Hello and goodbye from my last Substack post of 2024. I am going to echo a dear friend of mine named Brooke, who recently wrote about not finishing the year strong. I appreciated her positive outlook on it. She had her own details, but the overall message resonated with me. I have, once again, found a paradoxical strength in the softening of surrender. My word this year was READY. I have known it since January, but I didn’t know what I was becoming ready for. I didn’t know my readiness would be tested over, and over, and over again. Only in the last 7-10 days or so have I heard the small voice in my spirit say: “you are ready.”
My intuition tells me that I am ready because I am newly committed to everything and everyone in my life. As always, I faced new challenges this year. History taught me to walk through difficulties, fully awake, as opposed to avoiding them or constantly numbing myself along the way. Feeling it all has allowed for my expansion and, therefore, a shedding of layers, which can no longer contain me. I discovered, all over again, the ways in which I was not living authentically. I did my best to face my own frustration and anger, instead of believing that other people felt that way towards me. I understood that would be projecting my own emotions onto others. I knew that would be a distraction from the truth. The truth I found was that I had one foot in and one foot out across every context in my life. I didn’t realize it, but I was imagining escape routes.
Now we’re talking about a special kind of insanity because my life is the best it has ever been. No, everything is not perfect, and that’s the distinct beauty about it. Still, I ask myself why I would want to run away from anything that’s in play right now. I have built a strong foundation in my recovery from addiction, my marriage, my family, my friendships, and my writing. Even after making strides and achieving more than I ever thought possible, I was creating a ‘plan B’ with everything.
The ‘plan B’ ideas became a nesting ground for the frustration and anger that began to surface. In my last post titled Rotten I wrote about a force (my shadow side) that tried to convince me all my writing was shit. That night, I decided to face it and channeled my discomfort into writing anyway. Since then, I’ve been seeing more clearly how I gradually started a war with myself without meaning to. It began with the seemingly harmless, subtle act of imagining an alternative life to the one I have now.
This holiday season has been one of waving my white flag again. I don’t want to fight.
Is anyone else realizing that this is not a moment to fight what is happening?
I am finding this is a moment to receive. I was not allowing myself to reap what I sowed. It’s all a part of the cycle of planting a crop and harvesting it. Why would I give up just before the harvest?
That leads me to my word for 2025:
FULLNESS.
It was given to me yesterday during my yoga practice.
I am stepping into my fullness.
I stand on the shoulders of so many people in my life who endlessly teach me. That includes you, if you are to this point, still reading. You teach me the magic of this process.
This is where I leave you. This is where all of this is transmuted into something for you, whether it’s something I wrote above, or something I wrote below.
I remain committed to writing what will be a book, or now possibly a series of books (more on that later), of daily contemplations.
We follow the metaphorical journey of a flower. I have organized it by calendar year, each month having it’s own theme. I’m considering dropping calendar dates and months from the final framework altogether and letting the themes and sections stand on their own. This week’s batch still correlates with the theme I originally paired with October, which is LAND.
Otherwise, I hope you’re able to enjoy the distinct stillness that comes with the winter, especially during the final few days of the year. Soak it up. Or, if it doesn’t feel like there is anything to soak up, notice the emptiness. Maybe that will bring back to your awareness what would genuinely fill your cup again. May whatever that is be your guiding light for the new year.
Cheers to that in 2025: filling up the cups of our souls with the passions and people we truly love.
*clink*
SUNDAY
PERMEATE
Your transformation is not your disappearance. When water reaches boiling temperature, it becomes vapor. Allow your inner nature, your spirit, to move and express itself fully. This causes your outer layers to be transmuted once again. A shift begins on the most subtle level. It is often stirring before you feel ready to move with it. Tune into the underlying frequency. It will become strong enough to override any effects of the frequency outside of you. Remain aligned with the steady undercurrent of your own heart. You will not be abandoned. You cannot be left behind when you listen to your heart. It’s easy to get lost while following the pulls outside of yourself. They lead you in opposite directions. Follow the pull within. It goes in one direction. It speaks your language. It reminds you who you are. Unravel to become who is at your center. Your transformation is not your disappearance.
MONDAY
ALIGN
Lock in. Make eye contact with what you have chosen. Your feet face the same direction as your chest faces the same direction as your gaze. You can see where you are going. The deliberation is finished. The resolution is the crisp breeze and warm sun on your face. They are the truth you remember when you slow down enough to notice them. Draw your attention inward. Reign in your outward efforts. Begin to check in with each motive before you act. Ask yourself about the basis for each thing you say or do. You will not always be looking at this closely. There is a purpose. It is to eventually allow that which doesn’t serve the calling on your life to fall away. That part will be effortless if you dial in your focus right now. What is the truth? See things objectively, not as you want them to be, but as they are. Where is your place in this? Lift up these questions if you really want to know. Spend a long time listening for the response. The answer is sending signals to you. Ask, listen, ask, listen. Lock in.
TUESDAY
SUBSIDE
Become softer and more gradual. You touched down. Let the engines power down all the way. Everything doesn’t immediately come to a stop. The momentum will decrease over time. Take a longer exhale. It helps to slow the system down. Sink into this season; get to the bottom of it. It has fulfilled something for you. Strive no more for everything you already embody. Allow what’s invisible to move you. Follow the elements that dissolve the tension in your body. To land means to let gravity have its way. Release the weight of everything you carry by laying yourself down with it. This is an offering. Turn over your plans. Relinquish the outcome. Open yourself to something far more simple. Wake up to what is right in front of you. Let go of holding. Your form will loosen. Your surroundings will shape you. Let it happen. You are here for a reason. You got yourself here. Instead of running away, let everything run its course. This requires you to be receptive. Become softer and more gradual.
WEDNESDAY
WAIT
Sleep on it. Hand over the reins for a moment. Test whether you are in reactive impulse or responsive flow. There is no need for a tight grip for that which is magnetized to your hand. If this decision or action is meant for you, it will still be here tomorrow. Let it ebb, and when it comes back, you will know if it’s your flow. This develops your intuition, or the voice of God within you. Time will tell. Time differentiates a passing thought from a timeless message. The message that is meant for you is persistent. It will repeat itself. What keeps coming up? What do you keep coming back to? What do you hear people echoing back to you? If it’s all a blur, begin to seek a pattern. See which elements of your life span across all contexts. If nothing is easy to pinpoint right now, still be glad you picked back up with your quest. Yes, you are still on a journey, even while you’ve been called to land and rest here. It’s okay if you can’t see what’s next. Sleep on it.
THURSDAY
SHIFT
Change your surroundings. The flower in the vase is moved. Same dwelling, new window. See from a different vantage point. Find some perspective. It will either confirm something or reveal something you didn’t know. Either outcome is favorable: ‘You were right’ or ‘Now you know.’ If there is something you’ve only thought about, try saying it out loud. If you’ve said it out loud, try saying it to another person. If you’ve only talked with others about it, try sitting by yourself with it. Find out how you really feel. This is not usually something we discover in a moment or even overnight. It is possible it comes in a flash, and it is probable it comes with more time. Your heart is searching for more reference points. It is looking for what is real. It is seeking the truth. The truth doesn’t change when we relocate, whether physically, mentally, or emotionally. Change your surroundings.
FRIDAY
INNERMOST
Pull into the center. A spiral begins wide and gradually narrows. If something follows it down, the velocity multiplies as the turns get tighter. This is the journey from gross to subtle. We become most familiar with everything outside of ourselves. We can easily go round and round on the surface, until the surface is inevitably disrupted. For every wave, there is an undertow. For every high high, there is a low low. There is as much below the surface as there is above. We dream of flying. The heights we reach are determined by the depths we are willing to go. Allow yourself to be elevated when life is moving in a favorable way for you. Equally allow yourself to be drawn below the surface when things don’t go according to your preferences. Follow what you feel, even when the spiral goes down, which means it gets smaller and more intense. Trust something invisible, and it will show you the way through at the end of the coil. Your flame is there, and it never dies. It waits for you to come back. Oh, the places you’ll go when your flame meets the end of your fuse. Pull into the center.
SATURDAY
PACE
Catch up or slow down to meet yourself. Cast a line out if you are stuck in a situation from the past or paralyzed by the unknown of the future. Call back every piece of you to your heart. It will get you back on beat. Sync up with the rhythm of right now. Be here until you are fully here. The degree of your presence is proportionate to the degree of your peace, and vice versa. The mind can only go so far into the future or past before it disconnects from the body. The heart is strong and will keep beating, but it can only do so much for a body that is forgotten by its master. Thus, the mind does well to stay in the present, where the engine of everything is always found. There are grooves in the gears of all the moving parts. The mind, body, and spirit find their place alongside each other. They are constantly calibrating to variables. In rare moments they are aligned in blissful synchronicity. The rest of the time is the rest of life, making adjustments, both large and small, to find union once again. Catch up or slow down to meet yourself.