14: My Story: Military Life, Divorce & Starting Over

Today marks 34 trips around the sun for me and I’m just so grateful for another year on this earth. Even though it’s a Thursday, I took the day off of work and I’m going to spend the day doing some fun things that light me up. I’m someone who tends to get introspective around my birthday so being able to take the time today to focus on self-love is something I’m grateful for. One of the things that I’ve always loved to do on my birthday is to journal and every year I would write about the number of lessons that I’ve learned that coincided with the age that I was turning but honestly, I have zero desire to sit here and write about 34 lessons I learned in 34 years so I’m going do something a little different.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the last few years and how drastically my life has changed, I’ve been especially thinking about all of the challenges that I’ve had to overcome, challenges that almost broke me but ended up being a catalyst for something bigger and better in my life and in going down memory lane, I realized that I’ve never really talked about how I got here on this journey of self-discovery and why I’m so passionate about it.

Deep down I’ve been wanting to share a podcast episode like this for a while but… I’ve been hesitant for a lot of reasons. I feel like being transparent and vulnerable and using my experiences to help others feel less alone is one of my gifts, but there’s also a lot of fear tied to it especially when you’re doing so in such a public format. I’ve been through a lot of hardship, especially in the last 5 years and although I’ve come out on the other side of it, it’s still not easy to talk about.

But when I started this podcast I promised to always be real and raw and to share the things that were on my heart, even if it wasn’t easy. Because I truly believe that it's in the depths of our despair and the trenches of our trials that we learn our most valuable lessons and those lessons deserve to be heard by those who need them the most.

So think of this episode as an audio version of my birthday journal entry as I celebrate another year and bring you back to some of the most profound, heartbreaking, and joyous times in my life that helped shape who I am.

Connect With Christina Guzmán
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www.selflovetonicpodcast.com
christina@selflovetonic.com