Growing Forward: Embracing What’s Next

Change has a funny way of showing up at our door whether we invite it or not. Someone once told me that change is inevitable, but growth and improvement are optional. The older I get, the truer that line feels. Change arrives like a knock you can’t ignore. Growth waits quietly in the corner and says, “Only if you choose me.”

My first real lesson in change came when I was ten years old. My family packed up our brand-new home in Sandy, Utah, and headed south to a place I had only heard about. St. George was a distant dot on the map to me. I had friends up north, cousins down the street, and a life I understood. And then everything shifted.

We rolled into town in the middle of summer, the kind of summer that laughs at your expectations and teaches you who’s really in charge. I remember opening the car door and feeling as though the desert reached up and punched me right in the face. I had never felt heat like that. It didn’t simply warm you, it confronted you. It wrapped around your body and whispered, “Good luck trying to play outside.”

I wondered how any kid could survive here. I wondered if this move meant I was leaving behind more than I would ever gain. Yet that’s the tricky thing about change: it rarely reveals its gift until after you’ve walked through the uncomfortable part.

Eventually, my body adjusted to the heat. The shock wore off. I began exploring new neighborhoods and making new friends—friends who are still in my life today. It amazes me that we’ve stayed connected for more than forty years. My entire childhood in Southern Utah became a series of experiences I never would have had if my family had decided that comfort mattered more than growth.

Even this magazine is tied to that move. My life in Southern Utah opened doors that eventually led me here, writing to you. The change that felt so big to a ten-year-old boy became part of the foundation for my entire adult life.

Which brings me to something important. This magazine is changing, too. We’ve grown. Our reach has expanded. Our mission has widened. And because of that, we are stepping forward with a new name: Southern Utah Health & Wellness Magazine.

This change reflects who we have become and who we are becoming. It helps us grow and improve so we can remain a trusted source of insight, inspiration, and education. My hope is that every time you pick up an issue of Southern Utah Health & Wellness Magazine, something inside you shifts for the better, because even a small idea can spark a quiet improvement that ripples through your life.

And here’s my invitation to you: when you read something that changes you, share it. Pass it along to someone who might be standing at the edge of their own new beginning. Growth multiplies when we hand it to one another.

Change is coming for all of us. It always has been. So let’s not run from it. Let’s move with it. Learn from it. Grow because of it. And, if we’re lucky, walk through it together.