Sophia Bush Says 2023 'Broke,' 'Humbled' and 'Freed' Her amid Divorce: 'Thank You to This Year'

The actress filed for divorce from Grant Hughes in August, and has since been linked to soccer player Ashlyn Harris

Sophia Bush is looking back on the year that “changed everything.”

On Tuesday, the actress shared a lengthy reflection on 2023 in the caption of an Instagram post and admitted that the past year “humbled me, broke me, built me, betrayed me, freed me, and showed me what it means to really be alive.”

“What a year. My whole life I’ve heard the saying “put your own oxygen mask on first” and this year I learned what it meant,” Bush, 41, began. “No more playing small. No more turning my back on myself. No more settling for what falls short because ‘who am I to ask for more?’ This year put me back in my body. I left it a long time ago, in such a way that I forgot what it felt like to inhabit my own skin. I feel my whole self from the tops of my ears to the tips of my toes now. It’s breathtaking. Life giving. Affirming.”

Bush said that 2023 taught her to listen to herself and her body instead of caring about “optics” and “expectation,” and that she rediscovered writing, found a love of poet Maggie Smith and “found my inner voice.”

“This year sent me inward. More than I’ve ever been. It took me out of relationship with many of you but put me back into relationship with myself. I hope you are all doing well, but for this quiet and deeply personal experience I am supremely grateful,” she continued.

Related: Sophia Bush Dishes on the 'Hot Divorce Summer' Group Chat She Started with Friends

The One Tree Hill alum also addressed an “illness” she faced last year, which prompted her to depart the West End production of 2:22 A Ghost Story — a project that marked her professional theater debut, though she previously said she was “gutted” to leave.

“This year I slowed down; first because illness forced me to. Second because recovery required more stillness. In that way both sickness and healing are a gift. For those gifts I am so grateful,” she said of the illness, that she faced in July. “Thank you, thank you, thank you to this life for teaching me. Thank you, thank you, thank you to this year that changed everything.”

Bush concluded the post by saying she was able to “burn what never served me” in 2023, and is now in her “deepest learning season yet.”

Related: Celebrity Couples Who Broke Up in 2023

Bush’s candid reflections on the year come after separation from husband Grant Hughes after just 13 months of marriage. The actress filed for divorce from Hughes in August, and a source close to the couple told PEOPLE at the time that the pair will “continue to run their nonprofit together and remain good friends.”

The news came less than two months after they’d celebrated their first wedding anniversary, with Bush calling the marriage the “best decision of my life” in a since-deleted Instagram post.

In October, the Chicago P.D. alum began spending time with professional soccer player Ashlyn Harris, who had recently ended her previous marriage, too.

"After being friends for years, and running in the same social circles, Sophia and Ashlyn went out on their first dinner date a couple of weeks ago,” a source from inside their social circle told PEOPLE. “This is so recent, and they are both beginning new chapters.”

The pair were later spotted spending time together in December at Art Basel in Miami, and posed for a photo together at the event alongside former Olympic skier Lindsay Vonn.

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In a statement shared with PEOPLE, a rep for Bush’s ex-husband said that the entrepreneur “will always want the best for Sophia, and is supportive of all that makes her happy and fulfilled.”

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