Winter has fallen upon us, with Tuesday, December 21st, marking the winter solstice. With shorter days, longer nights, and a chill in the air, winter is a symbol of death. Winter is an opportunity to let die the parts within us that are holding us back. Winter is a time to rest, to restore, to reflect and to rebirth. With just a few days left of 2021, I am using this time to consider what it is that I want to let go, to let die, so as to enter 2022 feeling lighter.
For me, 2021 was a year of risk…jumping into the unknown. In 2021, I quit teaching and took seven months to travel with my partner, across our country, in a van. Together, we passed through ten different states – from Tennessee to California, we visited four national parks, and went on countless mountain bike rides. In 2021 I competed in my first ever Trials competition and had a blog post published detailing the event! I met many new people over this last year, welcomed by the community Daniel has built for himself through his time riding MotoTrials. In 2021 I spent time at home with my parents. I skied with my Dad almost every Tuesday morning from January to April. I supported my parents emotionally and physically following a serious accident that left my Dad in the hospital for several weeks. In 2021 I ran a 10 mile race and a half marathon. I started taking French lessons, entertaining a dream to someday teach English in France. I went on an incredible, ten day road trip with my best friend. And now, with just ten days left in the year, I am preparing to make a move to a new state with my love. Over and over again, this year has been about taking a risk and trusting that the universe will be there to catch me.
As I look back at my journal entry for January 1, 2021, I can see my intention written before me in sparkly, blue gel pen: Stay with me. I wanted this to be a year of honoring my boundaries, of listening more carefully to what it was that needed and wanted, and to pursue the dreams and aspirations that lay closest to my heart. I can look at those three words, stay with me, and see how in so many ways I lived up to this. After all, the risks that I took this year were aligned with the callings of my soul…they were a means of staying with me.
And yet, if I am honest with myself, I can also acknowledge that there were many times of leaving myself, of self abandonment and sabotage. In 2021 I learned (yet again) the hard lesson of how my own worry and anxiety is keeping me from fully enjoying my life. I continue to struggle with being present, as opposed to jumping into a place of fear around what lies behind the next corner. This has resulted in instances of regret…of wishing that I could relive a moment so as to have another opportunity to really savor the experience. Every minute I spent worrying about how I measured up, anxious about another’s perception of me, caught up in a self loathing thought, I left myself.
I am done wasting time and energy wishing that I was somewhere else instead of appreciating the beauty that exists around me right now. Well, I want to be done anyway. I am so tired of worrying all the time…of carrying such a heavy weight around in my mind. I am exhausted by the never ending self criticism and doubt…of punishing my body.
I am experiencing real fear of what lies ahead for me in 2022. I am anxious about moving to a new state and creating a community. I am nervous about finding a job that will allow me to maintain a work-life balance. I am sad to be saying goodbye (for now) to Oregon and to have less time with my family and friends there. The fear, the anxiety, the worry … they are big at the moment, and at times all consuming. While real, and normal, the fear, anxiety and worry are holding me back…constricting me.
Winter is an opportunity for death, of setting to rest what we no longer want to carry with us. I would like to create a soft bed in the snow upon which to empty my head of all the worry, anxiety and fear that clouds my vision…leaving my head, my heart and my soul with room to expand in a more positive direction. Leaving behind the catastrophic thinking, and talking, of all that is wrong; leaving behind the need to please others above myself so as to “keep the peace”; to release this idea that I will never be able to live the life that I aspire to, or dream of; to put to rest the addiction to busyness as a means of enoughness. I would like to carefully pat the snow down around the worry, anxiety and fear and then leave it there…letting it melt slowly into the ground so that mother earth can convert and find a better use for such energy.
I want to peel away the layers of myself that are no longer working, allowing space for an opening to a new way of being and showing up in this world. Laying the soil for what it is that I want to plant, grow and blossom in 2022. A greater willingness to fail, and still try again. To adventure without a set plan. The opportunity to create a life with Daniel in a new state. The chance to start anew, and trust that I am on the right path. The confidence to be the woman I strive to be, and to offer my gifts forward to the world. But in order to make room for such advancements, I must first let go of what is in the way.
Old habits, old ways of being, are not easy to acquit. I must replace the fear, anxiety and worry with something else. During the last week of this year, in the days that fall between Christmas and the New Year, I plan to process and consider just what practices will fill that void so as to till and fertilize the soil for what I’d like to see flourish in 2022. I know what I want to release, and now it is time to contemplate what can be done to allow for more of what I want to filter in.
What is it that you long to put to rest, to let die, this winter? Set aside some time to go within, and ask yourself: What will I leave behind in 2021? What is it that I want to let go of so as to create more room for expansion in my life?
For with this death, there will be a rebirth … a chance for you to move closer towards a life that is more aligned with you.
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