It’s hard for me to believe that I haven’t shared my heart here in almost two months. When I began this blog six years ago, I posted daily for many months. I had so much to say and share, and it’s almost like I couldn’t get it out fast enough. As life became busier, I went from posting every day to several times a week. And then to a couple times a month. And then to once a month. And now here I am at every other month. And I wanted to be completely honest with you about why.

Each year, I choose a word that I want to embody throughout the year, and this year’s word is Authenticity. It’s become more important than ever for me to share all of myself with you – not just the parts that I think you’ll agree with or the parts that are easy to share. So, while the old me would most likely have said that I haven’t written because I’ve been really busy getting ready to launch our upcoming book, 365 Life Shifts, next month, I know that this would only tell part of the story: the easy, acceptable part. But, the truth is that I haven’t been writing because, for the first time in a very long time, I’m just not sure what to say.

I started this blog because I wanted to share honestly and openly from my heart and hopefully inspire and uplift others along the way. And, for years, that’s exactly what happened. I felt blessed to build a heart-centered business and community that stemmed from this blog and the connections I made through it. It felt so good to show up here, share, and feel the love being returned. For a really long time, things here were flowing. I was aligned with my soul’s purpose and sharing in this way was exactly where I needed to be.

Over the last couple of years, however, something inside of me started to shift – something that I couldn’t even give words to (and still can’t quite articulate). It began with spending so much time in silence – realizing that being there changed me in ways I either couldn’t define or wasn’t ready to share publicly yet since I was still getting to know this version of myself. For a little while, I tried to live in the middle of both versions of myself – who I was before the silence and who I became after it. I wanted to make everyone happy since I know that change isn’t always the easiest for many of us (including myself). I wanted to show up here and be the same person that you had grown to know and trust, yet I had so much inside of me that was swirling around and hadn’t yet solidified. It felt like I had boxed myself into a role that was no longer all of who I was, and I needed time to get my bearings and figure out what currently mattered to me, what I actually believed, and what mattered most. I needed to be 100% on board with what I was sharing, and I couldn’t make myself show up and write words just for the sake of writing words. I hoped that eventually I would find my way back to this blog and to each of you – sort of as Jodi 2.0.

So all of this sort of nebulousness was happening inside of me, and then November happened, which really brought me to my knees and shook everything up in a huge way. In the space of a month, Dan and I faced a really scary health crisis together (thankfully, everything is now okay); our country’s election happened, which reignited a long-forgotten fire deep within me; and a work project that I held deep in my heart didn’t come to fruition in the way I had hoped. I was also faced with grief and sadness – anniversaries of loved ones who had passed and saying goodbye to loved ones who had just transitioned.

Because of each of these events, I began questioning everything that I thought to be true – that I had clung to being true for many, many years: my role in the world, my spirituality, God/the universe/my soul/my angels, my belief that people are loving and that goodness abounds, whether how I was spending my time still felt in line with who I had become, etc. It felt like I was being born into a new life, which felt both liberating and also really scary. Because of all of this change and metamorphosis, I just wasn’t ready to share about it publicly, but it also didn’t feel authentic to write about anything else. So, I pulled the metaphorical shades closed and gave myself permission to retreat from the world until I had a better sense of what was emerging.

I’m just now starting to feel a bit more clear about where this is all heading and who I am becoming. But, to be honest, I am still working out the details. For this reason, I wanted to let you know that my posts here may be less frequent in the coming months as I navigate my way toward my new self. (For the time being, I’ll still continue my monthly readings here.) This space may feel the same when I return – and only I’ll be able to feel the internal shift – or it may have a very different feel altogether. Whatever happens, I wanted to keep you in the loop and let you know how grateful I have been that you’ve been on the journey with me thus far. I hope we’ll continue this journey together.

It’s so important for each of us to continually examine each part of our lives – to make the time to go within, to sift and sort, to make sure the life we’re living is our own. I’ll be the first one to admit that it’s not always a fun process – it brings up all sorts of questions and can lead to so much change, but I do know that when I’ve been in similar points in my life and have allowed myself to see where the changes led, I’ve always felt happier and at peace. That’s why I’m sharing this here – with the hopes that you, too, will allow yourself to change when your soul is guiding you to do so.

We all want to be happy. We all want to feel fulfilled. And we all have the ability to create a life that brings us immense pleasure and joy. It’s up to each of us to be brave enough to go through whatever we need to go through to make this happen. And I’m so grateful for your support as I do exactly that. It’s my hope that we will all make time to do this. Because it really does matter, and it really does make a huge difference in our quality of life. I know that with all my heart.

Hugs and love,