Let Me Introduce Myself

I wanted to spend this week sharing a little about my background and story since many of you may not know me. This concept of “What I Wish I Knew” has come from my own experience within the field of child and youth services, personal growth and development as a person, and growing up within a single parent home. This concept to me is important because so many of us carry things from our childhood with us throughout our lives and may not even realize it. The patterns and ways we view the world that develop when we are growing up, directly impact the trajectory of our lives. How many of you have ever responded in a way to a situation and instantly had a flash back of your parent or a family member doing that EXACT same thing. Why? Because our brains operate on patterns. Our brains pull the scripts from the movie of life that we have seen and lived.

Let me introduce myself

• I am a Las Vegas native, grew up in North Texas, and now call Columbus OH home.

• I am married to my college sweetheart, Kevin, and we have two fur babies Callie and Bella.

• I am the oldest of 4- only girl and desperately love my younger brothers and the moments I got to help raise them. I also have two sisters in law. I am also a proud aunt Faith to several precious children that I treasure deeply.

• My faith is very important to me and guides many facets of my life and relationships with others.

• I am passionate about making the world better for future generations and helping everyone build their own capacity for change.

• Much of what I do and share about comes from a variety of educational, personal, and professional experiences.

The picture you see above perfectly describes my husband and I’s dynamic. We are rarely serious and always finding ways to make each other laugh. But we have not always been this way. Many of the early years of our relationship were very hard for me working through many unhealthy patterns that I experienced or saw growing up. My dad as a single father did the best he could. He worked a lot to provide for us and showed us the value of working hard and supporting those you care about. My parents got divorced when I was very young. Even though it was for the best, I internalized many things that I shouldn’t have. As the oldest, many household and caretaking responsibilities fell to me and it wasn’t until I was an adult and truly on my own after college that I was able to stop and reflect on who I was and what was important to me. I was going through life in survival mode to try to “get to the next thing” hoping that then would bring me peace, happiness, or a feeling of success. As a first generation college student and the oldest child, I placed much self-worth in achievement, especially academically, as a way to prove to myself that I was “good enough” or smart enough but also to show my siblings they could too.

I then jumped straight from college into the workforce, grad school, and getting married (who doesn’t love all the life changes at once right?). I was growing up and growing alongside my husband but still hadn’t really figured out who I was and what my purpose in life was. It was after graduate school when I started working within systems building work where I could pour into others, create something new, and see meaningful change that I found my passion. I was put on this earth to be a capacity builder for change. How that looks has been different throughout the years whether I was working within the public health, education, nonprofit, or program creation space, the end goal has stayed the same. My hope for this newsletter is to share a mix of education, hope, stories, and “What I Wish I Knew” about the ways that our childhood stays with us. We can change, but we have to know better to do better.

What is something within your own life that “you wish you knew” earlier on? Is there a pattern, a relationship style, or even a parenting practice that if you would have changed earlier could have been beneficial? Now that you have identified it, what do you need to do to make that change? change is possible.

As we go together in the weeks ahead, diving into concepts and stories, I want to hear from you. I want to support you! I will be planning monthly webinars to dive into content that impacts us from childhood and beyond. I want to hear from you on timing of when that webinar in May would be beneficial. We will be going over the multiple areas of well-being and wellness and creating a plan to help you be more well. Please complete the poll below!

I share my story to give you some context of the world and thought patterns I come from and have worked through, but also to show that change is always possible. We are on this growth journey together.

This newsletter was created through Beehiiv, for more information on the platform go to https://www.beehiiv.com/?via=faith