Learning, Growing, Becoming
From Shedding the Old to Embodying the New: What the Year of the Snake Taught Me and How I’m Stepping Into the Year of the Horse
My Personal Journey: From Hypervigilance to Living Fully
Ever since I came home from grad school in 2023, the cushioning of “student life” fell away, and real adulthood quietly took its place. Finances. Trying to find a job while still unsure of what I wanted to do…despite having a Master’s degree. You’d think I’d have known exactly what I wanted to do…but I didn’t. Add in grief from losing a best friend tragically…Add in denial then learning to process that grief…And in health anxiety on top of my baseline anxiety on top of grief and more health anxiety. Add in 1,000 mysterious symptoms…cue more health anxiety…
My hypervigilance consumed me for more than two years…I was trapped in anxiety, overthinking, body scanning, constant optimizing, doom scrolling, symptom checking, “what if” spirals..the list goes on…I was stuck in fight-or-flight…my poor nervous system always on edge…and scared…
I felt this trembling weight on me, and I couldn’t figure out how to get rid of it. So, I became obsessed with health and wellness and everything in between.
Fast forward to now, early 2026, and I can feel the shift from analysis to embodiment. I finally feel like I’m moving forward, and not just walking in circles. I’m no longer surviving and dreading my thoughts — I’m now observing and reframing them.
And the catalyst for this shift? A post I saw on social media about a month ago! (Full post at the bottom.) This inspiring post talked about the Year of the Snake and the Year of the Horse. In short, the Year of the Snake (2025) is about reflecting and letting go of — shedding the things that no longer suit us. The Year of the Horse (2026) is about realizing your potential, returning to YOU, and fully embodying your truths and how you want to live your beautiful life.
And after reading this post a few times, I was like, “Wow! I really resonate with this!” I feel like these two Chinese zodiac years perfectly encapsulate my personal journey and what I hope to manifest and embody in 2026.
The Year of the Snake: Shedding What No Longer Aligns
2025 didn’t feel loud. It felt quiet. Precise. Uncomfortable in a necessary way. Anxiety-provoking in a revealing way. Grieving in a purposeful way.
The past few years, I struggled with:
Living from fear (especially health anxiety)
Obsessive wellness consumption
“Buy this, fix this, optimize this” mindset
Treating my body like a problem to solve
Living in constant scanning mode
Nervous system dysregulation
Missing my past body / body image spirals
Subtle burnout from “trying to be healthy”
In 2025, I grew a lot–quietly and subtly.
The Snake taught me that clarity precedes change. Before I could move differently, I had to see clearly. Let me explain.
I had to notice that I was living from fear instead of trust.
I had to admit that my “passion for wellness” had quietly turned into hypervigilance.
I had to recognize that I was consuming information not from curiosity — but from anxiety.
Nothing will shift until I am honest about all of this.
The Snake year didn’t ask me to overhaul my life overnight. It asked me to pay attention. To sit in discomfort long enough to name it. To see the patterns I kept repeating — the scrolling, the symptom-checking, the optimizing — and gently ask, Is this actually helping me?
Clarity meant acknowledging that I wasn’t broken — I was dysregulated.
Clarity meant realizing that more information wasn’t making me safer.
Clarity meant admitting that I was exhausted from trying to be perfectly healthy.
And once I could see those truths without judgment, I could finally actually start to heal and recover. I can become ME again. I don’t need to live like this–in constant fear. I don’t need to keep thinking something is wrong with me. I don’t need to label myself as: the stressed one, the anxious one, the overwhelmed one.
The Snake slowed me down long enough to notice the subtle ways fear had woven itself into my daily life. Not loudly. Not dramatically. But persistently. And in that slowing down, I gained something more powerful than productivity — I gained awareness.
And awareness is the beginning of freedom—to living fully, to living with faith and trust, to living unapologetically myself.
So what am I shedding?
Living in fear, living in “what-if something bad will happen…”
Not believing in myself/not believing I’m ‘good enough’
Not trusting my body
Not processing all of my emotions
Criticizing my body
Not being present (being on my phone, comparing my life to others’, etc)
What I Learned
I learned that not all anxiety is about danger. Sometimes it’s about grief.
This year wasn’t just about health spirals. It was about loss. Losing my grandpa. Losing a version of my childhood. Losing the illusion that time moves slowly.
When Stranger Things ended, I realized I wasn’t just grieving a show. I was grieving the era of my life it was attached to — safety, nostalgia, simplicity, the feeling of being younger and less aware of mortality. (Stranger Things lasted a decade, so practically all of my 20s.)
I turn 30 this year, which is crazy! And leaving my 20s is stirring more awareness. Of time. Of change. Of endings.
There were defining moments the past year when I experienced so many raw and tangled emotions, so many complex feelings. And I often felt overwhelmed by them. I would get ‘sick’ by them–nauseau, chest tenderness, fatigue, etc.
And clarity mindfully came when I stopped trying to fix those feelings and started allowing them.
The Snake taught me that letting go is a part of life. It’s almost a rite of passage.
I learned that grief can disguise itself as anxiety, too. That fear can actually be sadness looking for acknowledgment.
That sometimes the body tightens not because something is wrong — but because something meaningful has shifted.
How I talk to myself, how I talk about my body, is so, so powerful. When I identify with labels, such as “I am always anxious” or “I am always overwhelmed,” my brain automatically looks for evidence to support that. My brain gets trapped in a constant loop of “What’s wrong with me?” Cue body scanning and over-the-top wellness hypervigilance.
Our thoughts create our reality. Our life is a direct reflection of what’s happening in the unconscious mind. The patterns, beliefs, and identity that shape our current reality is running the show.
When we begin to change our inner story—and most importantly, our identity—everything shifts.
Here are some inner mindset truths I am focusing on this year:
My body is not my enemy — it is resilient, adaptive, and wise.
Fear is a signal, not a verdict.
More information does not equal more safety; clarity and trust do.
True healing is nervous system work and self-compassion.
I don’t need to optimize to be worthy; presence and care are enough.
Rest is productive — it restores, recalibrates, and strengthens.
I can love wellness without living in panic; curiosity over fear.
I am capable of moving forward with courage, even when uncertainty exists.
Letting go is part of growth; grief, release, and acceptance are allies.
I truly believe that we have the power to reshape our beliefs, and in turn, our reality. Our mind is the architect. What we believe is what we create. Our mindset is extremely powerful–so why not use it to empower and lift us up?
The Year of the Horse: Embodiment & Momentum
The Year of the Horse (2026) asks us to move. Where the Snake slowed time, the Horse gives us momentum. Carrying the energy of The Horse isn’t just about courage for me — it’s also about:
Letting childhood be honored without trying to live inside it.
Stepping into 30 not as a reflection of old fears and anxieties, but as a mirror for growth and expansion; not in fear, but in trust and curiosity.
Carrying nostalgia without clinging to it.
Moving forward with my grandpa’s and friend’s memories integrated.
Trusting my body to care for me–because I take care of my body.
Gaining more confidence in myself and my abilities.
Instead of asking myself, “What do I want to accomplish?” I will ask myself:
What do I want to embody?
How do I want to move?
How do I want to write this next chapter of my life?
This year, I choose courage over fear.
This year, I choose presence over panic.
This year, I choose stepping out of my comfort zone/trying new things over familiarity.
This year, I choose richness in relationships, art, and nature.
This year, I choose travel and adventure.
This year, I choose theater and creative expression.
This year, I choose working aligned with my values.
This year, I choose trust over overthinking.
This year, I choose self-care, self-love, and self-compassion.
This year, I choose ME.
My Path Is Open
I’m done living like something is wrong with me. I’m ready to run toward what feels right. I’m ready to trust my own legs beneath me. I’m ready to stop overanalyzing every tiny lil thing. I’m ready to trust my instincts enough to follow them without needing constant reassurance.
Here is how I see it:
If my late 20s was my Snake energy:
Shedding old identities
Grieving childhood
Confronting fear
Slowing down
Getting honest
Realizing what no longer fits
Then 2026, and the year I also happen to turn 30, is my Horse energy:
Embodying what I learned
Moving forward with clarity
Choosing courage over rumination
Living instead of analyzing
Trusting my legs beneath me
And turning 30 doesn’t have to mean:
Youth is over
Time is running out
I need to have everything figured out
Because quite the opposite! Turning 30 can also mean:
I know myself better
I speak kinder to myself
I don’t abandon myself for noise
I trust my body more
I curate my world, my life, my STORY, intentionally 🥰
So goodbye obsessive wellness spirals. Goodbye fear-based scrolling. Goodbye “my body is a problem.”
Thank you, 2025, for slowing me down enough to realize my nervous system was overloaded.
And hello courage. Hello trust. Hello presence. Hello movement. Hello abundance. Hello to living richly.
We’re just getting started!
Horse energy activated.
*Social media post that empowered me to reflect on where I’ve been and where I’m going.
