Listening for Clarity: A Reflection on Beginning Again

Some days I feel like a broken record, saying and doing the same things over and over again.

January has a way of amplifying that feeling.

At the beginning of a new year, reflection often brings us face to face with familiar questions about clarity, direction, and whether we are truly listening to ourselves. Each year, as the calendar turns, I find myself looking back at the path I’ve taken and wondering what this moment is asking of me now.

So I reflect.

• Who have I been talking to?
• What have I been doing?
• How have I been creating impact in the spaces I take up?
• Where has the last year taken me?
• And when will it feel different, better, more right?

This kind of reflection can feel repetitive, even circular. And yet, this January feels subtly different.

I’ve evolved.

I’m clearer about what I say yes to and, just as importantly, what I no longer do. I understand more deeply what brings me joy, what leaves me inspired and whole, and which spaces quietly drain me, leaving me feeling less like myself. This growing clarity has come from learning to listen to myself more honestly than I once did.

That awareness alone feels like a beginning.

As I sit with this, I find myself wondering: Have I felt this way every January? Or is this year truly different?

When I look back, I can see how each January has been its own threshold.

In 2020, as the pandemic began, I was struggling in my job and trying to understand what felt missing. What I eventually discovered was a lack of presence. I didn’t feel seen or heard. That realization led me to the Art of Feminine Presence© and marked the beginning of a deeper relationship with myself and my inner voice.

By January 2021, I was more embodied in my own presence and felt a growing desire to help others find theirs. I stepped into transformational coaching, working with women who, like me, were longing for more joy, inspiration, and meaning in their lives.
More on this can be found on the Creative Connection Podcast episode on Mindfulness, Gratitude & the Power of Allowing

As the calendar turned through 2022, 2023, and into 2024, I was deeply immersed in this work. Beneath the surface, I was also coming face to face with my own fears and self-doubt. I finished my memoir during this time and began to see my place in the world more clearly, even as I questioned whether I was fully stepping into it.

Last year, I recognized something important: I was still playing small.

So 2025 became a year of creating space. Space to show up. Space to be seen. Space to model the kind of change I wanted to create by living it myself. I began looking more closely at the who, what, where, when, and how of both my personal and professional life, listening for clarity rather than forcing answers.

And now, in hindsight, I can see that the years from 2020 through 2025 were not a series of false starts or failures.

They were preparation.

Each year was laying the groundwork for greater visibility, deeper listening, and clearer alignment. What I once interpreted as starting over or being broken was actually an unfolding. A practice of listening to myself more deeply and beginning again with compassion rather than judgment.

Beginning again, I’m realizing, doesn’t mean we got it wrong before.

Sometimes it means we were listening all along, even when we didn’t yet understand what we were hearing.

And maybe January isn’t asking us to reinvent ourselves at all.

Maybe it’s simply inviting us to pause…to listen more closely… and to trust that what’s becoming clear now is arriving right on time.
Check out my Reflection on Substack about  Awareness

I'm curious, do you feel like the last few years have been preparing you rather than correcting you for what might be your next chapter? 

What are you being inviting you into?

As you begin this year, what becomes possible when you listen to yourself with curiosity instead of urgency?

New to Reflections? This is where I write to listen more closely, both to myself and to what’s emerging.

If this piece met you where you are, you’re invited to linger. More reflections live here, alongside conversations on The Creative Connection Podcast, for those drawn to clarity, presence, and meaningful beginnings. The air Wednesdays at 9 am.