Returning slowly... and Steadying the Lessons of Spring Break...

...why half my vlogs are better off missing...

Hey, lovelies,

Welcome to Jenna learning through business growing pains. When your own video editor says, “either you’re re-filming it and risking sobbing again, or maybe we take this as a hint to cut it out and leave it,” you generally listen, don't ya, Jenna?

I learned a lot of lessons during spring break, and I keep facing them daily. I’m pulling back in many ways. I love teaching, coaching, editing… I cannot do it all. Being a high school English teacher made me think I could, but in reality, I fumbled a lot of spinning plates hard this past year.

I have to accept that I messed up. I admit it and am sorry for it. I am not perfect—and good Goddess, I don’t think I ever want to be. At the same time, I learned my place and the required lessons to be a better person for those I want to serve and befriend and call family.

That sounds so negative, but I have to admit: I messed up in many ways that I have to learn the lessons for what they are, pick up the sharp bits along with the rest of it, and use some gold to fashion it all back together. I want to see the mistake, the repair, so that I remember the lesson… I am mostly a one-woman show. I am not at a place that I can really expand beyond that, and I have to spend time gardening what I have grown into for a bit before I can expand.

That’s fine. I can handle that. I am supremely grateful—even if it doesn’t seem like it in this ramble that I have long doubted about sharing.

I have often wondered if I should end my YouTube channel/social media altogether. After all… if I was going to grow…. it would have been bigger by now, ne? I keep telling myself, one more quarter… one more quarter… I find myself wanting to do less and less. Maybe that is the lesson here for me.

In education in the United States, teachers are told to over-give to the point the salary is laughably underpaying them. Maybe, for once, it is nice to look at recovering from people pleaser mode at a vantage point of being the quiet person I was known for being outside of YouTube and prior to 2020 giving me the blessing of a chance to attempt what circa 2019 and earlier teacher me would call a Divine miracle I have and have not wasted… maybe it is time to be more like who I am in real life on YouTube. In a lot of spaces.

The quiet but firm version of me that most people call all kinds of four and five letter short words… she is healing. She is integrating. She is not as angry as she used to be, but at the same time, I know that she comes from a place and a part of me who feels robbed of a life that I have recently accepted cannot happen… as I had dreamed for almost half my life… and that is okay.

Slow and steady… it might not win the race, but at least I can appreciate the scenery of the journey instead of the rat race. After all, one is full of self-doubt and not knowing who to trust. I think I’ve operated from that angle long enough… slow and steady it is, then.

So, thank you. Thank you for being here through one of the most chaotic and healing and learning phases of my life. I am not perfect. I am deeply sorry for what I have done wrong. I am grateful for the lesson and the teachers who gave them as many of the time its some of the most important people who come and go in our lives who are the most influential teachers ever.

Our voices do matter. Thank you to those of you who listen to me ramble when I hurt and don’t hide it—especially while we learn and heal along the way in ways we didn’t foresee.

There’s likely going to be less of me for a while as I finish some writing for me and focus on my coaching over on YouTube. I will mostly focus on honing my editing services to be of better suit to the clients I wish to serve most, so I am grateful to be working on my clients’ book babies all the more as the summer sun comes in to remind us that this season is all about progress.

In ways we did not intend. But in all ways and always that are necessary.

Sincerely,

Jenna OM

Your Soul Writer