00:00:00
00:00:01
S1 Ep. 30: Don't be surprised when I change myself
37 Plays1 month ago
In this season-ending episode, I take you on a recent journey back to Utah, a place that holds so much of my past, yet no longer feels like home. I dive into the emotions of returning to where everyone remembers you as you once were, even though you've changed. I talk about the struggle of feeling lost, the nostalgia of a life that’s no longer yours, and the realization that home isn’t a place, but a feeling.
This episode serves as a reminder that life is a series of changes, lessons, and self-discovery that allows us to reinvent ourselves at any time. If you've ever felt like you no longer fit in where you once belonged, or if you're navigating your own path of transformation, this one’s for you.
As you navigate these new changes, I seek to remind you that you will see the signs you are where you're meant to be if you're open to receiving them. Here I am overwhelmed by the feeling that as much as I want to change and I know "People Change" the truth is some people never do.
Alexa play "People Change" by Ella Langley
Next in queue:
Morgan Wallen "Tennessee Fan"
Transcript
00:00:03
heatherdyann
People say forever. Hell, I said it to you. People stay together running from the truth. Ain't what I want to do. Welcome to Wandering the Wild Mess with Heather Morgan. I am so happy that you're here.
00:00:25
heatherdyann
All right. All right. I made my way back to Utah. We're going to end the season talking about it a little. But before we do, I just have to continue this song that was definitely on repeat for my flight, People Change by Ella Langley. It just completely embodied this whole trip for me. And it continues to to say,
00:00:54
heatherdyann
You can stay high on nostalgia, live life, looking back. We can hate it or doubt it, but it doesn't change the fact that people change their minds. People change their hair. People change each other out of no damn where. It's a part of life. We can't help ourselves. So don't be surprised when I change myself.
00:01:25
heatherdyann
Wow. I fill all the fills with that. And even the irony of the line, people change their hair because I have thought back to one of the last time that I had been in the same room with my ex-husband and he kindly brought me my favorite latte.
00:01:51
heatherdyann
un just very kind gesture, even at the very end of our like us parting ways. And I had changed my hair and he looks at me, hands me the coffee and says, your hair looks long.
00:02:11
heatherdyann
And i I was like, thanks. And obviously the divorce, I don't remember. I can't recall if it was finalized, but we were definitely at the end of it all. And so that line in the song was just weird. It's just one of those things where you can just change something about you and it makes you feel different than the previous person than you that you were, even though it's not.
00:02:41
heatherdyann
But I feel like often I talk about changing because it's everything that I've really experienced since leaving my hometown, since leaving Utah. So coming back to it, it's like this reminder of who you used to be, because all of the people there still just know you for who you were, which is wild to think about.
00:03:06
heatherdyann
And I'll be honest, right before my trip to Utah, my world felt a little overwhelming and exhausting in that moment. And I've been trying to focus on gratitude and all the things I'm thankful for, but my mind just really kept bi spiraling and focusing on all the unknowns. Like, what am I doing? I feel so lost. I don't know what I'm doing.
00:03:31
heatherdyann
And it's as if I'm on a trail and there's a million ways to go, but I can't get my feet to move in any direction. And I feel like all of us have probably had moments in our life that we've maybe felt that same way.
00:03:46
heatherdyann
And it's just like staring at a number of paths ahead and being fearful that each one will be the wrong one. Even though I know deep down in my soul that there's no right or wrong, it's all experiences and lessons. But again, just coming into this trip, I just felt defeated. I think maybe a part of me wanted to feel like I had it all figured out when I came back to Utah. I hadn't been there since the holidays.
00:04:16
heatherdyann
But the weight of the emotions that I knew I would feel when I got there just kept circling in my mind. And I realize it's hard to come back to a place that you no longer fit in the way you once did. And I think anyone that's maybe left where they always have been can relate to the feeling of wanting to belong again, but knowing that you no longer do in some ways.
00:04:46
heatherdyann
So as I sat on the plane to Happy Valley or Provo, Utah, for those of you that don't know, the city with the highest Mormon population. And I tried not to let my mind go to all the places I wanted to go.
00:05:05
heatherdyann
And I had myself a few stiff drinks knowing I would likely be probably one of the least sober people in Provo, Utah, when I landed. And I wrote a little as I do often. And I thought I would share a little of this um from my mind as I sat on the plane.
00:05:27
heatherdyann
And when i before I do, like rereading it back made me go, wow. But it was kind of just the little bit of the journey that I'm ending and the season that I'm ending here with. So here it goes. On my way back to Salt Lake, and it's hard to even want to call it home. I'll always be born and raised there, but does that mean it's home? Maybe it was home, or maybe it never was.
00:05:55
heatherdyann
It was the place that I experienced most of my life up until this point, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's home. It gave me a lot of things that I realized weren't what I wanted from life, but yet it gave me others that I couldn't imagine life without.
00:06:15
heatherdyann
I met what I will call now my first husband. I thought he was it. His humor, his drive, his love for me. It was all there and I really loved him then.
00:06:28
heatherdyann
He was who I wanted, but I didn't look far enough ahead to see why and what that would mean for my life. But I guess who does a good thing job at that when you're young. I was just living in my feelings. I can't say if that was wrong or right. We found our place and played house and it wasn't what I wanted. I remember wanting to move away. I wanted to find me and it wasn't his fault.
00:06:59
heatherdyann
I likely thought I'd found it in a place that wasn't home. I broke up with him for some of the same reasons I divorced him. History often repeats itself. Some people change, some people never do. I had the opportunity briefly to date a little again, but I didn't find that feeling, whatever that feeling is supposed to be. But for me, it always felt hard to come by. I often wondered if I'm not the type of person to feel it easily.
00:07:36
heatherdyann
I love being around people, but ah not everyone makes me feel that kind of way. I hadn't found it in any man before him, so eventually I let the first man that gave me that feeling a second chance, even though I knew deep down I shouldn't. Life happened, I lost my father, the man that was my rock, and my world changed forever that day.
00:08:05
heatherdyann
The thought of someone being gone forever. There's just nothing you can do to change it. No words can be said. It just is. It's so difficult. But I continued through the motions, always knowing that I needed something more and thinking back to so many times that it was evident. What I had it wasn't for me.
00:08:31
heatherdyann
But we also see what we want to see. Life is only as good as we make it. And I don't regret a thing now. There isn't any use. But as I fly over mountains we used to climb, I can't help but realize that I'm so far from who I used to be.
00:08:50
heatherdyann
And someone that was once in my daily life, I haven't spoken to or seen in over a year. Life is wild like that. We can't predict when the tides will change. We just have to trust that they will take us to where we're meant to be.
00:09:07
heatherdyann
I know I'm not meant to be in Utah anymore, but a part of me still feels nostalgic about the life I once had, while also knowing it's no longer the life for who I want to become. Such a reminder that we have to let go of what we once were to become who we are meant to be. One of us changes, one of us never does.
00:09:39
heatherdyann
and It was a lot for me to kind of pour that all out. And there was a little bit that I censored over, but there was just a lot of feelings coming into Utah.
00:09:52
heatherdyann
And when I landed, I had this overwhelming feeling as soon as I saw the mountains, it was like, this is where I belong. And what am I doing here at the very same time? And I know I talk about that often. And I don't know when that feeling will stop for me. I don't know if I like or I'm holding on to, like I want it to be something, but It's there. I don't know how to explain it. If it's just me romanticizing the beautiful parts of my life that once was and still grieving who I once was, even though I don't want to be that person anymore.
00:10:38
heatherdyann
So bringing a little happy here, I saw the fam, I get to Utah, all the things. There was so much chaos before this trip, to be honest. I'm not even going to go into everything that was right now, but some things delayed and there was just, life just got wild and I just rolled with it.
00:11:01
heatherdyann
And seeing my friends back home is always so good for me. Because it's so different when in Tennessee I have so many people that have not really known me that long. Like I have one friend in Tennessee that i no but she's known me for barely over a year year now. But pretty much everyone else, like no one's even known me a full year.
00:11:26
heatherdyann
but you go back home and people have known me my whole life, decades. So it's so different because they just know things about me and you know it's it's good and it's I love it, but then you know it's just people that know things about me that people here in Tennessee never will.
00:11:52
heatherdyann
And the contrast of that is so different to me. I know there's so many people in the world that have lived in multiple places and have never had a long friend for that long, which I can't even wrap my head around. But I did always think it was weird to think about when I see my old friends from back home and they're telling stories about things we used to do and who we used to be.
00:12:22
heatherdyann
I don't even think the people that I met since moving could even fathom that person that I was. It's just so different and it's so far from who I've been. And I think maybe that's made me feel
00:12:38
heatherdyann
i Like, it's made me feel a little bit of like, is this who I am? But then I realized, and I preached this before, you can be whoever you want to be at any time. And I think we stay the same when we stay where we've always been because everyone expects us to. But when you go out and leave the expectations of everyone you've always known, well, they're gone. So you can reinvent yourself much more easily. And you don't have the eyes of everyone going, that's who you have to be.
00:13:09
heatherdyann
But I luckily have friends that love this life changed for me and they see how happy I am, but they also know how structured and um amazing I had built a life before. And so I've said this before to a couple of my friends here. When I was asked if I felt like I had ever had a successful relationship.
00:13:42
heatherdyann
She said, well, it ended in a divorce, so no. But my other friends, like you were together for so very long. What do you think? And I had this whole perspective on it that I was sharing because it's so interesting to me. I feel like It's like that first business that you start. Like you don't know what you're doing. You're an entrepreneur. Here we are. We started a business. We don't really know. But you're going with it.
00:14:11
heatherdyann
And you're running this business and you're learning along the way. It's the first time you're doing it. Okay. I think I need to do this. I think I need to do that. This is working. This isn't all the things. And you're just figuring it out as you go. And at some point you've built this business. It's sustained for X amount of years. And then you're just like, I, I don't think it's going to make it.
00:14:39
heatherdyann
But you know what? I know what I'm doing now. I know how to grow a business. I just don't think we're going to be profitable with this business anymore. So it's probably best to close the doors.
00:14:52
heatherdyann
And you make that business decision that this is not beneficial to me anymore. I'm not profiting on this business. and And no, I'm not trying to make love a profitable business, but I'm trying to use the analogy of thinking that it wasn't, I mean, I still started a business. We still did this thing. We still built a business together. It just stopped being profitable for us. So we closed shop.
00:15:22
heatherdyann
But we still successfully maintained a business for many years. And that's beautiful. So to me, that's a success. Because if I want to continue to grow and learn and develop and have another business, my next venture, think of all that I've learned having put blood, sweat, and tears into that first business.
00:15:48
heatherdyann
I wouldn't call it a failure. I don't know many people that are successful at least in business or life that haven't failed and took what they learned from the first time around and made it even better.
00:16:05
heatherdyann
So any idea they ever took from point A to point B may not still be in business, but they wouldn't have learned or had the successful one they do today without laying that ground foundation and starting one the first way time. So in my mind, as I'm rambling on about this, I feel like for years and years, it was successful.
00:16:29
heatherdyann
And then I heard someone say, it's not failure when it ends. It's just the end. It's just the end. And ending doesn't mean failure. It just means it's time to close the doors. And I feel like that's such a more beautiful and positive perspective to think about anything in your life that ends because the truth of the matter is people change.
00:16:59
heatherdyann
My living in Utah, I don't think that it was a failure that I didn't want to live there forever. It was just the end of my time there. It was just I was no longer growing and becoming who I want to be living there.
00:17:16
heatherdyann
And so I left. And I think so many times, I think we often, I mean, there's a million reasons to stay where we've always been and comfort is usually the first one. Comfortability because we know, we can predict, even if it's miserable, it's what we know. But I also think there's a fear of failure that comes into play as well, as if, oh, you couldn't make that work.
00:17:44
heatherdyann
But it's like, no, I think it's like anything in life. When it's just not serving you anymore, it's fine to step away and see what else is out there. Not that you shouldn't try. And we'll kind of circle back there. But I know we want to get into a little bit about Utah. Well, so there was a lot of door closing when there was back I was back in Utah. There was lots of realizations of what is just never going to be.
00:18:15
heatherdyann
again for me and a lot of mountains hi hiking, of course, but then sitting down with my girls and hearing everyone's life. We're just in such different places hearing from my girls back home. It's pretty exciting. It just helps to hear every one of my friends just being on a different journey on their life in their life right now.
00:18:43
heatherdyann
It just kind of reminds you that it's okay to all be just figuring it out and having different challenges and different paths that we're taking. And just like no one of my friends had the same great news or challenges going on. Everyone had different things and was moving in different directions. And I think sometimes it's easy to compare ourselves and be like, oh, it looks like they know what they're doing. But then when you sit down and we sat down around the table with my girls, drank some wine, and I said, what's going on? Tell me the highlights. What's good? What are the challenges? What are we all going through? And everyone had
00:19:28
heatherdyann
completely different things going on. And it's it was just refreshing. And really, none of it was comparable. We all just had things.
00:19:41
heatherdyann
And I kind of love that for us. not and Not challenges, but they're a part of life, right? But then I feel like we all just felt less alone because you realize although your challenges and highlights might be different, but we all have challenges and we all have bright spots and highlights and great things that are going on in our life that we're so excited about. But we all have different challenges that we're facing that
00:20:07
heatherdyann
So really, that's our commonality. We had some really good things going on. And we had some tough things going on. But it was great to just sit there with them and hear that.
00:20:22
heatherdyann
But I think it's great when you have those friends that are willing to be vulnerable, vulnerable with you about their highs and their lows. You just realize you're just not alone. Everyone's going through the same kind of emotions. The path just is different. And that was for me exactly what I needed to put me back in the right head space because I didn't really come into Salt Lake with the greatest one. But
00:20:53
heatherdyann
everything didn't get to happen as planned. So I'm still working to kind of figure out how we jump into season two, if I'm honest. But I've been getting a lot of like really good feedback that me motivating and that's super helpful. I guess I kind of feel like I'm preaching to myself when I'm trying to motivate But I mean, it might be a lot for me. I mean, I'm really just kind of telling these stories, but I think as I'm going through life and figuring this out and wandering the wild mess, I'm trying to hype myself up knowing that like I am
00:21:37
heatherdyann
just figuring it out. And so how do I motivate myself? And sometimes the words just come out loud and it's like I'm telling a story and I just sound like I'm motivating. um When really I'm just trying to say like, let's get let's figure this out. I know there's all these great, amazing things that are coming in my life and in yours. um You just have to put yourself in the headspace to believe that. And that's really what I had to do when I was at that low point, like we all ebb and flow.
00:22:07
heatherdyann
that I'm like, all right, I'm rejuvenated these people, my home state, people that know me like reminded me like, Heather, do you know who you became? Do you know how like, reminding me of like, who I was and how far I came and who I've always been the parts of me that I know that I want to keep.
00:22:29
heatherdyann
and the accomplishments that I've had and what I can do. And it's just like that reminder from people that I've seen you climb those mountains. And it's important, I think, in that regard to kind of forget reconnect with the people that have known you best because they can remind you of the challenges you've overcome. They can remind you of the times where they were like, I don't know how you did that girl, but you're,
00:22:59
heatherdyann
amazing They hype you up in a way that only someone that have known more intimately the kinds of things that you've overcome can remind you of when you don't really know how to remind yourself. And I feel like everyone deserves those kind of people in their life to remind them of how great they are and how much they can accomplish.
00:23:25
heatherdyann
Because I truly, if you're listening and no one's told you, I believe in you. I don't care if I've never met you. I believe in everyone's abilities. So it's, it's more, how bad do you want it? We've already talked about this, but I'll stop with the mode of debating and we'll circle back to Utah. I have so many messy stories, of course, that I still want to bring, but
00:23:52
heatherdyann
I am just trying to navigate the best way to kind of throw all these in. So I love any kind of feedback, but I've never been more motivated in my life to get it figured out. And I know there's not this point in time where you just have it figured out, but I have so many exciting, big things that I want to be doing. And Utah kind of just like brought that back to the front of my mind. And I think sometimes it's hard to realize that I'm almost juggling like my life between how I feel when I'm back home in Utah to like how I feel in Tennessee. And it it's it's so interesting because
00:24:44
heatherdyann
when I'm talking to people from my home state, it's almost like that feels comfortable for me. And then when I'm out, and I i feel like I can talk to anyone, but it's just, it's such a different worlds in so many ways that I'm not even able to articulate. And so I don't know why that's so, like, i I probably should have left sooner like I had wanted to, and I talked about in the poem, because it's just such an adjustment.
00:25:13
heatherdyann
ah to to relate. And it's not even a bad thing. But I feel like in order for me to really grow and change, I'd had I had to see this contrast of like, wow, this is a completely different world. And this isn't the first time where I've stepped into something where I thought, wow, this is so much different. I mean, I remember when I got into corporate America, I was like, what is this? You know, and my corporate people out there like, it's a whole different world.
00:25:42
heatherdyann
And as you continue to climb the ladder, you realize even more, there's like, you know, the acronyms, the language, the etiquette, the who you got to loop in, who you got to CC, the politics of it. Like, it's like learning a whole other world in itself as well. So, I mean, it's not foreign to me to navigate that. um I think it's just
00:26:05
heatherdyann
you know, like anything that's new to you, it still just takes a little acclimation. And that's kind of where I am. You know, and when I go back to Utah, I'm kind of like, gosh, it seems familiar. But do I still want it? Because I don't think so. And I discovered that I don't. And I
00:26:29
heatherdyann
I don't even know if I want to say this but I ah sometimes think like if I would I run into my ex so coming into this trip there was some information that I became aware of and I was like is it ah do do people try to run into their exes like I didn't necessarily want to but I
00:27:01
heatherdyann
I found something that I'll share, but I didn't run into my ex in Utah. And really what it did is just fuel my soul and help me kind of get back to ground who I am, which I loved. Okay, kind of jumping around because this was such an emotional trip, but everything didn't get to happen as planned. So I'm still working to
00:27:31
heatherdyann
how we jump into season two, like I said. So what I will tell you is that this is kind of a lot of big things are coming. I'm really excited about it.
00:27:47
heatherdyann
But I will tell you that my last little story about Utah, because I'm not going to get too in the weeds on a lot of the things that didn't get to happen as planned. But while I was on my way out leaving Utah.
00:28:04
heatherdyann
I went to the gas station to fill up the rental car. And I walked into the gas station, and which I rarely go into the gas stations, especially by myself. And I was like, I'm gonna grab some jerky and a banana and whatever for the flight. And I'm standing there in the line, I hear the song playing.
00:28:30
heatherdyann
And I don't really know that I remember hearing the music in a gas station very often, but it was Morgan Wallen's Tennessee fan. And it was like this little nod just telling me on my way out of Utah that I belong in Tennessee.
00:28:50
heatherdyann
And I love how life does that. Life gives you those signs. Like if you can be intuitive enough and just listen and look for them, you'll know exactly where you're supposed to be. You'll know you're on the right path. You'll know this is exactly what you're supposed to be doing.
00:29:18
heatherdyann
in some way or another. And since my new life has changed, ah there's been times I haven't listened to those signs. And I knew something wasn't right for me, but I kind of just kept it going for the plot or the comfort or whatever. And I mean, I think sometimes it's all right because maybe you needed and you get more lessons than you needed or you wanted. And you learn that you should have listened the first time when you knew that it wasn't meant for you, but you hung around to kind of
00:29:56
heatherdyann
Give it more of a story or give it more of a chance. I mean, either way, life does that. But I don't want to do that again if I don't feel like it's meant for me. I feel like I stayed too long in where I wasn't supposed to be. But then again, I wouldn't have all the lessons and the beautiful memories if I left earlier. Like tonight, and this will kind of
00:30:26
heatherdyann
circle back to sometimes it's just the end and it's not a failure, right? You tried. So I came across this a tub that I took.
00:30:41
heatherdyann
um From Utah and I was looking for a notebook and it was in there and the irony of it again is just that this was about the same time when I was Making my trek to get the last of my belongings from Utah was about a year ago today or a year ago now and I'm look I'm sifting through and I find this notebook and I'm just looking for a blank page and I find this a letter from 2016. And I won't get, go into the details of what it said, but the irony of me finding it in him some random notebook. It was, it was me trying to fix what wasn't working in my marriage.
00:31:27
heatherdyann
It was us trying to fix it. And, and I realized I had honestly forgot we had even written that together and we both had signed it. Like I was trying and I can't even make this up. And once I saw it, I kind of went back to that time, but I hadn't really ever thought about it until I saw it. And just realizing that we did try. I tried. I communicated what I needed.
00:32:06
heatherdyann
And he told me what he could do. We tried to compromise.
00:32:13
heatherdyann
It was like a, it was beautiful and sad at the very same time. It was just weird to even come across, honestly. But it made it, it made it feel
00:32:30
heatherdyann
okay to know that things you try to make them work and they don't. And then it also felt like a sign just to remind me on the days that I feel like I don't know what I'm doing and I gave up on the old me and my old life and my marriage and all the things. But then I realized and I needed to remember I tried and that's all we can ever do. We try.
00:33:02
heatherdyann
And sometimes it still ends and you have to close the doors and that's okay.
00:33:13
heatherdyann
I'll end this by more lyrics to the song. People change even when you wish they wouldn't. You learn it's out of your control. And every time I thought I couldn't,
00:33:30
heatherdyann
Holding back just takes a toll. So I go and break the mold. I'm not where I used to be, but I'm getting to where I want to go. I don't know a lot, but I'm guessing that's why God made forks in the road. People change.
00:33:54
heatherdyann
I hope that gives you a little bit of grounding that there's so many different directions we can go and the people in our lives can go. And we just i don't know, but your intuition does give you signs if you quiet your mind enough to hear them.
00:34:15
heatherdyann
And that ends this season of Wandering the Wild Mess. It's still wild to me that I even put myself out there to be this vulnerable for y'all or maybe just for myself to be honest. And I think sometimes we just have to do a hard things that feel uncomfortable and we just have to roll with it. And that's really what this has been for me. And so I'm so very grateful for you listening. I appreciate ate it so much for you coming along with me on this journey of just figuring it all out. I'll bring something new and something different for season two. I don't want that will be yet, or maybe I do. But again, I appreciate you being here along for the ride. As always,
00:35:07
heatherdyann
I love Wandering the Wild Mess with each person that listens. So thank you again. Thank you, thank you. This was Wandering the Wild Mess with Heather Morgan. You matter.