with that, I want to get on to the episode just again. To be transparent. This is my second time recording it. I feel like I just wanted to really, authentically. Tell you where I'm at and what I'm feeling, and share the lessons of this year as we are in the final weeks of 2023. I've been thinking a lot about the year and all the things that I did, the choices that I made, the results that I created, the experiences I had, and especially the lessons that I learned, the things that are different for me now, the things that have changed.

And I saw this post the other day on Instagram by Hannah Rowe writes, and I love this. I want to read it to you and just set the stage for what we're going to do here on the episode today. So she writes, it's always hard to think about the end. To sum up what happened from beginning to now, what you did, who you became, an unbecoming name, how far you went to the edge of grief, how love always brought you back, how you left or stayed, how you grew and bloomed. How you fought so hard to stay the same. It's hard to think about the end. To think that soon will start another year. For now, let the last short days rest gently on your shoulders. You were here. And you lived, breathed in air and took up space and changed the world so slightly. Let December hug you back. Holds you until it's gone. I love that poem.

I love those thoughts so much. And that's like where my heart has been as I've contemplated this episode, just to really think about all the becoming and unbecoming I went through this year. Like the edges of grief that in which I grew, the love that always brought me back, and really just letting all of that rest and let these last short days of December hug you back. You were here. You existed. That line to me is just so powerful.

You were here. You mattered. You took up space. The things you learn, the ways you became, the ways you became. They all mattered. And I hope that you'll just take a minute and acknowledge that. Acknowledge what has happened. Be proud of yourself for being here. Every once in a while. I think it can be really powerful to just stop and notice and stop and appreciate, stop and record and really assimilate all the becoming and unbecoming what you know now that you didn't know before, who you are now, that you weren't before.

Like our brains really only want to notice the things that we didn't do or didn't accomplish. They want to minimize our accomplishments and tell us, like, I don't know, you look exactly the same to me. Maybe a little worse, right? Like they're just, like, so disparaging of any kind of progress that we might be making. And they're always convincing us that we haven't changed enough. We haven't grown enough. We aren't learning enough. But we always are. I promise you that whatever happened, whatever choices you made, whatever you learned, whatever you became or even became like, that was valuable.

I was essential even to your existence here on earth. And I just would invite you to reflect and notice and appreciate all of that. Okay. This is one of the last episodes of the year. The Christmas episode. And as tradition has it, I like to share my family Christmas letter, the letter that I sent to all of our friends and family. And in that letter, I always talk about one of the things that I learned and the things that meant the most to me that year. And so I'm going to do that. As tradition would have it. I'm going to share that on the podcast, because you are my podcast family.

I don't have all your addresses. I can't send it to you. So I'm going to read that letter to you here at the end. But before I do that, I just wanted to share two other powerful lessons that I learned that I can't include everything in that letter. And so I wanted to be sure and acknowledge and notice and share two other important things that I learned, things that have changed me and changed the way that I think about myself and my life. Okay, the first lesson came to me by way of Taylor Swift, and one of the best parts of the year was going to the Taylor Swift concert with my family.

That was such a fun night. It was such a great concert. And then in the months and days since then, we have really listened to the music we have. It's just been like such a big part of our year. The lyrics, the songs, the celebration and all of that. And I talked about this lesson, this thing that I learned from her in the podcast episode this fall that I did about Taylor Swift. And so you can go back and revisit that at some point. But I was recently reading the Times Magazine article about Taylor Swift, and they noticed the same thing I had, which is just the, like, incredible perspective she has on the past versions of herself.

And so I'm really glad to know that the Times Magazine listens to this podcast, and they agreed with my assessment in that I just think it's so remarkable, so remarkable. When I was at that concert, I was like, she goes back and she visits all these other eras, all these other versions of her, and not just allows them to exist and not just acknowledges them, but she actually adores them. She appreciates them. She has so much affection for them.

And I think this is something that has really changed my perspective about myself for so long. I wanted to distance myself from all the other versions of me, all the versions that didn't know what I know now, all the versions that quote unquote did it wrong or were naive or just didn't have enough knowledge or experience. And what I love about watching Taylor Swift is that she doesn't cringe at herself. She doesn't cringe at the old versions of herself. She doesn't go back and think, oh my gosh, it's so embarrassing that I used to think about love that way.

And it's so embarrassing that I love that guy so much. And I thought he was like, everything, you know? Like, it's so embarrassing that I used to sing like that. My voice used to sound like that. Like that. I thought that genre was cool or whatever. Like, she just allows the evolution of herself and she adores every step along the way. And I just think this is such a powerful, tender, useful way to look at yourself and your life. And instead of cringing and instead of wishing that you would have known what you know now, back then, to really just pay respect and admiration and have affection for all those versions of you that have led you to where you are now.

As I was preparing this podcast, I went back and listened to last year's podcast at the same time, and I listened to my letter from last year, and the first thing my brain did when it heard that episode, it was just like, embarrassed. My brain was just like cringing and oh my gosh, you're so emotional. Oh my gosh, dramatic. Much right? And like, my brain was just cringing at that version of myself just last year and just embarrassed by it. And I just I watched my brain do that and I was like, no, I adore that version of me I remember.

How she felt. I remember the tenderness of those feelings, her heart on her sleeve. Right. That's what I love about Taylor Swift. Like her heart is on her sleeve, and she doesn't care if she looks silly or dumb, or later she thinks something else. Like she's just all in on all the versions of herself. And this is how I want to show up with myself in my own life. I want to appreciate. I want to have warmth and affection and a sense of respect and just even like honoring those old versions of me, they were so essential to who I am.

Okay, the second lesson that I learned that was really actually like such a surprise to me. Is that there is so much wisdom in my negative emotion. There's so much information there. There's so much knowledge about myself. About what I really want. There's so much wisdom in my negative emotion. And I think for a long time I've been really dismissive and critical and even suspicious of my negative emotion.

And feeling like that is something to fix. That is something to change that I'm feeling negative emotion. I must be having a thought error and in some of the most difficult, challenging, hardest moments of the year. I have learned, actually, that there is so much wisdom there for me that there is a part of me deep down inside that is trying to tell me something about myself, tell me something about what I want. Tell me something like there is valuable information there. So in one particular hard moment this summer, I was really distraught.

Really upset. I was under a lot of pressure, a lot of stress. And then it got some really terrible news and I was really struggling and just coming apart. I was in a session with my coach and I was just letting it all come out right. I was just losing it and she asked me a question. She said, what can you control? And I was like, upset and mad. And I was like, nothing. I like nothing, I can control nothing. Right? And then I was like, I guess my thoughts. I guess you want me to say that I can control my thoughts, right? And she said, if you can't control your thoughts or you don't want to control your thoughts, what else can you control? And I was just like stunned, I don't know, right? And she said, you can control your willingness to feel bad.

You can control your willingness. To feel bad about what is true right now. You can drop your judgment for it and your resistance and your fear, and you can just allow the feelings inside of you to be there. And meet them with warmth and welcoming and surrender, and just allow them to be a part of your life. Allow them to be part of your experience. There's so much as human beings that we don't control, and sometimes we don't even want to control our thoughts.

Sometimes bad things happen and we don't want to think positively about them. And in those moments, what is left is just the willingness to allow the negative emotion. Allow yourself to feel bad and receive the wisdom that is there. And what I really learned this year is that I tend to be critical or suspicious of my negative emotion, because I think it's not going to change things. So what's the point? Why I feel bad if it's not going to change things? And what my coach said is like, what if you aren't feeling bad to change something else? What if you're just feeling bad for you? It's just for you.

How much room can you make for that experience for you? You're not wrong for feeling bad. And when you can make room for it and you can allow for it, and you can be warm and receive it, then it can just come and go as it needs to. It can come in waves. You can come back when it needs to. It can leave when it needs to. And you can just release your need to control or change it. And what I've learned is that my negative emotion, there is wisdom there.

It brings me back to who I am. It reminds me of what I really want and in and of itself, it is not a problem. It can just be there. And yeah, it was created by me and it can just be there. Just because your negative emotion is created by you, by what you are thinking, doesn't mean it shouldn't be there. And learning to live my life with the negative emotion while I just hold the negative emotion has been such a powerful lesson for me this year to glean all the wisdom from it.

Find out what is true for me. Find out what it has to tell me about me and what's important to me. Okay, that brings me to the last lesson that I wanted to talk about that I have learned this year. I'm going to read this letter. I think it probably says it better than I'm going to explain it here. But I also just wanted to give you like, a little prep. This third lesson is all about the goodness and the extravagance of God and the way that I learned this, especially this year, was in putting on this wedding for my daughter.

That was such an instructive experience for me, because I saw how much effort I was willing to make and how much I wanted to make it perfect for her, make it right for her. And it's like that section in Luke where Christ is saying, if you, who are imperfect and flawed human parent, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more does your heavenly father know how to give good gifts? And I just saw this in such a different way this year that I recognize that like if I, with all my flaws and all my inadequacy and all my resistance and all my selfishness and all all the human parts of me, if I still want the best for my daughter, how much more does God? And I think he just loves us and cares about us in such an excessive way.

And the reason I know that is because I wanted to do the same for my daughter. I wanted to give her everything. I wanted to be excessive, and I used that word in the letter. I use that word excessive when I'm writing these letters. It's a family letter. And so I always let David read it and edit it or make comments or suggestions. Which is not to say that I always listen to his suggestions, but like, he really was like, I'm not sure about this word excessive. I'm not sure about seeing God as extravagant. I don't know if that's right. Right. He's it just makes it sound like like he's frivolous and he's worried about things that don't matter.

And I'm like, exactly right. I think he just goes so far beyond the bare minimum. I do think he's excessive. I do think he's extravagant. And I like thinking about him as an extravagant parent and as evidence for that. Early this year, in January or February, I went on this trip with my husband to Hawaii, and when we got there, it was late, I was tired. He was like, hey, let's go down to the beach and let's just walk around as the sun's going down. And I was like, no, I don't want to do that right.

I just want to lay on this bed. I want to get some food. I want to go to bed. I don't want to walk down to the beach. But I grudgingly went along. And as we were down there along that beach, I was just like walking along there. And all of a sudden, out of the water came this woman and her husband in wetsuits, and they were coming back from snorkeling. And as she came out of the water, I looked at her face and I recognized her. And it was somebody that I had been looking for some time to hire to be my coach. I had coached with her in another setting and I, but I couldn't find her.

I like search the internet, I'd search Instagram. I just could not find her. And I had been struggling and looking for my next coach and trying to find somebody who could help me with my thoughts and my brain and where I was at in my life. And there I was in Hawaii, like on a random beach on a random day, at the exact moment she was coming out of the water. And I was like. Oh, this is what I mean by the extravagance of God, by the incredible generosity.

And I could just imagine, like, how delighted he was knowing he had set this up, that he'd put all these things in motion to have all the right people and all the right places. David had to talk me into the trip in the first place. I didn't even want to go on that trip. There were just so many things that had to fall into place for that moment, for me to run into her and have her be a part of my life. And it's like such an impactful part of my life this year. I could not have done it without her, but I was just so struck by the abundance and the bounty and the extravagance and the just, almost frivolous effort that he went to make that happen for me.

And that was such a big theme for me this year. So I want to read this letter, which is all about the extravagance of God, and share my most important lesson of the year. Dear loved ones, this year we had our first wedding. Savannah married the best boy from the kindest family, from the smallest town in Utah, and it was one of the best days of our lives. When you're having a wedding, the list of things to rent and arrange and coordinate and purchase feels practically endless. As parents of the bride, there were millions of decisions to make, thousands of dollars to spend, hundreds of details to remember, and only the two of us to pull it off as part of our preparations, David and I spent every evening for two full weeks this summer carefully constructing a ten foot cardboard sign that proclaimed Best Day Ever in large, brightly colored, three dimensional letters.

I cut the letters out of huge sheets of cardboard, and then scored long cardboard strips and hot glue them together to build large, stackable 3-D letters, while David made thousands of feet of finely shredded French from long rolls of Italian crepe paper that we then attached row by row to each letter with more hot glue. It was quite a production. One night after midnight, as I peeled hot glue off my burned fingertips, I looked over at David, who was covered in red and pink and green crepe paper dust and asked, is this what you thought it was going to be like when you married me? David just looked at me and grinned.

Every time I got overwhelmed with the wedding planning, David, in a well-meaning attempt to alleviate my stress, would tell me, it doesn't matter. Nobody will care. And I would tell him, Savannah will care, and so I care. Truthfully, though, it was no different for him. The night before the wedding, we needed to take the top off Savannah's Jeep for the getaway moment at the end of the reception. But to do that required a very specific wrench that we didn't have. At 11:00 that night, David went to Walmart for the tool we needed.

As he was leaving, I said, are you sure? Maybe it doesn't matter. Nobody will care. But he didn't hesitate. Savannah will care, and so I care. I've been thinking about all the people in the Christmas story, but the two that don't get a lot of attention are the ones behind the scenes the parents, the givers of the gift, the givers of all the gifts. And I've been thinking about what I learned about them this year. I've thought about them preparing to send their son to earth, working in tandem to give us the best they had, to give us everything they had, coordinating the journey and the shepherds and the stars and the kings and the Passover and the birth for everything to come together at just the right moment, in just the right way, to fulfill the prophecies of for millennia, ministering to Mary and reassuring Joseph, even as they threw their arms around Jesus and kissed him goodbye at the entrance to the world.

And what I've learned. Is that they care about the details. They spare no expense. They are exuberant in their loving. They are extravagant in their care. They go out of their way. On that night in Bethlehem, when they gave their very best to the weary world, the sky was filled with heavenly hosts. All the heavenly host. See what I mean? It was so extra. And at the end of that terrible day on the cross, the whole earth rent and went dark and heaved to and fro from the magnitude of their pain.

See what I mean? There were no half measures. This was no light sacrifice. It was everything they had to give their best given without condition and without reserve. The scriptures are pretty clear about this. About their lavishness. The fatted calf. The best robe. Milk and honey. A feast of fat things, a promised land, excesses. Every one and all of it.

All of that excess, all of that generosity, all of that extravagant effort, all of that pomp and circumstance, all of it was for you. It was for me. It was for the whole human race, because they knew that one day we would care, that we would need a way back. And they wanted to make sure we had everything we needed and everything we wanted as well. But even more than that, it was because they care. Because they care to have us back.

Because they care about us coming home. Because that's all they care about, actually. So they set the stage, they prepared the feast, and they sent the bridegroom into the world on that first Christmas night and invited every one of us to come and enjoy their fullness. It was the best day ever this Christmas season. And always we worship the Son of God who was born to die for us. And we worship the generous Heavenly Parents.

That orchestrated and planned and prepared and offered the matchless gift of their son, and gave him to us without cost, without price, without thought of repayment or compensation, and without holding anything back. This year, we learned just a little better how deep that love goes, how excessively and obsessively they work to help us and delight us, and how earnestly they care about the smallest details of our lives just because we care about them, too, when it comes to what they will do for you and for me.

We haven't found the end of it yet with all our love. Okay. That's what I have for you, my friends. Merry Christmas. May you respect and admire and love. All the versions of you. May you receive and welcome your feelings, all your feelings with warmth and grace, and with a willingness to look at the wisdom that they have for you. And may you consider the excessive and lavish way that God loves you.

May you notice it and revel in it. That is my hope for you this Christmas. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome. I love you for listening and I'll see you next week.
Thanks so much for joining me on the podcast today. If you're serious about changing your life, you first have to change your mind. And the best way to do that is through coaching. I work with my clients one on one to help them change their thoughts and their feelings about themselves, their lives, and their challenges so that they can live a life they love. If you'd like to work with me one on one, you can learn more and schedule a free call to try coaching for yourself at Aprilpricecoaching.com