2025 Part 2
Ep27
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Audra Dinell: [00:00:00] Okay, so hi. Welcome to the second half of 2025. You know, I'm a girl who loves a fresh start and every quarter feels new to me. The half of the year just feels like a gift. It does help that like January for me is truly a fresh new year. It's a new number on the calendar. April, which is the start of quarter two is my birthday month.
July, which is the start of quarter three is the month I got married. And then October is my husband's birthday month and we're just kind of easing [00:01:00] into holidays and excited again about a new year. There's nothing special about the second half of the year. There's nothing special about any of the things that I just shared, the dates, the, the flags, but I just love to use them as a fresh start to reflect.
I'm wondering, did the first half of the year go fast to you? Did you hit your goals? Have your plans changed? Today, I am gonna share five things I've learned in the first half of 2025 that I'm taking into the second half of the year with me. Here's the thing. I am a person who craves information. I'm curious.
I love learning. I love growth. So I am that person who is constantly looking for the lessons in things and journaling and reviewing and just trying to make sense of it all and see what nuggets I can get out of this lived experience. I think each one [00:02:00] of us has a really. Special story to tell, and I'm gonna share a little bit about mine and what I've learned in the first half of the year.
Okay. Number one, oh, this is a year that has reminded me how precious life is. I have several friends in health crises You know, nothing hits home like when someone you love or someone that you know, or someone that you're used to seeing in a certain space isn't there anymore or is going through a really scary situation.
So in the second half of the year, I'm really grateful for my health and my family's health and really committed to focusing on our physical, emotional, mental health. Because it's the base of everything. I wanna love my people. Well, I want to take care of my brain. That's just so [00:03:00] much easier said than done.
But the first half of 2025 reminds me how important it is, okay? Number two. We moved here, we moved back to the Midwest hot and heavy five years ago, and I think of that girl in that season of life and she was pumped and had some things to prove and was firing on all cylinders. And the girl who is podcasting.
Right now, today has some different goals and dreams than I did when we moved back to our hometown five years ago. I've checked some things off my list that I wanted to do and that's okay. I think that's wonderful and that's beautiful and we. All evolve in our different seasons of life. So the first half of [00:04:00] 2025 just helped me put a magnifying glass up to where I am, what I value, and being okay with that shifting going forward.
The third thing I have learned in the beginning of the year is that band-aids fall off. You know, when you're a person who loves development, loves self-development, personal development, growth goals, a lot of the work that you do might feel deep, but then you learn later that it's a bandaid. And I have had some band-aids fall off this year and have realized that when I thought I was doing
deep work. It might have been deep at the time, but there's deeper to go. I have not yet hit the roots yet. One thing that I'm currently doing is really digging into Family of Origin, [00:05:00] work with my therapist and
gosh, therapy is not new to me. The first time I went to therapy, I was probably 20 years old, and I have not gone consistently for 20 years. I go when I need it or when my relationship needs it, or when I'm going through a particularly hard time. But digging into this family origin of work is just eye opening.
The things that we're talking about are just really blowing my mind that they have never come up before, but yet are likely affecting some of the behaviors or thoughts that I have in present time. So in the first half of the year, I learned that band-aids eventually fall off. Number four. The fourth thing I wanna share that I have learned or that I'm taking away.
From the first half of this [00:06:00] year is that I am now entering my soft girl era, and I'm laughing so much because I've been talking about this with lots of people. My husband likes to make lots of fun jokes about this, but you know, I'm turning 40 next year and there's a certain way, there's a certain like umph that I've put into life so far, especially
over the last couple of decades as I've, you know, been building my adult life and I just feel like I'm doing a different dance now. And I guess what I mean by that is like I'm changing the rules of some things in relationships or boundaries maybe with our schedule, not trying to fit it all in and do all the things and set all the goals, but just living a life that feels a little bit [00:07:00] more soft.
I saw a really great thing that several of my friends shared on Instagram the other day talking about a soft summer, and I just thought, oh, that's beautiful. This post said. This summer, I want softness, the slow fade of twilight into the dark bowl of the sky, gentle wake-ups, ripe seasonal fruit, lush, leisurely reading on the grass, clothing that tells my body, relax, be free, natural light, alone time, music playing in the other room, et cetera.
And I just thought, oh, it is so beautiful. And oftentimes in the past I've been always working towards the next thing and not taking time to just be in the softness and beauty of life. And gosh, becoming a mother cracked me open and that was like the beginning of Soft Girl. But I still had some things [00:08:00] I wanted to do, a person I wanted to become.
And gosh, I, I guess I always think that. I'm evolving and becoming her, so I never think like, oh, I've made it. I'm there yet. But I just really relate this soft girl era to the beauty of motherhood and the ways it has worked on my heart and in my life, and it feels good to be in my soft girl era. Okay, the last thing I wanna share with you.
The fifth thing I have learned in the first half of 2025 is that you can buy an espresso machine, but you still have to learn how to use it to drink a latte. So for my birthday, my husband bought this great like dual full coffee Pohto slash espresso machine. We traveled with my cousin last summer and she had an espresso machine and it was wonderful.
And she is the type of person who [00:09:00] dives deep into her hobbies and. You know, I kind of like things a little easier. I don't know if any of you follow me on social media, but I had a whole garden debacle last year with lavender, and I will say most of my plants grew back this year, like 80%, which is amazing.
So I'm not giving up my gardening hobby yet, but you know, I had had this espresso machine on my list. Then after. Spending time with her last summer, you know, and I'd gone back and forth because I'm like, okay, you know, am I really gonna use it? So my husband bought it for me for my birthday. Well, it turns out that you can't just have it sitting on your counter.
You've gotta learn how to use it. So the lesson in this is that how often do we get sucked into like quick fixes? We're busy people, we more often than we admit, buy into the illusion that if I just have this schedule, if I just have [00:10:00] this one more thing, if I just have this parenting technique, it's gonna fix everything.
It's just not the case. Like hard work is always a part of it, and that kind of sucks, but also. It is just part of life. Taking the time to learn and grow and suck at business, at parenting, at friendships, at marriage, at making lattes at home. So. Check back with me in three months and ask if I've made myself a latte.
I had to laugh because I was a soccer game with a mom friend, and she like lovingly called me out. She was like, so how's the espresso maker going? Because I noticed you're buying a lot of lattes still. And I was like, oh, yes. Mm, thank you. I have to learn how to make it. Apparently just having it on your counter is not good enough.
I [00:11:00] have to learn how to make this latte. But also we can't do it all. And admittedly, I'm the girl who wants to do it all. I wanna have the house, the business, the parenting, the magical summer, the homemade espresso, and we have to prioritize. So in the first half of the year, you know, it's just kind of coming to terms maybe with all the things that aren't gonna happen right now in my life.
So that the things I really, really do care about and value do happen to be determined on whether homemade espressos make the list. I don't know yet. Okay. So for the rest of the summer, we have some really fun things coming up. I have lots of interviews set up, so I'm excited to have some conversations with guests about
relevant and deep topics that I hope are interesting to you. My team's gonna do a summer check-in [00:12:00] and we're gonna continue having fun. Thanks for sticking with me for the first half of the year. We're now officially in the second half of this podcasting journey. I committed to one year and am holding loosely.
What comes after that? I've learned a lot. I've enjoyed this. I have a lot more to come, but I don't know. I just hope that there's something relatable to you, dear listener, about listening to someone trying something new and trying to get better at it, and sometimes winging it, and sometimes growing her skills, but consistently showing up regardless of the mess.
And I hope that encourages you to take that type of risk for something that you really wanna do, something that you really wanna try in your life. Alright, everyone, [00:13:00] have a great week and we'll see you back next week.
