A thought hit me randomly yesterday, the kind that stops you mid-task and makes you pause.

Not because it’s groundbreaking.

But because it feels undeniably true.

The thought was simple:

What meaning am I assigning to everything?

And maybe even more importantly…

Why?

Because if I’m really honest, I have spent a lot of my life assigning meaning to moments that were never meant to define me.

Work doesn’t go well?

The meaning:
Maybe I’m not a good coach.
Maybe I missed something.
Maybe I’m not enough.

One of my children struggles?

The meaning:
What did I do wrong?
I should have handled that differently.
Did I fail them somehow?

I step on the scale at the doctor’s office and the number has climbed?

The meaning:
You’ve lost control.
You should be doing better.
What is wrong with you?

But let’s be fair.

It works in the other direction, too.

A phenomenal day at work?

Suddenly:
Look at me.
I crushed that.
I’m incredibly gifted.
I’m a badass.

My grandkids run toward me with wild excitement?

Best grandmother ever.

A meaningful conversation?
A compliment?
A win?

Cue the upward swing.

And what struck me yesterday wasn’t that I do this.

It was how automatic it is.

Moment happens.

Emotion follows.

Meaning assigned.

Identity adjusted.

Like some invisible scoring system constantly running in the background.

Up.
Down.
Good.
Bad.
Enough.
Not enough.
Winning.
Failing.

Exhausting.

Absolutely exhausting.

And I just had this moment where I thought:

What if I stopped doing that?

What if an experience could simply be… an experience?

Without becoming evidence.

Without becoming identity.

Without becoming a verdict.

What if a hard day at work was just a hard day at work?

What if my child struggling meant they were having a hard season—not that I was somehow fundamentally defective?

What if the scale was simply data?

What if disappointment was just disappointment?

Not proof.

Not prophecy.

Just information.

Because here’s what I’m realizing:

When we assign meaning to everything, we often give external circumstances far too much authority over our internal world.

And suddenly, our sense of self becomes wildly unstable.

We become emotional stock markets.

One great conversation and we’re soaring.

One awkward interaction and we’re plummeting.

One success and we’re brilliant.

One failure and we’re questioning everything.

That’s not peace.

That’s emotional whiplash.

And I don’t want to live there anymore.

I don’t want my identity to be determined by outcomes.

Or reactions.

Or numbers.

Or someone else’s mood.

Or how loved I feel on a particular day.

Or whether life is cooperating with my plans.

Because life will continue to happen.

People will disappoint us.

Children will struggle.

Bodies will change.

Plans will unravel.

Work will go beautifully some days and terribly on others.

That is life.

But I am growing increasingly convinced that the only meaning I truly need to assign… is to myself.

Not in an ego-driven way.

Not in a performative affirmation kind of way.

But in a deeply rooted, soul-settled way.

A way that says:

I know who I am.

And because I know who I am, I don’t need every experience to tell me.

That feels incredibly freeing.

Because imagine moving through your day without constantly evaluating yourself.

Without interpreting every inconvenience as failure.

Without taking everyone else’s behavior personally.

Without assigning moral significance to every emotional wave.

Imagine simply noticing:

That hurt.
That felt good.
That disappointed me.
That brought me joy.
That was hard.
That was beautiful.

And then letting it stop there.

No courtroom.

No internal jury.

No dramatic identity crisis.

Just awareness.

Presence.

Truth.

That doesn’t mean becoming numb.

It means becoming steady.

And steady feels holy to me right now.

Because I’ve lived enough life to know circumstances are unreliable narrators.

They do not always tell the truth about who we are.

A bad day doesn’t define me.

A good day doesn’t inflate me.

A hard conversation doesn’t diminish me.

A compliment doesn’t complete me.

I remain.

Steady.

Whole.

Worthy.

Human.

Growing.

This doesn’t mean I won’t still feel things deeply.

I absolutely will.

But maybe I can feel them without becoming them.

Maybe I can experience disappointment without becoming “a disappointment.”

Maybe I can experience success without making it my identity.

Maybe I can simply stay rooted in something deeper.

So let me ask you:

What meaning have you been assigning lately?

What stories are you telling yourself about your work?
Your body?
Your relationships?
Your parenting?
Your worth?

And are those stories actually true?

Or are they just interpretations you learned to make?

Because maybe the most freeing thing we can do is loosen our grip on the labels.

And anchor instead into something deeper.

Who are you… when nothing external gets to decide?

That’s the work.

And honestly?

That feels like freedom.

Ready. Set. Grow. 🌿