How the 'Big O' Changed My 30th Year

I spent my 29th year having heart palpitations thanks to the big 3-0 approaching. Turning thirty this year was not easy for me. I looked at the reality housewives and wondered if I should have accomplished more by now. Yes I compared myself to them. Terrible, but who doesn’t? I wondered if I should have been crazier in my twenties and done some drugs. I painfully asked myself the question if I should be engaged to be married by now. I wondered if I had enough money saved. I wondered if I should I be in better shape?

It felt like time was running out for me to be the best version of myself by thirty.

Other than doing a lot of Jillian Michael’s home workout videos for a few months, I essentially stayed the same person as I popped the champagne on August 23rd. However, as life goes, all of these questions were answered shortly after my birthday. I went to Oprah’s Live the Life You Want Weekend with my Mom. Let’s be real, who isn’t going to come out of an Oprah weekend feeling transformed?

The weekend was filled with Oprah and her four “trail blazers” sharing their knowledge on life. The audience danced together during the breaks, we wrote, we felt elevated and I found myself starting to cry in many of the sessions.

My job as an event planner can be very stressful and there is always a lot to do. The last three years I have been traveling at a very intense level for work and as Oprah spoke I was realizing that I had been caught up in the anxiety of the day to day.

And then Oprah said this: “You only have power in your energy field ... so the only way to live the life you want is in your energy field ... and your greatest power is love.”

I am a strong believer that what you put into this world, you get back. However, I realized that while I would acknowledge life’s divine happenings, I was not stopping to savor these moments.

I wasn’t allowing these experiences to affect my energy field. I am fortunate enough that in my career as an event planner I have interactions with all types of people every day, from caterers to audio visual experts, to colleagues, to sales people, to speakers.

Through this I’ve realized that my way of practicing love is actually by practicing kindness.

Now I love these times of love, like when I send my best friend an emoji with the heart eyes, or when I get to tell my parents I love them over the phone, or when I say a big HELLO with a big SMILE to my doorman and ask how his day was, or when I am kind to myself and have a hot bath.

I let go of all of those questions I had about my life. Instead I focused on acting with the intention of kindness and this would water my days and make my life grow. When you act with this intention, you start to realize how great and powerful your energy field is and gosh, does it make life full of love.