Alyssa Brooke Creative

Winter maybe 6 more weeks but I couldn’t help but bringing out some more springy colors 🌺

This year I don’t have as many new goals but more so a desire to return to basics. Trying to recreate smaller rhythms in my foundational things. (Such as actually resting one day a week). And simply (and somehow not simply) yielding to the Lord. Sometimes in my frustrations of waiting for years on things I can feel the urge to take control and do things my own way. But, I’m being reminded to yield.

I’m genuinely excited for this next year in the midst of what feels simple but I feel like it’s important.

What New Years intentions do you have? 🤍

Beavers Bend camping trip with this dear friend 🤍 It rained like there was no tomorrow and the wind was absolutely wild but it was a 10/10 experience.

Also checked off a bucket list item: horseback riding 🐎

I grew up loving horses, but when I was a kid my parents signed me up for riding lessons and that’s when we learned I was actually allergic. I was devastated. I even tried going back the next week in long sleeves, gloves, literally fully covered, until my wrist got exposed while brushing the horse and I broke out in welts. Funsies.

Thankfully I grew out of those allergies, and getting to ride now felt so full-circle and sweet. Definitely something I want to do more of.

The year 2016, where this all started! So wild. This was the year I first started my blog to encourage people in life and in their career/businesses. It was also the year I started going more blond, blasted Fetty in my office, and was figuring out where I wanted to go next (CA).

Merry Christmas yall!! Hope yall have had a sweet time celebrating Christmas and spending time with loved ones 🤍

2025 - what are you looking forward to this year? It’s always good to reflect and create vision - and have fun with it! Go to a fav coffee shop or find a cool place outside to journal and dream. Whatever it is, find spaces where you can chat with the Lord and have Him show you a fresh perspective on last year and partner with Him in dreaming up this upcoming year. I placed some questions below to process.
Reflecting on the past year:
- What are the things you’re grateful for that the Lord did last year?
- What were the things God was teaching you last year? How did you grow?
- What challenges can you celebrate overcoming?
- What are you proud of from this last year?
- Were there any things that you were disappointed with? Give time to grieve, surrender, and see what God might be saying over it.
Envisioning this next year:
- What do you feel like the Lord is telling you to focus on? Is there a word that you feel like God is impressing on your heart over this year?
- What things would you like to improve?
- Your relationship with the Lord, how do you want to keep growing and fostering that?
- Is there anything you’d like to do differently with how you spend your time?
- Is there anything that God is telling you to keep digging in? To not give up in and keep pouring into?
- What is a new way you can serve this year?
- What new things do you want to try or adventure to?
- What ways can you get outside of your comfort zone?
- How can you take care of yourself better?
2024 held so many unexpected, fun, and new adventures. God regrounded my trust through difficult circumstances and also good surprising ones; I’m honestly so excited to see what He does this next year.
Habakkuk 2:2-3
Proverbs 29:18
Isaiah 43:19

Swimming won’t make your stresses/problems go away.
Me: …
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How much weight do you put on your stresses or problems?
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If I’m honest with you, there are seasons of mine that they can consume me. Like to the point where I feel queezy and my sleep is all over the place. (I know, I know, it’s not healthy) What I’m now realizing is I wear the full weight of my stresses by myself. I didn’t realize I idolized them so much they become bigger than God as if He can’t fix or do anything with them. And if I’m honest, it’s not like my stresses in the past have turned out all rosy.
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I had a vision a few weeks ago and it was Jesus sleeping in the boat in the storm and then I saw myself frantically trying to fix the holes and God was like - that’s you right now. This stress one day is going to be a blip in comparison to what’s to come. So you can try to figure out how to navigate it now or bigger things will come and we’ll be circling the same mountain the same way.
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Maybe you needed to hear that the same way I did.
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Ultimately, yours and my stresses or problems aren’t it. Yes, they still suck a whole lot. They’re still painful. But, not releasing them only hurts us more. I was so stressed out recently that you could find me in the pool all the time because it felt releasing. And even when I felt like I wanted to fix it but couldn’t it was in my releasing where I felt the weight go away. Do what you can and stop trying to control the outcome. You might think you’re in the right and want to fight for that, but you have to release it. Let. It. Go. Stop carrying that weight because it was never yours to hold.
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“If you have raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe country, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?” Jeremiah 12:5
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& Matthew 11:28-30