Reflecting on a Year of Growth and Igniting Passion for the New Year Ahead

As the year draws to a close, I find myself perched on the cusp of reflection and anticipation. My journey through 2023 has been one of profound transformation, from unveiling a bestseller in spiritual healing to weaving my narrative into the tapestry of public consciousness through a whirlwind of media engagements. In this final episode, I invite you to cozy up and join me, Amanda Quick, as we traverse the landscapes of change and growth that have marked the past twelve months. I'll take you behind the scenes of personal milestones, like the pivotal family move that tested our resilience, and share the excitement bubbling within me as we stand on the threshold of a new year brimming with potential and energy. 

Venturing forward, let's kindle the flames of passion that will light up 2024. Together, we'll explore the art of infusing fervor into life's every corner, be it during the trials of managing a family crisis or the triumphs of personal achievements like launching a podcast and preparing for a TEDx talk. This episode is both a celebration of where we've been and a call to action—to embrace the joys of the present and create intentions that will shape our tomorrows. So, wrap up this year with me, as we savor the victories, acknowledge the challenges, and, with hearts full of passion, step into the wonder that awaits us in the new year.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:36

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Amanda Quick Show. I'm your host, amanda Quick. Today, this episode is going to be the last aired episode of 2023. We are Saturday, december 30th, and this episode is getting recorded slightly later than normal and we will upload it basically as soon as I get it edited out here. So this is the last one for this year and we are stepping into new energy 2024 here shortly. The next episode will be in 2024.

Speaker 1: 1:07

And I don't know about you all, but I personally spend probably more reflection and tension setting time at the end and beginning of the year than I do at any other point, and you potentially could argue that it's good to do it all the time, but for whatever reason, the turnover of the new year always triggers that for me. What have I accomplished, what do I want to accomplish? And I really use it to take stock of where I'm at right now and what's coming next and how do I want to show up for myself, for my family, in whatever that looks like into next year, and are there lessons that I want to take with me and all of it? And, as I was doing my own version of this reflection over this last week, really, you know, a lot happened this year. I don't know about you all, but for me this was a very big year. It was a year of a lot of movement, a lot of change, a lot of hard things and a lot of celebrations. It was really a year of all kinds of stuff and if you're somebody who follows numerology, I'm a life path number five, so change is my thing, but this was also a five year for me, so it's like double the things. And, man, it did not disappoint. Did not disappoint one bit. I am somebody who likes to move, to do, to change, to learn, to grow all of it. That's not new for me. But this year was and has been a lot and I'm really looking forward to shifting into a different energy into next year and bringing more groundedness a bit to everything that's happened. And you know, I just want to kind of share some of these reflections with you all because I think everybody really ideally depends sometime whether it's at the turn of the new year, or maybe it's around your birthday, or maybe you're somebody who likes to follow the seasons in the winter and summer, solstice, whatever it is setting time aside to reflect back, reflect back on everything that you have accomplished, everything, that you have overcome, everything that you're still processing and learning from and really kind of making some decisions about what's next and what are we taking with us and how are we transforming all of this into something that we want to take into the next year or season, whatever that looks like for you and for me, man. This year.

Speaker 1: 3:56

I started 2023 knowing I was getting ready to launch my book. I had been writing it for two years. I had finally gotten to the point where I was working with a publisher. The book was edited. We had the launch date set January 10th 2023. My book was released.

Speaker 1: 4:13

So I knew, going into this year, that it was going to be a bunch of change. I knew that I was going to take my story public for the first time. I had shared lots of pieces of my story within my own friend circle, within classes, I was teaching things like that, but I had never gone beyond that. I had never gone outside of my safety net. So this was the first time I was taking it much bigger and I was taking it to the World Wide Web, to all of social media, to every podcast I could find, and I spent the good first portion of 2023. Just doing that, I reached out to every single podcast that I could find out there that talked about trauma healing, that talked about domestic abuse, that talked about trafficking, that talked about true crime, that talked about everything. I could find Big stories, anything of the sort and I reached out to them and I asked if I could be on their show, and I have now been interviewed over a hundred different times on all different types of media outlets, podcasting being the primary one, because that was the one. Well, those were easy. Those were easy for me. They came to me. It got to the point where I had people reaching out, emailing me saying, hey, I want you to be on my show, or can I interview you. Or if somebody would make a post in a Facebook group and I responded, I would get three other people messaging me, which was awesome. It was awesome. It was exactly what I wanted, because I knew that I wanted to promote the launch of my book and I knew that this was the year to do it, and so I'm very proud to say I launched my book, january 10th 2023. Within a month, I was number one in spiritual healing and the best other list, which was fantastic. It was an amazing accomplishment. It was exactly what I set out to do.

Speaker 1: 6:01

But I did all of that, basically January and early February, and so I had over the rest of the year still to figure out what else was going to come from that. And I don't know about you guys, but a lot of times after there's a big influx of energy, it takes at least me a moment of pause, takes me a moment of pause to go okay. Now I need to integrate all of that and I need to sit with it and I need to figure out what comes next. And it's taken me still some time to figure out exactly what comes after the book. And there's no rush. There's no rush. But I did a huge push in social media and I haven't since then really done as much in that arena. And that's okay because it's coming and it's going to change and I know that.

Speaker 1: 6:48

But January and February was really primarily focused on my book, and then March and April was focused on a move. We moved again. We moved houses and locations and my family and I uprooted ourselves again. We did this in 2021 and we did it again here in 2023. Wasn't really planned that way, but life happens and I started a new job in April and we all, within one week, we moved. I started a job and everything changed again in this year, in April of 2023. So we had to re-orient ourselves, get settled, get grounded, meet new friends, meet new people. The kids had new schools, all of that.

Speaker 1: 7:39

And then in June, my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and so then we went to go see her and we spent some time visiting my mom and helping her and supporting her, and I hadn't been back to Hawaii in over 10 years, and so I also got to see my father for the first time in 10 years and got to see everything that hadn't changed. I don't know about you guys, but if you go back to your hometowns, all of a sudden you just get hit with these waves of memories, things that long forgotten. But as I'm walking around these places that are very, very familiar and really a restaurant or two may have changed or there may be a new development that popped up, but basic Kailua Oahu has not changed that much since I left and got to experience that, got to show my now older children where I grew up, in, places that I used to be and spend time at the beach and all of that. And then, as soon as we got back from that trip, my middle child was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Now, I haven't talked about this on this podcast yet and it deserves its own episode because there's a whole slew of things behind that. There's a whole component that we've been working through about his own trauma healing and I believe all of it is connected, because everything is connected. But he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. He's also diagnosed with celiac disease, which means our entire way of eating, the household, has changed. We have to focus on carb counting, we have to focus on everything being completely gluten-free, and later this year we also learned my oldest child also has celiac disease. So we've already gotten gluten-free in the house. We just have to continue.

Speaker 1: 9:33

And so we spent the first half of the year, because really that happened in July. So that's like the first six months. The first six or seven months was a whole ton of things. A whole ton of things that were really big, some really big challenges, some health challenges, some physical moving challenges, some financial challenges, and also some huge celebrations, huge celebrations. And that was just the first half of the year. And so once my son was stabilized and once we were learning our new normal, and then we spent the rest of the summer really learning that, because anybody out there who has or knows anybody with type 1 diabetes it's a couple of complete lifestyle change. You have to learn insulin dosing, you have to learn what affects your blood sugar and what doesn't, and there's all kinds of stuff that goes with it all. And so you know, as we focused on learning that, you know then the reaction to the other children also, because I don't know any other parents out there but if one child starts to get slightly more attention in some fashion, even if it's not positive attention, the other two have a response to that. And so you know we've been working through those things and working through, you know, the changes of being in a new place, as all of this is happening.

Speaker 1: 10:55

And you know, come September the kids are going back to school. The middle child now starts middle school and my oldest is in eighth grade and they're going to a different type of school. They'd always been in non-traditional schools and this time they were going back to a more public school. So all of a sudden they had traditional public school where you have seven classes and seven different teachers, and that was very new for them. They had always been in more charter, montessori or Waldorf style schools before, and so this was another big change. So then we had to learn that one on top of the medical things and on top of food challenges and everything else happening, and you know, and then I, right around that time, I launched this podcast and right around that time I started applying for TEDx talks, and shortly after I learned that I got one, and going into 2024, that's going to be the big thing that I'm kicking off the year with is sharing my story on a different type of stage and not just being interviewed on podcasts and writing my story, but sharing it in a different audience way and reaching a different subset of people with a different message and a different lesson.

Speaker 1: 12:03

As I sit and reflect on all of that and all of the things that I want to do, going forward in my own business, all the things that I want to go forward and help my family with, all of the things that I want to do to impact the world, and all of it has all been rooted in this year of huge change so many challenges within my family, within my children within my mom from a health perspective, challenges in physically having to move my life around again and getting financially stable again and succeeding at that, which is a huge, huge celebration succeeding at becoming a bestselling author it's a huge celebration and also succeeding at realizing that there's more still to do. And as I sit and I reflect on 2023 and I sit and I reflect on everything that has happened and is going to happen and yet to happen, I feel this wave of contentment, possibility, almost like trepidation. That's what it feels like right now, in this moment, between 2023 and 2024. Now I'm somebody who, since I was a little kid and at any other time in my life when I have big changes you know, the night before I moved away from Hawaii and left and went and moved to Colorado when I was 18 years old, you know I was I was very nervous and my stomach was doing flip-flops and it was a big change. Every single time there's some big change in my life, some big something coming, I get that nervous, belly feeling and even when I was a baby, if there was something going on and people were upset, I would have a physical belly reaction response. I've always had that ability to tune into the energy around me and what's going on and what's coming, and that's what it feels like right now. I don't know about you guys, but that's what it feels like right now, in this moment, is that something big is coming, and it's not just for me. I made a post on Facebook this morning talking about it actually, and I had so many other people going wow, I thought I eat something bad, or I feel it too, so it's not just me. Something big is coming collectively in 2024. I don't know what it is, I don't need to know what it is, but something big is coming and I think it's important as this shift happens.

Speaker 1: 14:38

Whatever this is, whatever new awareness is coming, whatever new economic change, political change I have no idea what it is, it doesn't matter it's that we set our intentions for our life, for ourselves, for who we are. What are we going to? How are we going to show up? Are you somebody who has a story you want to share? Do you have a business idea that you want to put out into the world? Do you have family things that need to be addressed? Do you have relationship dynamic struggles that you want to spend more time with? Do you have any of the above and all of the above.

Speaker 1: 15:20

Whatever is going on in your life right now, I would love for you to sit and reflect on how you want to show up in that moment. What is 2024 going to bring for you? Now you could sit and then, well, I don't know what's going to happen, so how will I know what it's going to bring for me? Or you could choose. You could say I know what I'm going to set my intention for 2024 to be. I know what I'm calling in, how I'm going to shape this energy moving forward, knowing that, collectively, there's going to be some big changes. There always is Knowing that they may come with challenges. They may come with financial challenges, they may come with relationship challenges, they may come with location challenges, they may come with natural disasters. Whatever is coming collectively for humanity, you have a choice of how you want to show up, how you want to respond and what you're going to focus on. And as I sit for myself and I reflect on 2024 and as what's coming for me, the word that keeps popping in, the word that not necessarily what was missing last year, but what needs to be woven in and grounded in all of the change.

Speaker 1: 16:45

As we've now settled in where we're going to land, as we've settled into understanding what health challenges we're dealing with going forward, as I've settled into what's come after my book release and how I want to show up in my business, in my life, in my full-time job, in my relationship, in all of those things, what I want to add, what I want to bring, what I want to call in to 2024 for myself is passion. I want to call in this feeling of being so excited and passionate about my life, about everything that I'm doing, about my relationship, about my relationship with my children, about my relationship with my husband, about my relationship with my friends, about my relationship with my business and how I'm showing up for the people who resonate with what I have to say, how I'm showing up on the TEDx stage, how I'm showing up and when whatever comes after that. I want to bring that element of passion into 2024 and I want to react and respond to any challenge in a way where I can transform it and ignite more passion, because I believe there's a gift in every challenge, there's an opportunity in whatever comes our way, but if we can find passion and purpose behind it, it can light the way for something else. I don't know what the something else is, but it can light the way for it. And I want to bring in passion into 2024, into what I'm sharing with the world next and how I'm showing up going forward. I want to ignite more passion, more fun, more enjoyment, more play.

Speaker 1: 18:30

This morning, as a family, we just took a small mini road trip I needed out of the house after Christmas and I believe the kids did too, and we took a little three day road trip where we drove around on the coast and we drove through the Redwoods Forest and we drove through Mount Shasta, which is a beautiful, beautiful energy vortex place and the weather wasn't great. We didn't spend tons of time hiking around or doing much, but we drove through these places and we were picking up pieces and shifting our energy and kind of shaking off everything that's happened Good, bad, all of it Just kind of reshifting as we reset ourselves for this next, whatever this next thing is. As we got home last night and this morning I woke up and I felt the passion coming back. I felt the ignition and I found myself dancing around the house and laughing in a different way. I found myself enjoying, enjoying, just dreaming again.

Speaker 1: 19:38

And I think that for anybody who's been in the place that I have been and gone through big challenges, it's easy to sit and struggle and to feel like you've got to constantly be pushing uphill and you've got to constantly be fighting against something and you've got to constantly dealing with some new thing. Even when things are good, there's also things that are hard. Yes, all that's true. All of that is still true. You know, having new medical diagnosis is having new challenges in every relationship, having new challenges financially, whatever your challenges are.

Speaker 1: 20:19

Remembering that you can also have fun. You can also have passions. You can also feel like what you're doing matters. You can do all of it Not at the same time, maybe, but woven in together, and finding those moments where, when you put on some music and you feel like dancing, you do so. When you get this inspiration to go on a mini road trip, go see somebody, go see a friend, you do so. If you get an idea to go take a class or focus on a hobby for a minute, or even just curl up and read a book, you do so. You follow the passion and you follow the fun and you let go a little bit of this. You've got to do, go, go move, and you know pate kettle here. This is.

Speaker 1: 21:08

I am actively working on this as I am saying so, so please do not think that I am judging anybody who focuses on doing instead of being, because that is my MO. But I really want in 2024, to find passion in the things that I am doing and I'm never going to slow down long enough to just be. That's just not who I am and that's okay. But if I can find excitement in those things and I can pause long enough to reflect on that, pause long enough to celebrate it, just like I'm doing in this whole year of everything challenges good, bad, fantastic and ugly, all of it and really pause and reflect on what I'm calling in next and how I'm bringing 2024 forward and how I want to show up in my life, I feel like we can start to bring more intention, intentionality behind it and maybe, just perhaps, things start to change in a positive way for others around us, because, at least what I've noticed is the more passionate and excited I get other people around me.

Speaker 1: 22:25

It's infectious, it's infectious and they feel it and they can't help but be excited about whatever it is too. It's magnetic, and if I just can bring a little more passion in my life and the things that I'm doing in my relationships and that can be infectious for them, and then they start to do the same, that ripple effect could be massive, it could be huge and it could be so much fun. And that's what I want. I want for every one of us to find the joy and the fun and the passion in the challenges, in the moments that are hard. Remember that you're not alone. Other people out there experiencing them too, and however you choose to go through them, whether you choose to share and go through your challenges publicly, whether you choose to integrate and reflect internally, whether you never want to share your story those choices are up to you. For me personally, sharing what I'm going through, sharing my challenges and my awarenesses, is how I find passion, is how I feel like what I went through matters. It has a bigger purpose for myself and for others, and it is how I transform it all and make it into my most powerful transformation yet.

Speaker 1: 23:43

Thank you, guys, so much. I hope you have a wonderful new year. I hope everybody, and however you choose to celebrate this 2023 going into 2024 is met with passion, love, purpose, joy, all of the warm fuzzy things. I am very much looking forward to sharing 2024 with you all. There may be new changes to the show coming. I can feel it. I just can't quite put my finger on what it looks like just yet. But there is still more change to come, because that is who I am, and yet passion and purpose is going to be woven into all of it. Lots of love everyone. Have a wonderful new year.