This time of year always promises a new beginning.
At it’s best, it’s an invitation to dream, it inspires a recommitment to your well-being and it offers a chance to reflect on what’s working and what’s no longer serving you.
At it’s worst, it creates pressure for self-reinvention that often sees us launching into lofty goals that we pursue vigorously for a few weeks until we drop off, get discouraged, and return to old behaviors…
What if you approached this new year differently?
What if your goals (not your dreams) were smaller, that is to say, more manageable?
What if they were rooted in how you want your life to feel, rather than what you want it to look like?
How would it make a difference if you had the right support and accountability?
In Harnessing the Power of Your Cycle, my menstrual health workshop, we discuss the phases of the cycle as seasons. The bleeding or menstruating phase is associated with winter – a time to go inward, to slow down, to eat warm, spiced foods, to reflect, to spend time with yourself and your creative projects, to gather insights.
One way our modern world is in alignment with honoring this winter season in the spirit of the “new year,” is how it asks us to reflect on ourselves.
The part that feels misaligned is when we’re pressured into action – and winter (the bleed) is about stillness – it’s about honoring the pause.
The seeds are resting in the earth until the ground starts to thaw. This doesn’t mean that the seeds, the intentions, are not there, but they know there is a time for rest and a time for action.
It’s important to recognize that this pressure to act, to be productive, is not rooted in our individual or collective well-being. It is driven by profit and capitalist culture which says: define a goal, optimize behavior, track outcomes, measure success (oh, and buy these products that promise fast results). Thank you Susanna Barkataki for recently illuminating this.
What if you could still make the shifts you seek while honoring the nature of the season and honoring what is truly best for you?
This January, I invite you to be with your vision, intentions, resolutions, whatever you want to call them, differently.
I invite you to bring them to a space where they can be held in a container, just like the ground holds the seeds.
I invite you to share them with others who will hold them with you, inspire you and even support you as you grow.
I invite you to honor the pause of the season and nourish yourself slowly, so that when the ground starts to thaw you’ll have all you need to bloom.