BONUS: 2023 Reflections and Looking Forward to 2024

Hey everyone, this is going to be a bit different. If you are listening on the podcast, there is no intro, there is no music, this is just me coming on, and if you are watching this, then I am glad you're here. This is a last-minute decision to do, mostly because I have been listening to other podcasts for people I follow who have been reflecting on the year, and I enjoyed it. I have not wanted to do something like this because for some reason, it just kind of feels self-serving, but at the same time, it's a way that I have felt more connected to the people I listen to, and I know that many of you who are subscribers and get my monthly newsletter do not listen to the podcast. So this is my way of just reaching out and saying hi and letting you hear a bit more of my heartbeat. This is not something that is like what I'm doing or what I have done from the year. This is more of a reflection of some elements of Grace's health and I just thought we would do it. So what I decided to do is I am following the 10 questions to ask at the end of the year, prompts from Laura Tremaine. Laura is the host of the 10 Things to Tell you podcast, and she's a big fan of journaling and an advocate of journaling and she provides lots of different questions. So this one I actually happened to just come up across over the holiday and my family and I were sitting in the hot tub and we pulled these questions out and just went through them ourselves, which I was shocked, you guys. I was shocked that some of the people in my family were willing to talk about these questions. So I thought what I would do is answer these mostly from a Grace's health or Amy's holistic health perspective. I have two people who are totally off the grid and I try my very best to respect that. If you see pictures of my family, that is a very big deal. I have gotten permission to use it. I try not to talk about specific people very often, so I'm gonna leave them out. That is not to say they were not important and meaningful in my life. It just means that I try to respect with their wishes, which is to not be mentioned. So I'll just gonna do that. So I'm gonna start with the first question that Laura asked and I'll just go through those. So one of them was, or the first one was what are your standout moments? It is very difficult to do this without thinking of some of my standout personal movements or personal moments and really specifically those are times that I have connected with people I care about. You know it's really easy to go to some of the some trips and things that are a bit different from our day-to-day activities. However, before I say kind of some of the things that we did, I will also tell you that I have had some incredibly meaningful conversations with my friends on the sidewalks. Betsy, shout out to you, you have heard a lot. You have heard my heart and I'm so grateful that we can walk and talk. If you know me, you know I'm a fan of walking and talking and I do this with a lot of friends. My friend Betsy in particular has just been so meaningful to me, so that is a standout moment. Also, I made it was able to make a few trips that I just feel like standout as something that I remember. And when I say holistic health, this is the connection part. This is the part that feeds my soul. So it's not necessarily full of, you know, salads and workouts, but they were definitely important parts to help me feel whole in the things that are important to me, which connection is a really big thing for me. So I got to go to Bentonville, arkansas, with a couple friends. It was at the end of January actually, and if you've never been to Bentonville Arkansas, it's adorable. It's like this little eclectic, fun, little hippie-dippy place and I say that with all the respect that I can and that was so fun. My husband and my son and I my younger son took a trip to Big Bend, which is like in Texas and 10 hours away. It was a drive, it was a really big drive, but that was awesome. It looks nothing like it does here in the Houston area. It feels like a completely different space and it is awesome and I really hope to go there. Really, what I want to do is go back with my friend Marnie. I think it is actually halfway between her place and mine. She lives in Phoenix, arizona. That's how far away it is for me in Texas. But you met Marnie last year I think it was last year when we talked about camping and she's a big camper, and so I would just love to go back with her and do that in a different way. My husband and I went to Napa with my sister and her husband. That is the first trip we have taken with just the four of us and that was fun. We had a great time. Her husband planned it, which was the biggest gift. It was so awesome to like wake up number one and he would go run and then he would bring us breakfast, like I was like there was breakfast waiting on the outside of our door for us. It was awesome. We were so well taken care of and he did all the planning and it was awesome. It was fantastic. So that was a super special standout moment. And then the final trip that I took was with my friends, my sorority friends. I think you probably know, if you don't, I was a Kamega in college and that experience was and continues to be so meaningful to me. And we took a trip to Park City and it was awesome and it was in the end of August and it was blazing hot here and all summer long. I just could not wait to get my booty up to Park City and sit outside and a hoodie and drink coffee, and I got to do that. So that was super fun. From a Grace Teal perspective, I cannot not mention the monthly meetings that I have with the Grace Teal plus subscribers. That is open to anyone, and when you join that, you get whatever I want to say special, what's the right word. You get locked episodes in your podcasting feed, and then we do these Zoom meetups and then I send emails periodically and that's just been a fun way for me to connect with those of you who are listening. So it's a small sample, but it's so meaningful. That is definitely a standout moment for me. The next question is what would you do differently? Okay, so you're going to hear this theme a couple times today, but one of the things I've realized is I have a gift of vision. I can see things. If I were in the corporate world, I feel like I would be great at business development or strategic planning. I am not great at execution. I can see it and I don't do it all. So what happens to me is I can see all these things in my head and what I don't do is organize my thoughts, organize my data and do things to be kind to my future self. So that is what I would do differently, and I know that's kind of a broad thing, but I really struggle with that and then I get in this little mind, whatever you want to call it of like oh, you should have done that. You'd be so much more effective if you did this. And kind of self-shaming of like you're not getting things done, even though no one knows. Like no one knows what's going on in my head, no one knows the vision that I have because I'm a team of one, but that's what I would do differently and I'm going to try more this year and I have some systems in place and I'm hoping we'll support that. The third question is who did you have the most meaningful conversations with or interactions with? Well, it kind of goes along with the standout moments, those trips, absolutely super meaningful interactions. Again, my friend Betsy and I also have a friend, kelly, who did a. We co-led a Bible study or a small group of young adults and that was super awesome. I love we would go together, so it was like 10 minutes in the car there and back and then every now and then we would get together, either go lunch or walk. But that was, those were really meaningful interactions that I had with her. And then the other thing too is I do want to give a shout out, even though this isn't it's a different kind of meaningful. I cannot tell you how meaningful it is when you hit reply on these emails or on the emails that you get, if you have them, and say great episode, or hey, I loved this newsletter. Or thanks so much, or something like that. Those are so meaningful. It is like right now I am sitting here, I am looking at my phone because it is live streaming this onto YouTube so I can send it in the newsletter. I have a microphone in my face, I have two lights on me because lighting is everything. You know this. But I'm sitting here by myself and I'm talking to you and I know I'm talking to you and I think some of you are listening, but like I don't know, I don't know, and so when I get like proof of life on the other end, that is super meaningful to me. So I want to thank you If you have done that. I thank you If you have thought oh, I don't want to bother her, you're not bothering me, like I love it. I kind of do a little happy clap every time I get something because it does mean a lot to me. Okay, and again, this is from the Grace Health perspective, but it says where did you spend most of your time. So the way that I am interpreting that for this conversation is what did I spend the most of my time working on? And without a doubt, that is the podcast. So this and all the things that go behind it. It is not just sitting in front of a microphone and uploading it. There is a lot that goes on the back end. I will not bore you with that. That part I do not enjoy so much and you'll hear more about this later. But I spend a lot of time on the podcast and I spent a lot of time on your core strength. So your core strength is a book for young women, specifically high schoolers, but it can go down to maybe seventh, eighth grade and then up into, I would say, the first couple years of college I have spent. I started writing that in the summer and it's been a project. It's been a project, it's been a good project, it's a project I'm proud of, but it has been a lot. So I would definitely say that is where I spent most of my time, which I do not regret, and I believe that those were the right places to spend my time. What are you most proud of? So it is not out yet, but I am really proud of your core strength. I am proud of the intentionality that has gone into it. I am proud of the safe space that I have created for young women to learn not only nutritionally and exercise science, you know, wise, sound information, but also through a lens of intuitive eating. This was very hard for me to do, by the way, and I had a lot of help. I had a lot of help on this. So that way it is safe. It is not. It is diet culture free. It is a place for them to learn things and apply what works for them holistically, and I am proud of it and I would you know, as you should be when you release a book. So hopefully that is coming in April and I'm gonna talk more about your core strength here at the end when I go into 2024. The other thing I think I have to acknowledge too is this is something I've been wrapping up, it's now at the editor and it the recency bias is real. So I'm like that's what my brain is on, that's what I was getting up at six o'clock in the morning to do so I could get things done so that way when my kids were awake and home from Christmas break or winter break that I could spend time with them. So that's, that's something that's a project I'm proud of. The next question she offered Leslie offer I'm sorry, laura offered is what content will stay with you. I Can, and she and she didn't say content, she said like books, podcasts, movies, news, I mean anything. So I'm taking this as content and specifically health related content. I Really like the Huberman lab. I have a few episodes that I will recommend If people are asking about them. I think he did a wonderful, wonderful episode on alcohol and how it relates to your health. There are some other episodes that he's done specifically related to health that I have found fascinating. I don't listen to all of them, but the ones that I've listened to I do really like. I Respect how much research and time he puts into recording those and I just think he's a great resource. The other piece of content is the book feed yourself by Leslie Schilling. If you are in my Well, you I'm sure you've seen it, but she was, or that book was our inaugural or inaugural Book club, so that was really fun to read and then read again through a book club view and then talk with her about that and Some of the stuff that she says is hard and there's some, definitely some stuff that you want to go what, but what about? But what do you, what if? But I Keep going back to some of the things that I learned and continue to learn from her. Leslie has Definitely kind of held my hand and guided me through diet, culture, stuff, and I'm really grateful for her. What's the biggest lesson? Okay, so, what I get in my own way, that's the biggest lesson I have learned that I get in my own way. In fact, I even took this to my therapist one time. I was like I Cannot get out of my own way because, again, I see the vision, I see the thing, and then I start talking myself out of it and I start backtracking and I know, I really believe that a lot of that is the enemy, just kind of attacking my mind, attacking my spirit, and I'm working through that. But I will think I have an idea that's pretty neat or cool or impactful and then I second Guess it and I start talking myself out of it. That is the lesson that I have learned about myself and I wish that was not my lesson, because it's held me back and it's not me, but it's held the message back. The other thing I've learned is if I don't Write it or plan it or batch it or any combination of those three, it doesn't get done. I finally got. I got a new and I'm gonna show this on YouTube on my videos. I got a new planner. I have been working from this same planner. It's by plum paper. This is my third year. Last year I thought you know this, eight and a half by eleven is pretty big. I'm gonna go with a smaller one and it was not enough space to write and I didn't utilize it as much. So this one kind of goes with me. It goes upstairs when I work and then the secret for me I've learned is if I take it downstairs, then when things come in my mind, either during my quiet time or like just random to-dos like I need to call my dentist right now because I had a crown come off While I was flossing and it's on my to-do list which I'm looking at the clock, thinking Amy, you better call her before the office closes. But anyway, like that's the kind of stuff like if I don't write it down it's not happening. So that is another lesson that I have. Okay. Then she had a question that I thought was kind of funny. It's what era are you in? So it was a little bit of a nod to the Taylor Swift era's tour. I did not go to that tour or to that concert. I do like Taylor Swift and we have some big TS fans in my house, by the way but I think it was basically like what phase? So I have always called this phase and I have said I am in phase Two of my life. But if I were to take grace, health, right now I am in a content content Creation Era. I have three big projects that I'll tell you about here and a little bit that I'm working on for 2024, which is the, I think, the most. What's the right word? It is it. It's something that it's gonna be, it's gonna be hard to get through, what's the word I'm looking for? And this is all like live, so I can't go back and edit it. Anyway, hopefully you know, hey, if you know, hit, reply on the email if you get it and tell me or email me. But anyway, that is yeah, that is my era, like just content production, and then second half of the year will be a bit more content distribution. So I don't know what 2025 will hold, but 2024 is definitely producing producing some projects. The next question is what are you willing to change to get the life you really want? Okay, this is going, this is using I understand using with privilege and I and I'd recognize that and this is gonna sound obnoxious and like instagram me but I really do have a life I want. I have an amazing husband who is more supportive than I am. He is so supportive. I have two kids who I adore and love and I oh my gosh, this age, I love it. I love it it. You know we're walking through some things, we're learning some things, but at the same time, they're just wonderful. I would not change anything about this life. I have this amazing office. By the way, like we converted one room to like I have an entire room for an office just for me, and this is the most peaceful place and I love this room so very much. Now, how that relates to grace tell us in the business side is there have been some things happening in my periphery not to me where I have realized that I have to continue prioritizing my husband and my family If I do all the things that I visualize or envision. I can get to focus on that and not give the attention of where my priorities are. My priorities are my husband and my kids. So I, if I want to make big changes on my business side, I fear that would affect it. So when it comes to making a choice for one of the other, my family always wins. They just went and this is probably very similar to very many of you and again using using with privilege. So, with that said, there are times I kind of go dark. There are times I don't post things on our grace. Tell facebook group. There I'm pretty consistent with the podcast. There are times that I'm like I'm getting off instagram because instagram drains me. It drains me when I see things, it drains me putting things out and I want to have the energy for my family. So you see inconsistencies specifically in those two areas and I'm kind of sorry for that. But I'm also, I guess, proud I that's just the decision I make. So that's just where I stand with that. The final question she had is what is your wildest dream for 2024. So I am a very pragmatic person. I'm a very realistic person. Would a wildest dream be your core strength getting on the new york times best seller list, yeah, but that's like to me. That's not even a dream like. That's just not, that's like me, that's. That's just that to me that's just not realistic. So I'm gonna kind of bring down like what's a wildest, realistic dream and I kind of have a couple of them. Number one is selling enough books and products related to your core, your core strength, like speaking, like going out and doing speaking engagements and getting paid for it to cover the cost of the book, which I know seems very simple. I am self published, which means I pay for everything. I mean I pay for editing, I pay for book design, I pay for interior design, I pay for the I mean I just everything, everything, paying, paying, paying, paying, paying, paying, paying, paying. So I would love to recoup the cost of this book. I did not with your worthy body, that was a more expensive book so far and I would love to recoup the cost of that. I would love I mean, a wild, wildest dream for 2024 is I would love to make enough money to hire, help and to get some people who love making social media content, who have some other ways that they can help me again with what I can envision, but I just don't have the capacity to do. I would love, like a virtual assistant and I would love to pay for one Because there's, I would just, you know, I would love to be able to pay for one to have the accountability of that. And then the other kind of wildest dream is I would love to create kind of a turnkey event For christian high schools so I can say I've got this thing, I can come, I can help your female athletes or your female students Make peace with food and their body and exercise and give them science backed information and help them with their holistic health and their relationships and their comparison. And if here's the price, and then I take care of everything else. That's a lot of work and I don't. I'm not a good event planner. Event planning is not my jam. I will show up and I will knock it out of the park and I can. I do not like event planning. In fact, for your worthy body. My friend betsey and her daughters help me. They helped plan my book launch party because I'm like I don't, I don't, I don't wanna, I just don't think of things, and she did an amazing job. So, anyway, that is. Those are the wildest dreams for twenty twenty four. Now I'm looking forward to twenty twenty four. Yeah, here are a few things just to have on your radar. Number one is starting next week. I have the core essentials coming up, so this will be different. It is two. It is two episodes a week for two weeks, a total of four episodes. That is identifying and solidifying my message. If you have been with me, none of this is going to be totally new to you, but there are some things that I want to make sure that I'm very clear on and and just yeah, and just kind of put that out there. This is part of a bigger plan too. So whenever people sign up for my Email list, it's things that I can point them to, that they can learn a little bit more about grace health. So there's a bigger plan for this. But look at, look for that, I'm calling it the core essentials. With that, you will hear new music, you will hear a new intro and Again, I'm just really refining the message and the audience. Who this is for Doesn't mean that you're not welcome if you are not a woman over 40, but it means that that's who this is for, as I mentioned, I do have this book your core strength. It was originally supposed to come out in February and I I had Leslie help me with identifying diet, culture and some potentially problematic Words or phrases, and then I had a lot of work to do. I thought it was good and clean. I had a clean manuscript at the end of October and Then she helped me with it and I'm so grateful for that and I had a lot of work to do. So, rather than stressing about it and pushing my team To have to work more than they really wanted to over the holidays or anything like that, I thought I'm just pushing it to April. So it was going to be February, march of spring break. That's not a good time to launch things for young women, and so we're gonna we're shooting for April right now. Hopefully, hopefully that happens. Before that happens, hopefully, at the end of the month, I am launching a new podcast I'm calling it a limited run, I don't know how long it will run, but it will run definitely for at least six months called lessons to my teenage self and these this is specifically for teen girls, and I am saying it's a shortcut of things that I have learned that I wish I would have known when I was a teen. So, yeah, that is coming out. I also am interviewing younger people because, let's face it, I am a mom who turns 50 this year, so I just needed some younger people with maybe a little bit less gray and less wrinkles. So I'm hoping to have, every other week, a young woman between the ages of 20 and 30 Sharing these stories that she has learned throughout throughout her time. So I'm excited about that. I've already had some really incredible conversations and I'm excited to get that out. So you will. This is not the last time you will hear about it. I will definitely be emailing you and letting you know, because if your daughter is interested in learning that, they will be able, or she will be able, to turn tune in either through her favorite podcast app or on YouTube, because I know that that's a place where People, and especially Gen Z, likes to consume their content, and even the even their podcasts is on YouTube. After that, a couple months after that, I'm releasing a journal that is a 30 day journal. It's kind of designed to be a partner in your morning routine, so this is actually something that will be appropriate for women of all ages and we will have I won't give all the details of it, but anyway that is coming out and there will be areas for prompts and prayers and check marks to make sure that we've had our water and Just kind of a little checklist of what to do so that I am excited about. And and Finally, I'm already putting some thoughts to this, but I am wanting to do a online course for holistic women, for women over 40 as they age. This will include strength training. I know strength training can be very overwhelming if you have not done it, but it will not only include that. So my vision for this again, vision, right, like execution, hopefully it happens, but vision is there. My vision for this is it's kind of a one-stop shop for women who are noticing that they are getting older and they need to take care of themselves a little differently and their sleep is impacted and their stress is impacted and, um, you know, okay, I'm supposed to be having calcium and like all of these different things. And it's a one-stop shop because, as we have learned, as we have been going through on the Grace Health podcast, health is not just about exercising and eating. It is so intertwined with everything else, including our mental health and our spiritual health. So that is how I envision it. It will be online and then again, yes, there will be I don't know how many, so I'm not even going to say like a handful, maybe more, I don't really know of strength workouts and mobility, but it will be much more than that because, let's be honest, you can get on YouTube and search for strength workouts for women over 40, and there's there's plenty of those. I believe that our health is a lot more than just one thing, and so that's what this is going to offer, and it will offer a lot of the things that I have learned, that I've been able to employ as we have been going through this, you know, grace Health journey. So that is the reflections and, looking ahead, I'm thanks for listening or for watching. I know this is an unscheduled episode over on the podcast and if you are new to me, then you can kind of hear like, oh okay, this is, this is what Amy's all about. So have a wonderful weekend or day or evening if you're watching this later, and I appreciate you. Thank you for being a part of my community. Thank you especially for the Grace Health Plus subscribers and those who leave tips at the bottom of these newsletters. Those truly do help go to offsetting the back end costs of everything. Grace Health I am all of my personal in like this is very different. My business income is completely separate from anything from my family income, and so this, anytime you offer a bit of help, it is greatly appreciated. Thank you again for being a part of the community, thanks for listening, thanks for like trusting me, and I am excited for 2024. I hope you are too. That's all. Have a good one.