Giving Up Hope for a Better Past - Choosing Gratitude, Integration, and the Light Ahead

Today, I sat in the quiet of my room and began my morning the way I’ve learned to, slowly.

Journal open.
Three words written with intention.
Five cards pulled from my oracle deck.

What struck me wasn’t the cards themselves, but how perfectly they mirrored the words I had already chosen. Not aspirational words. Not hopeful ones. Just honest ones. Words rooted in where I am now.

It reminded me of something I recently heard from Rabbi Steve Leder that stopped me cold:

“He’s given up all hope of a better past.”

So simple.
So profound.
And yet, so complicated.

I wish it were as easy as shaking an Etch A Sketch, erasing mistakes, removing what no longer fits, and starting clean. But this past year has taught me something truer: the past isn’t something we delete. It’s something we integrate.

I wrote this on January 8th, one year and one day after the fire ravaged my community and changed my life forever.

The day before, and through that evening, and again the morning of the 8th, messages poured in. Texts. Photos. Private Facebook notes. Friends marking time.

As I lay quietly in bed that morning, still half in the dark, replaying fragments of dreams and familiar scenes that often loop in my subconscious, one thought kept returning:

This year has been one of the most profound and life-altering opportunities I have ever had.

And then there was a phone call.

“How are you doing today?”

The question was asked gently. Carefully. Not with pity, but with uncertainty. As if they weren’t sure whether they were allowed to ask.

And I answered honestly.

This past year has been the greatest opportunity for growth I’ve had in nearly sixty-five years. What I keep returning to, again and again, is gratitude.

I know. It sounds odd.

Under that gratitude are layers of pain and suffering. Of course there are. But they come in moments now, not as a permanent residence.

Because when the burning embers stopped smoldering, and the shock gave way to mourning, I realized something essential:

I had a choice.

I could choose darkness, pain, and suffering.
Or I could choose light, awareness, and gratitude.

And I chose the latter.

The other was never really an option.

What I’ve learned, and what I’m now deeply aware of, is that when you move toward the light, you begin to attract more light. The people around me today are mirrors of who I am becoming. They remind me of who I truly am. And because of that, I continue to walk toward those energies, those relationships, those ways of being.

This year allowed me to permanently shift my trajectory.

And with that shift came shedding, of people, of stories I once told myself, of versions of the past I can’t change. I am done bringing people into my life who cannot see what I see. When those energies appear now, I no longer wrestle or explain. I simply and politely decline to deepen the connection.

There is freedom in that.

Each year, I choose a word. And every December, I gather a group of current and past clients on Zoom to choose theirs, too.

My word for 2024 was Unstoppable.
My word for 2025 was Unlimited.

In 2024, I was unstoppable by choice. I walked into worlds I had never entered before and seized every conversation, every opportunity, every connection with intention.

In 2025, I had no choice but to be unlimited. Stopping would have meant staying in the dark. Instead, I became relentless in my growth and in my pursuit of truth.

Truth about my mother.
Truth about my career.
Truth about my marriage.
Truth about who I have always been, but couldn’t fully see.

This year, my word is Actualization.

The integration of all that I am into a single, powerful expression of purpose.

That is where I sit now.

So I’ll ask you what I ask every year:

What is your word for 2026?

And if you haven’t found it yet, or you’re struggling to name it, I’m here.

Just hit reply.

-With love and hope,

Susan

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