I deliberately refrained from writing a blog for New Year’s Eve. For a couple of reasons: given the particularly bizarre year we all experienced, I thought it would be more mindful to give space for personal healing, reflection and resolutions, but also because I wanted to see for myself how 2021 would initially manifest its potential before I committed my own thoughts to words.
This time usually finds us all blanketed in nostalgia for the year that has passed, and resolute in our determinations for the year that is to come. We proudly – even celebratorily – wear our mistakes on our sleeves as we ring in what we all hope will be a clean slate – a new beginning – a chance to make good on the promises we have made to ourselves.
But this New Year’s Eve was different. I went to a cabin high in the Bavarian Alps with my fiancé and two close friends. We sat around a fire we made in the snow and, rather than confess what we wanted to be or do in 2021, we spoke of the things we were most grateful for in 2020. For us, it was more important to shine light on a year that will be remembered mostly as a time spent in the shadows.
And that’s where my head is, even still – even now as we enter the latter part of January 2021, my head is still in 2020 trying to unravel the experience and find a way to manifest positive changes from it.
Let’s be honest, not a lot has changed over the last few weeks. No major differences so far between this year and last. If anything, it feels like 2020 still has some issues to work through and has extended itself into the new year. It’s likely January 31st will feel more like the eve of something transformative than its December counterpart three weeks ago – and if not, then the next month, or the next. We might not set the schedule, but we decide the outcome.
So, here we are in a bit of a limbo; holding on to our hopes for the new year, but realizing it’s not quite the dramatic evolution we had hoped to ring in at midnight. But that doesn’t mean we cannot manifest positive and evolutionary changes within ourselves anyway. Every day, in its essence, should feel like a new year. Take away the ceremony of New Year’s Eve, and our ability to change has always ultimately been our own.
Last year, with its dramatic newness of events, often felt like we were living the life of Sisyphus. Each day seemed to begin with hope and intrigue, but end with more uncertainty and confusion. It was a Hamster wheel of experiences and emotions, and we did an incredible job of not falling apart under the sheer weight of it all. Despite how we may or may not have filed the experience, 2020 should be something to remember - a unique achievement – a demonstration of the enduring power of our human spirit.
So we move ahead into 2021, face first with our head held high, having gained an incredible insight into the fragility of everything we take for granted. The experience of last year presents such a unique opportunity to reassess how we treat ourselves and the world around us. Do we stay in a continuous state of self-doubt, or do we embrace the art of self-celebration? Do we continue to maintain a wellness status quo, or do we boldly and unapologetically ask more from ourselves…for ourselves?
For me, this opportunity is the very best that 2020 has given. It has afforded the time, the stillness and the opportunity to chip away at the expectations that I had freely built around myself and see what lies beyond them. Stripped of traditional assessments of self and the apprehension they generate, who was I in this new stark reality? Who was I without the manic travel schedule - without the constant movement - without the life I had lived for so long? In fact, who are any of us without smoke and mirrors – in our rawness and vulnerability – in our truest and most organic version of self? Life as we knew it supported us as we knew ourselves, but when a support structure changes, life changes, and our innate self – our real self - has to finds new ways to thrive.
So, I’ve taken this opportunity to change how I approach the oncoming of a new year. I’ve removed myself from the limits of resolutions, probably forever. There is not ONE thing I want to achieve, other than to be a better friend to myself and to consciously keep everything around me in a place of praise and thanks. I want to continue to build a more conscious approach and responsibility to my own wellness and the wellness of those around me – mindful of how I manifest things within and without. I want to move away from the noises and the knee-jerk responses of 2020 and join the evolution from it – to understand how the experience has changed us all - learning the lessons and embracing the changes. I don’t know of any other year that has given us such a chance – such an opportunity – such a rollercoaster ride!
I’m now looking at the year ahead the same way I looked through the lens of a Kaleidoscope when I was a kid. I never saw beyond it, I just saw inside it – the colours and patterns, changing and shaping themselves in new ways as I moved it around. The future now feels very much like that experience. 2020 has taught us to stop looking at life as a distant, static result – a transaction between us the Universe – it has given us a chance to start seeing our path ahead as a dynamic landscape of experiences and opportunities that change and grow the more we consciously participate in them. A kaleidoscope gives us what we need to carve changes through its lens – the mechanics and the glitter, but to create the metamorphosis – to change the shapes and the patterns of what we see in front of us, we have to move it ourselves.
This is how we should all be looking at 2021: a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for solid change. It is a chance to look through the year’s Kaleidoscopic lens and, if we don’t like what we see in front of us, make the adjustments until we see something we do. Our responsibility is not to forget 2020 and put it behind us. We must learn from it – grow from it – heal from it.
So this year, among the continued craziness of home-schooling, self-caring, and remote living, I want to put forward one wish: that we all – as a collective of human spirits with hope, courage, determination and compassion – use the experiences of last year to make us more consciously engaged in creating a positive and more unified change in the year ahead – a year to live our lives with beautiful purpose.
From us all at MOSS of the ISLES – from me, Maria and Fiona – we wish you a glorious year ahead filled with love, peace, self-celebration and wellness.