Don't erase it. Work with it. Use it. It's a part of you, Kari!

I reopened this blog this morning with the intent of deleting all of it's content and starting fresh with new content. 

But then I thought different. 

After going back to the first entry on March 19, 2020,  I realized that there is history here. 

I created this blog in the very early days of the pandemic. 

I have documented here many memories, phrases, emotions, and realities of the lock down of 2020 and then the slow emergence back into life and what that looked and felt like for me personally. 

I can't erase that simply for the purpose of making this blog look more seamless. 

I can't erase history. My history.

But what I CAN do is weave it into my current life. 

Don't erase it. Work with it. Use it. It's a part of you, Kari!

The iwillkariyou brand began in March 2020. I started this blog as a way of documenting my feelings and happenings during the pandemic. The iwillkariyou Instagram account was also created at this time as a way to document my daily walks which became a way for me to move my body regularly and get outside when we were all social distancing and trying to stay healthy. 

My hope, from the very beginning of my iwillkariyou blog and Instagram account, was to help motivate myself and other women to stay positive and to get outside and walk. 

Little did I know that post-pandemic, I would eventually put a pause on the blog and the Instagram account only to resurrect them two years later for the use of a health and wellness business. I had started laying the foundation for something great and I didn't even know it. (I call that a God drop. He knew.)

I have always been one to ponder my purpose on earth. Why did God breathe air into my lungs? What was it He intended for my life? To be a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a friend, an employee? An entrepreneur?

Yes. Yes. And yes, to all of that. 

But what more? Is there more that He wants and expects from me?

I honestly don't know the answer to that but it is a quest that I will never let go of. My search for deeper meaning of my existence gives me healthy thoughts to ponder and a positive direction to wake up and aim myself toward each day. 

What I DO know about my life so far is that it has been filled with highs and lows. I have experienced beauty and fear. I have known love and hurt. 

Like most people, I feel I have lived a lot of life and felt a lot of things. I have felt the good, the bad, the hard, and the ugly. 

And, like most people, when I was open to it, often in hindsight, I saw the blessings. I saw the "a-ha" moments when I realized that "THAT was why that happened".

However, before my "a-ha" moments, when I was in the thick of it, the bad, and hard, and ugly times, I didn't always make good choices. I often dug myself into holes. I wish I would have known to put down the shovel and just quit digging. But I didn't. And, if you have ever found yourself in a hole, it is a crappy place to be. It's dark and cold and feels like you are never, ever getting out! You just can't see the light!

My hope, is to get brave enough to share the struggles I have gone through and LIVED through, in an effort to help someone else (even one person), realize that they too can come out the other side of their problems.

I want women to know that the problems that they are experiencing have very likely been experienced by someone else (probably me) and that they are not alone. 

I am not any kind of a professional except for at my own life. 

I am a professional at being Kari.

A few things that I have learned in my decades of living on this earth are that life is beautiful and hard at the same time. I have learned that problems will come and they will go. And then more problems will come. And then more good will come. Rinse and repeat for a lifetime.

Ultimately, through it all, there are HEALTHY ways to deal to with life and there are DESTRUCTIVE ways to deal with life. 

For a huge portion of my life I chose the self-destructive path by using food and alcohol as my numbing agents from the hard. 

I don't do that anymore. 

I am not her anymore. 

And if that is you, I don't want that to be you. 

Remember earlier in this post when I mentioned that I wish I would have known to put down the shovel? Alcohol and food abuse only dug me deeper into the dark.

I can't go back and undo the ways I coped with and got through many very dark times in my life, but what I can do, is be a lighthouse for someone who is struggling and doesn't have good tools to make their load lighter. I can let them know that I see them, and that I have worn and walked in uncomfortable shoes too. 

I want to share with women who are struggling that that the clouds WILL lift, the fog will go away, and they will see clearly again. And most importantly, I want to share that there is a HEALTHY way to rise back to the top.

I wish I had known earlier that when life gets difficult it is time to turn to nutrition, daily movement, and accountability. I wish I had better surrounded myself with people who understood me a little better, and people who could share that they had "been there" too. I wish I had known about mindset and personal development. I wish I had known to work on growing myself instead of burying myself in a pit of bad habits. 

I know now. And when you know better, you do better.

I can't erase my past, I don't think I am meant to erase it. 

Don't erase it. Work with it. Use it. It's a part of you, Kari!

Use it for good. Use it to help others rise.