I feel it as soon as I begin reflecting - the pressure to turn away from my personal griefs because there are things happening in the world that are far worse.
Don’t get me wrong - I believe in perspective and in our oneness. I give attention to that regularly. I also learned long ago that skirting my own grief processes did nothing to serve the world at large.
2023 was an incredibly challenging year. My dad died. I had two health scares that resulted in biopsies, and were at times far too terrible to talk about. In alignment with my inner prompting, I had to make some choices that changed my inner social circle, which initially left me feeling pretty lonely. I made a decision to quit my day job.
None of these things are inherently bad. My dad lived a long, full life, and was given the gift of dying at home, the way he wanted. I’ve learned to walk with him through the veil and feel his presence in a new way, which in many ways feels closer than ever. I’m grateful that the biopsies were both negative in the end, and I’m choosing to accept the gift of having to reach my expensive deductible so I can now freely explore weekly chiropractic treatments which have proven to be good medicine. I joke after each treatment that I feel like I’ve grown an inch. My range of motion has changed and I feel the adjustments affecting other systems positively. My relationships are super intentional and mutually supportive, and I’ve embraced a slower pace of life, where I don’t hold busyness like a trophy of self-worth. I’m leaving my job, having ended strong, feeling great about the work I have done.
I don’t take any of this for granted.
This year I also had the opportunity to expand my spiritual awareness and learn to live from a fuller state of being. This shifted a lot for me. I let go of a deeply rutted place of unconscious living that I was convinced I couldn’t live without. And it felt like shedding a tight, uncomfortable skin and moving into new freedom. Coming up for air.
What if the glimmers finally outweigh the triggers? Am I reading the room if I am still able to find joy in everyday living? When the world is on fire, is it okay to be okay?
I want to contribute to the healing of the world through this place of being. To know that at every moment I am contributing something, and the quality of that is precious. I’m not just talking about a surfacey “love and light” here, I’m talking about something deeply essential continuing to be restored within me, allowing me to live fully, to receive the gifts while present with the grief. To listen for how to share that and lean into an abundance that somehow remains present, even when the landscape appears to be bleak.
I want to live in such a way where I don’t avert my eyes from anything - the pain or the joy, the distortions or the love.
Perhaps instead of making a resolution, I welcome the chance to continue to be resolved of anything that impedes an authentic life in the coming year.
May the past year be laid to rest with gratitude.
May the new year be received with openness of heart.
May our vision be courageous and clear.
May deep essential living be restored.
May we contribute to the healing of the world.