I am totally not the kind of person who makes new year's resolutions and sends wishes copy paste. Usually also, the beginning of my new year is around September - not much changed since school.
Right now though, I do feel the impulse to share a few of my lessons learned, as, looking back, I get the impression that my sharing might make a difference for someone. I will begin with my wish for you.
‘Grow your inner space enough so it can hold all of who you are. The vastness of your personality, your abilities, your unfulfilled longings, your mistakes, your weakness and strengths, your wisdom, your dreams, your pain, your heartbreaks, your moments of flow and bliss. All of who you are to be allowed to exist and coexist among the controversies’
How you will do this work is up to you. This work is even done in the background of your everyday thinking mind, while you shower before collapsing in bed at night. Even when you feel like quitting because it’s too much to hold. Even when you actually do quit trying whatsoever.
Now the lessons learned. If what’s above or below does not ring the right bells now, come back in a few months or whenever you get this aha! Moment.
1. Sometimes in order to actually get unstuck from a pattern that you have tried so hard to release, you have to completely lose your shit, get angry, quit and put your focus elsewhere.
2. Sometimes, there is nothing wrong with you but you might be hanging with the wrong people, working in a wrong job, have adopted wrong values, or whatever wrong something. Not every plant or animal will thrive or even survive in a ‘climate’ where it doesn’t belong.
3. The problem and its solution are usually one thing, or better two sides of the same thing. The solution lives inside the problem and the problems live inside our best intentions. All we have to do is not to look elsewhere for answers, for they usually stand in front of our nose.
4. Some situations won’t resolve (at least not now or not the way we want to find relief), some answers will not come, some situations will not make sense and some obstacles will keep being in the way. Accepting the facts and keeping accepting the feelings showing up around those will bring more peace than resisting them.
5. People are complex. Unpredictable sometimes. Fucked up, immature, shelfish. Capable of amazing things, unimaginable acts of love and faith, culturally conditioned. So are you. Forgive yourself when you cannot be your best friend / parent / lover. When you forget your self care commitment and pay the price. When you could have done better, responded better, loved better. And then remember to do that for others. And then set boundaries within yourself and with others.
6. The best healers, self help books, podcasts, nutrition optimization, supplements, exercise, plant medicine circles and retreats will not help you if you keep isolating yourself from other people, from joy and from community. Time alone is precious. Living a sterile life, without sharing and caring for others too, is by default harmful.
7. We are all one, drinking from the same fountain to sustain and exist. Open yourself consciously to this fountain in times of despair but also in times of gratitude or simple mundane everyday situations. Let the ‘water’ wash you, protect you and nurture you. Trust it is accessible to you, always there, always by your side.
Not bad right? I called it a juicy year. With every new death came a new opportunity for rebirth. Since I didn’t die so far, I made a decision to live. Every and each day. Not stick too much to the plan. Not take things too seriously. To take a break. To give more. To be all I am and claim my space when needed. To live my values and love more. To dance more. To be the woman I am and shine all I want shading one by one the endless layers of shame i carry.
Happy 2023 and big hug to you who read this text. Always hit me up an email or a text if you want to elaborate any thoughts. Tara / Garifalia