Date Yourself Instead - 25 powerful lessons I took from 2025, part one.

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

It was quite the year, indeed.

There are certain years where God is going to crack open your entire life and you're going to be like what the actual F is happening right now. I'm going to tell you right now, 2025 was the year of plot twists, unexpected situations where I was like, I don't even know what to do. I just have to throw my hands back and literally surrender, let go and let God and just have faith that everything's going to work out eventually because nothing went according to plan this year. I went into 2025. January 1st, I was like, you know what? I'm going to just give this year my all, start this year with a fire, get all my work done, be productive, get my shit together, get my life in order. And it was kind of the opposite.

2025 was the year that forced me to slow down. There's a lot of people in the community, podcast listeners, people in my Instagram DMs, people on TikTok. It seems to be that a lot of people have felt this way. Okay. I was like, maybe it's just me, maybe this year is just not my year. But then every single video on my algorithm, every single DM I've got in, every single person in the master class, my friends, my family, everyone collectively was like, what the actual F was that? So, this wasn't a soft year. I tend to see the glass half full, always. I try to be extremely optimistic all of the time. But when God keeps throwing you test after test and trial after trial, you start to question things a little bit. And I'm not going to lie, you know,

I had my mental health battles this year. I know a lot of you guys also felt the same. But the beauty of this is, we really are all in this together. 2025 was the year God really put my back up against the wall and was like, let me just do my thing and you're going to have to have unwavering faith. And let's see how strong your faith actually is. You want to believe in God. You want to have faith. Let's see how strong your faith really is.

And I was like, okay, okay, fine. So yeah, on today's episode, I'm going to be talking about 25 valuable, powerful, incredible lessons I took away from 2025, as well as some things I won't be taken. with me into 2026 because mark my words, 2026 is the year. It's the comeback year. It's the breakthrough year. It's the year where we get everything we've ever wanted, where we've been praying on our hands and knees for blessings for success, for the dream relationship, the dream career, everything that we've ever wanted is coming for us in 2026. If you're watching this right now, I am claiming for you and for me that 2026 is the year of miracles, abundance,

manifestations coming through and incredible divine breakthroughs. So anyway, let's get into today's episode. These are the 25 things I learned in 2025 that altered my brain chemistry. Rewired my entire self-concept and truly built me stronger and more confident as a woman moving into the new year. Number one, your presence is the most valuable gift in the world and your energy is divine and sacred. Where you give your energy matters more than anything. Where you're giving your attention to matters more than anything. And I had to learn how to pull back my energy and focus deeply on myself and be very introspective this year. This year, I definitely met a lot of amazing people. I'm so grateful. I moved to London. I met incredible women, which I had prayed for. I manifested

my dream female friendships. And it was one of the most fun years as far as networking. I could take that as one of the biggest blessings. Just meeting so many amazing, beautiful, confident, strong warrior women that came into my life when most of my life I struggled meeting female friends. and I had a lot of trouble meeting friends and I thought that there was something honestly wrong with me because I always felt kind of isolated and alone and I started to question a lot of things about myself and then moving into this year I met so many people

who changed my entire perspective of me and made me love myself more and made me realize that my independence and my strength as a woman can be valued and appreciated and seen by other women and I'm so insanely grateful. However, I will say there were also a lot of situations with old flings, exes, people that came back from my past. I'm going to call them the ghosts of Christmas past.

There was a guy that I was kind of talking to before I left London, and he reminded me of someone else that I had dated. He looked just like him, and I'm like, why do I keep meeting guys that look like this one guy I dated? The same height, the same build, the same facial structure, different personality, but I was just like, this is so weird. I keep attracting the same looking type of guy. He was like, I'm your ghost from Christmas past, and I was just like, that's not a good thing.

That's not something I'm proud of to date someone that reminds me of someone else. Because it is like eating out of the trash. It just wasn't fully aligned. I wasn't fully open to also dating him because it reminded me too much of my past. It was very triggering and all these things came up. And this experience with this person, it just taught me about where I need to be directing my energy, moving forward. I can't be thinking about the past. I can't be replaying past memories.

I can't be carrying my old ex baggage into the new year, into 2026. I don't want to be reminded of anyone I used to date. I don't want to think about anyone I used to date. All is forgiven. All is well. I forgive all my exes for everything. I hope that they forgive me. I hope it's a two-way street.

I'm wishing everyone light and love for my past. But to give your energy to the past is not really something we're doing in 2026. I cannot even begin to tell you how done I am. circling back to people from the past or talking about it or recording episodes about it. Obviously, if I have to reference something as an example to help people in an episode, I'm going to do that always. But when it comes to my personal life, chatting with my friends and living my everyday experience, I am not taking the past with me and neither should you, okay?

Your past does not define you. It does not determine who you're about to become. And 2026 is really going to be the breakthrough year where we are truly looking ahead to our future self, our future timeline and we are focused on the future version of us always, always looking ahead. The most successful and happy and driven people I know, they always look ahead. People that don't replay the past over and over in their head or talk about past situations are usually way more content and are able to move forward with things very quickly. That is why I'm making it my mission to be careful where my energy is going, where my time is going, where I'm investing

my presence. As I said, your presence is a sacred gift. Your energy is a sacred gift. And every second of your time matters. Every second of your time that you're allocating to an ex, someone that's not right for you, a bad friendship, something that you're just not enjoying, something that's draining you is taking away from your creativity, your light, your shine, your spark, new ideas, your intuition. It really clouds you.

I noticed this, especially this past year. Anytime I would entertain anything that wasn't really aligned for me, I would get so exhausted and burned out. And I'm like, I don't have the energy for this. 2025 truly, truly taught me that I didn't have the, energy for anything anymore that wasn't fully aligned. I needed to conserve and protect my peace a lot this year. It taught me the power of that because it really did help me when I protected my energy, when I hibernated, when I needed to. I wasn't desperately trying to go out and seek

external validation from dating. I stopped drinking alcohol because my brain was frying and London has that effect on you moving there in like the summer basically. It was so beautiful when I arrived. There was a lot of pub culture involved. I love London to death. I love it more than anything. But the alcohol culture there is a little bit intense. If you're not the type of person who likes to drink, it's probably not the best place to live, to be completely honest. You have to find your people there. That's something else I learned in 2025 that I'm just going to squeeze in here. You really have to make an effort sometimes to find your people. And a lot of that comes with embodying the version of you that you really want to become. So I had to completely stop

drinking and start joining activities and putting myself out there in workout classes in running clubs to start to meet people. The beauty of that is I did. And once I started getting more in alignment with my health and what I truly wanted, I started attracting better experiences and opportunities and people for me. But you do have to make that effort. And you do have to change who you are in order to attract the people that are right for you. The second thing I learned in 2025 is if you feel anxious or something's off in your intuition in your gut or if you physically feel ill around someone, if you're getting headaches, if you're getting anxiety, if you're feeling drained, fatigued around someone, they are not meant for you. Your body

knows when someone is aligned for you because you will feel more excited and energized and inspired leaving that interaction. 99% of the time, unless you're actually sick, which I always think illnesses are tied to spiritual things, usually when you're sick, it's manifesting because something emotional is happening in the body. Usually, I'm not going to say all the time. If you've ever read the book, You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay. Every illness that manifests in the body stems from an emotional or mental issue. This is something where at first I was like, this is BS. Like, there's no way. But as I really studied it and learned more about it, I realized that I would only get sick when I was around certain people, not gonna, you know, say who, but they were men.

I would get fevers, chills, nauseous. My ovaries would literally start hurting. I started having really heavy irregular periods around guys. It was all warning signs that they were not right for me. And I didn't know this because I was younger and I didn't understand this concept. But in 2025, I had no gyneological issues because lo and behold, I didn't really date. I didn't really interact with anyone. I was really focused on myself. But 2025 taught me that your health is everything and where you're going, the environments you're entertaining, the people you're entertaining the relationships you're still involved in, affect your health. I ended up in the hospital the first month of the year because honestly, I never really shared this on the podcast,

but I went back to the place where I found out my ex had done some things that weren't so nice. Okay. I don't know why I felt called to revisit that place. I think I was honestly in denial that it affected me that much because I love Australia. I think it's an amazing place. I was like, you know what, why not go back again? It's going to be amazing. Kick off the year in good weather, good vibes. However, when I got there, I fell violently ill. I was literally unable to walk and move. I wasn't able to get out of my bed for five days straight. I couldn't eat. I was shaking. I had a high fever. I landed in Melbourne. I checked in at the hospital there. And then they were doing all these tests on me. They checked my blood. They gave me an IV drip. And they were like, there's nothing

wrong with any of your vitals, your blood. You look fine. And I'm like, that's not possible. they were like, no, you're fine. Maybe you were just dehydrated. Everything looks normal. And they were telling me that I was completely fine medically. All the numbers, everything, all the data was coming back as normal. And then I started to feel a little bit better, but I was still like something is so severely off.

Then I had a choice. I was either going to go back to New York, which was going to take me about 25 hours. I was on the phone with my dad and I'm like, I think I should just come home. I can't be this far away from home this sick. And then my other option was to go six hours to Bali, where I knew. people. I had friends there and I was kind of weighing the options and I'm like, what if, because they're telling me that there's nothing wrong on paper, what if my body's just rejecting Australia because I had a traumatic experience happen here? And I was like, that's such

a crazy thought, but what if? And if I just leave, I'll feel better. I landed in Bali and I saw Jesus in my window when I landed. I may have been a little bit delusional because I was still coming down from an illness, but I literally saw like the outline of Jesus in my window when I landed. I was never that religious, okay? I'm just going to preface this right now. I was never that religious at all. I've never read the Bible, nothing. So this was a really unique, crazy, wild experience where I was like, what the fuck? Whoa. And then I felt fine. I literally felt fine. So the point is your nervous system, your immune system is all connected to the higher realms. I truly believe that. When someone or something is not aligned for you, your body will

reject it. You'll feel it. You will feel it. Especially if you're a woman who's very sensitive and you absorb a lot from your environment, you will know, you will feel it. Trust that. The third thing I learned is God's timing is his timing. And he doesn't operate on physical 3D timing where we're like, why isn't it happening yet? Why isn't the manifestation coming now? Why can't I get what I want? Now, this is the thing, okay? God doesn't operate on normal human timing. He operates on his timing. So when he wants to make something happen, it's going to happen. And you have to sync up with him. If you want your manifestations to come in faster, you have to get an alignment. And this is something Abraham Hicks talks about, okay? It's not necessarily like you're looking up to God and

you're like, please give me this right this second. It's about you changing. who you are and getting more into alignment so you can align with what you really want. And then the timing will unfold naturally. Everything aligns at the perfect divine timing. And a lot of things just can't be forced. I made a TikTok video about this recently where I spoke about how I was doing so much to heal, but at the same time, I was overdoing it because I thought I would just magically heal and forget everything that happened to me in my past.

But even after doing all that work, I still felt a little empty. And then I met a guy here who was telling me about how God heals you on his timing. our soul isn't necessarily meant to understand everything right at this very moment, and it's all part of his plan and our growth. It's not always up to us when we get to choose when certain things happen because there is a higher force at play. I found that to be an amazing revelation, and I was having all these realizations after being like, actually, that makes so much sense because it's almost ironic. The second I stopped doing all this healing work and energy work and stopped focusing on it so much, I started to feel better. Yes, all of that.

happened for a reason and I needed to do all of that energy work to heal myself, but now I'm good. Now it's time to integrate. Now I feel so strong and confident and the less therapy I'm doing, the less work I'm doing on myself, the better I feel because I'm not so focused on fixing myself anymore. I'm just being. I just love myself now. I'm like, I don't need to fix myself anymore. And that's a beautiful thing. The next thing is a man who wants you is going to come after you. He's going to come after you. And he's going to make it known. If he doesn't make it immediately known, there will be hints. You'll just know. He'll have a feeling if a man really wants you. I met someone in February in Bali and I actually always liked him. I had a crush on him. I met him on

Valentine's Day. We still talk and he's become a really good friend of mine and I feel like I've gotten super close with him. And I always said to him since day one, I was like the next person I'm with I need to be friends with first. I'm not dating anyone right now. I'm not rushing into any relationship, I needed as much time for myself to heal as possible. I didn't want to bring someone into my past because I wasn't really over a lot of things. I knew that I needed the space and the time to really just take a breather from dating. From day one, he was so respectful and he was like, oh yeah, no worries at all. And he would literally come to my villa and sit on the opposite end of the couch. I would be sitting on one end of the couch and then he would sit on the

corner on the opposite side. There was significant space between us. I would be like, why isn't he sitting closer? Why isn't he like hitting on me? We would just chat about our past and our lives for hours and hours every single night. We spent a couple of weeks at least just getting to know each other, fully platonic, but I was always attracted to him. And I was actually like nervous that he didn't like me at all. And I was like, why is he just chilling and chatting to me? I was starting to get frustrated. And then there was this one night where I think I called him and I was like, why haven't you kissed me yet? What is going on?

Do you like me like, you told me you wanted to be friends and I'm respecting your boundaries? And I was like, that is the first time ever that I realized that I had set a boundary and a man respected them, which is a green flag. And I wrote it off as a red flag that something was wrong. He was telling me, you're used to having guys love bomb you. over you, they try to hook up with you and like date you right away. I don't think that's genuine. I actually heard what you said and I'm respecting what you said. You said you wanted to be friends, so that's what we're doing.

And I was just like, oh my God, I've never experienced someone that actually took my words and applied them and really understood what I was saying and meant it and respected my boundaries. Because I actually was attracted to him. I wanted to take it slow, but I didn't mean weeks of chatting and just stay. staring at each other and not even coming close to each other. Anyways, we're still friends, and he's a great guy, and, yeah, I just find that really funny because he actually does like me, and I do like him, and it's mutually known, and I don't know where it's going to go. I just want him in my life, and I'm sure he feels the same, and

it's just one of those things where you know what someone's intentions are, you know that they're honest, you know they're direct, you know they are who they say they are, and vice versa, and it's just a mutually nice dynamic where you both have respect for one another. Tying this back into what I said, if a man wants you, you'll know when a man respects you, when someone likes you, you'll know. I know that he likes me. We just have a mutual understanding of how we feel because we understand each other and we get each other. And you'll just know.

You'll just know how someone feels. The same way you know how anyone else in your life that's not romantic feels about you. Like if you have a best friend that really loves you and cares about you, you just feel it. You just sense it. You just know, right? just know he respects me and he understands me and I also understand him. It does not necessarily mean you have to define anything either, but it's just that feeling of comfort knowing that someone has your back. The point is if you have to decode someone all the time, they're not your person.

If you're confused all the time and worry about the dynamic 24-7, they're not your person. It will feel clear. There will be clarity. The next thing is you're never asking for too much. You're probably just asking the wrong person. I love that quote and it's always stuck with me. If you feel like people are telling you your standards are too high, they are not too high, okay? You're just probably surrounded by the wrong people who can't match the frequency that you hold. So change up the people in your life and trust that you're going to attract better. If you want better, if you think you deserve better, you do. The next thing is nothing changes unless you change your self-concept. Now, what do I mean by this? Your self-concept is how you

perceive yourself, how much you love yourself, how confident you are in yourself. And when you love yourself more and more and more, the universe mirrors that back to you. Everything is your mirror. The more you love yourself, the more you're grounded in who you are, the more you're confident in your abilities, in your voice, in your actions, and every move that you make, the universe will reflect that back to you, guaranteed. Your self-concept makes manifestation super easy. You don't get what you want, you get what you believe you are worthy of, period. The next thing is someone's energy makes them sexy, okay? Not what they look like, it's just a vibe. When you meet people that are just a vibe and they have a golden aura radiating around them, it's because

they love themselves. This ties into the last point about self-concept. When someone has a good self-concept, they glow differently. They shine differently. They come off confident and it rubs off on you. And that is the sexiest thing in the world, especially when you are dating, when someone just owns who they are and they're authentic and raw and just like genuinely themselves. That's the hottest, most attractive thing in the world. And that's something that I've been applying a lot to myself because I'm an overthinker. I tend to overthink what I do, what I say. I tend to overthink my looks a lot. It's weird to say and it's weird to admit, but I have trouble on camera. Like, I hate filming my face on camera. I do have an Instagram. I do have an

about the way I look on high-resolution 4K cameras. They show everything. I feel unattractive on camera. And that's something that I've had a work on, my self-concept. Because instead of focusing on how I look, I need to be focusing on the messages, I have to get out. And the messages I have to speak and deliver into the field, into the universe.

I know it's really important. And I don't know what it is. In person, I'm very confident with my appearance. I actually really like the way I look. feel very attractive face to face with someone. I don't know if this is normal. Maybe everyone feels this way in the social media industry, podcast industry, but specifically on high-res cameras or on red carpets, I'm like, I just can't do this. I don't like the way I look. So that's something that I've had to really work on this year and just program in my brain that no one

gives a fuck and it's fine. And I'm going to look back. I'm sure when I'm much older and be like, I looked fine and I looked great. And that is ridiculous. And yeah, just understanding that my energy is what makes me beautiful more than anything, that's something that I need to remind myself of more, for sure. The next thing is detachment is self-respect. When you learn how to let go and trust God and detach from people and situations that are no longer aligned with you, that is self-respect. And knowing your worth and knowing your boundaries and knowing what you stand for. And that's a beautiful thing. Detachment is trusting God more than fearing the loss of something. It's saying I trust God more than I fear losing you. And that's very powerful. It's a very powerful thing to master.

The next thing is you don't need to keep explaining yourself to people. A woman who is confident in herself knows she doesn't need to over-explain to anyone how she feels, the boundaries that she sets for herself. You don't need to explain to anyone why you don't want to go to those plans, why you don't want to go on the date, why you don't feel the vibe with someone, you don't need to explain yourself or over-explain, okay? You could just say yes or no and be done with it and move on. And if people keep questioning you and your actions, let them question you, but you don't owe them any explanation.

A lot of people in life may question you in your life choices. It's up to you whether you want to explain yourself, but it's fucking draining. This was the year where I just started saying yes or no to things, and that is where the conversation ended. Like if someone asked me to hang out, no, not feeling it. Done. There was no over explaining. And once again, it ties back to conserving your energy and knowing where to give your time,

which is very sacred. The next thing is be gentle with your body. Weight fluctuation is normal. And my weight fluctuated a lot this year, especially around my time of the month. I was just bloating so much and getting so stressed out about it. And my face was always puffy. My body was going through a lot of changes this year. was also because I did a parasite detox.

I was sick at the beginning of the year. I just was going through a lot of different changes physically. And something I read is that when your body is going through a massive upgrade and transformation and quantum leap, it is normal to fluctuate in your weight, to bloat, to feel like you don't look like yourself. And this year really reminded me to just give myself grace and understand that it is normal to fluctuate with your weight. I love my body.

I really do love my body. I really built my strength. I go to the gym often. I run. I do Pilates. I always change up my workout routines. I love movement. I love exercise.

But even with all the exercise, I would have these days where I just felt like I wasn't fully comfortable in my body this year. And that was something new for me. I haven't really experienced that feeling in a while. And I think it really came down to just going through a lot of spiritual changes and going through a big move to a different city and meeting so many new people. And then the drinking culture and then going out a lot. and not getting sleep a lot of nights.

It just all kind of caught up to me. But it really taught me the power of giving yourself grace and just understanding that it's like one week. Your body is a vessel and your body is sacred and to just love my body no matter what and just appreciate my body and how it keeps me active and moving and alive and it's able to carry me through everything

and to just be really grateful for my health because also when you go through health issues or health scares. It totally changes everything in your perspective on life. So just appreciating my healthy body every day and being more gentle and kind to myself. The next thing is I kind of mentioned this earlier, but you just can't force healing. That's something that I realized this year and I learn this year. You could read every self-help book, watch every self-help video, take every course, do everything in your power to heal, but God heals you on his timing. That is something that changed my life because it was really just a good reminder to once again be gentle with

my journey and my process and my path and my destiny and that I'm doing everything right in the perfect divine timing and all of the energy work I did all the traveling I did all the amazing experiences I had around healing were necessary but I was putting so much pressure on myself to feel good all the time and I think that was making me feel worse I think that's something that a lot of people can probably relate to in the stay in age where we're like, oh, we need a therapist. Oh, we need to read this book to feel better. Oh, we need to journal. We need to meditate. We need to do all these things. But I think if you emphasize too much healing, it can actually do the opposite and have the opposite effect and make you feel like you're broken.

And that's also not really a great thing or a great feeling like, oh, I'm messed up. I need to go heal. When in reality, you are perfectly whole and you are perfectly lovable right now. And you're so amazing right in this very moment, just as you are whole, you are complete. just as you are right now. The next thing is, if people walk out of your life, just let them walk out of your life. If they keep not showing up or if they just keep disappearing or glitching

out of your timeline, let them disappear. There was a guy in April that would ask me out and then disappear. And he disappeared multiple times. And I was like, I don't even know why I'm allowing him to message me. So then I blocked him because I was like, why am I even talking to you?

And the issue was that he lived next door to me. So I would run into him a lot. I didn't want things to be awkward in person because I would see him all the time. So I was like, I don't want to not respond. But then I realized I was disrespecting my own values and boundaries by even responding to his text. And it got to the point where I was like, no, you know what? I'm actually just blocking him. I don't care if he lives next door.

And I realized after I finally removed him out of my life, God was trying so hard to send me the warning signs. And I just wasn't listening. I wasn't paying close enough attention. I was convincing myself that this guy was an amazing person, and that wasn't really the case because I caught him being dishonest with me. And when someone's dishonest with me, you're done. Like if you're lying to me from day one, no.

So I was still trying to make something happen and go on a date with this guy when God knew what he was doing and was trying to remove him out of my life and literally sent me so many signs leading up to when I finally blocked him. It's always protection. God is always using his powers to protect you, to protect the divine feminine angels. So trust him. If you're seeing major red flags or warning signs, trust that you are being divinely protected. If someone disappears, trust that it's for a good reason.

If someone is removed from your life, it is for your best interest. It is for your highest good, even if it might not feel that way right now. And with that being said, my studio time is up. So I'm going to record the second half of this tomorrow. and we're going to get back into it tomorrow. Stay tuned for part two of this episode, 25 valuable, powerful lessons I learned in 2025. Thank you as always for listening.

I love you so much. Stay tuned.