Oh, the new year.
A time for reflection and goal setting. A time to reminisce and look forward, while partying in the present.
A time to decide what traditions, habits, relationships to move forward with and which to leave behind. A time to be introspective while also being festive. A time that celebrates time and all that we have achieved in this lifetime.
The new year is a time to celebrate our humanness, our lifestyle, our gifts, our giving of the past year and decide what we want to do moving forward.
Personally, the new year might be my favorite holiday. It is a holiday of new beginnings, fresh starts, and rebirths.
And that says a lot because I’ve always really struggled with holidays. They have never been a time of joy in my life. I remember as a young girl, my father finding me in a closet on Christmas crying. He let me stay there because he knew the pain outside of the closet was too much for me. It’s interesting what was causing this pain. Through my own self discovery, I found there were a lot of factors.
Fear of being seen (opening presents), my empathic nature (sensitive to so many different people/energies), introversion (why can’t we just spend Christmas with the four of us?), and probably the biggest cause of the angst: fear of connectedness (I had been subconsciously terrified of connection and community, even as a young girl). So, I preferred to be alone. In a closet, with all my fear.
I also realize now that perhaps these end of month holidays (like Thanksgiving and Christmas) always had me displaying signs of my upcoming menstrual cycle. So I was naturally more irritable, frustrated, and wanting to go within during the holidays.
In recent years, I have treated holidays as just another day.
This is because once I really started unpacking the holidays - why they exist, why and who started the holiday, and why they matter now… I realized that I didn’t actually align with most of these traditions.
Take Christmas for example. It’s Jesus’s birthday. If I’m going to celebrate Jesus’s birthday, I also want to celebrate Buddha’s and Ghandi’s and all the other ascended masters. That list could get long.
The typical American traditions are rooted in Pagaen moments in history and we aren’t all the same religion. Some of us don’t follow an organized religion at all. So as someone who believes I am God incarnated and that we all have God within ourselves, every day is Christmas.
So, for me, I’d rather support holidays that bring meaning to my life now.
New Year, New Traditions
This year, I’m celebrating what serves me.
What traditions can you create that serve you and your higher power?
For me, I’m trading Christmas for the Winter Solstice.
The Winter Solstice is the first day of winter or when “the light of the Sun begins a new solar cycle.”
It’s a time of transition, rest, and reflection. It marks the period for using your energy to go within instead of giving your power to the outside world. Understanding instead of explaining, tending to wounds instead of exposing new ones, going deeper into the layers of yourself and the world around you, taking a moment to stop and ask: “is my life working for me? or have I just been spinning in circles?”
This feels more aligned to my journey and growth.
Winter solstice traditions could be things like howling at the moon around a sacred fire, creating a cozy hangout with my gal pals and journaling on our favorite and not-so-favorite moments of the past year, or making German Glühwein with family and friends while singing songs in a different language. The possibilities are endless.
And maybe in addition to the American new year, I’ll add worldwide new year celebrations to my calendar. Like Diwali, for example, a festival of lights celebrated by Hindus across the world honoring new beginnings and the triumph of light over darkness. Sounds right up my alley! Whatever it is for you, make it a tradition. A ritual. To be celebrated and honored with your family, partner, or friends.
Change is growth
It’s time we create a new world and slowly create new systems and traditions for ourselves. We don’t have to live according to outdated systems and traditions that have been given to us by our ancestors. While we can honor the traditions of our lineage, we can create traditions that honor our new culture, too.
We can open up to worldly cultures and get curious about how other nations do things. We can honor others by embracing their traditions and rituals and including them in our thought processes and decision making around the holidays.
Inclusivity is the first step to true diversity and it can all start in the comfort of your own home.
Ask your friends who grew up in different cultures what they enjoy celebrating and ask if you can join them in honoring the holidays they love.
This is the way to connection. Opening up to new ideas, traditions, and belief systems.
What ways are you changing things up this year?
How can you let go of what no longer serves you this year?
What can you create in your life to facilitate change and growth?
Stagnancy is what leads to dis-ease and resisting growth is what causes us pain in our lives.
When I created my new year goals for 2022, I went at it with an abundantly expansive and playful mindset. Because it’s often our inner child selves that come up with the best dreams and visions.
So this year, some of my more fun goals that inspire so much playfulness in me are: meet an elephant, finish a book for F U N, go on three epic adventures, get a kitty!, paint whatever I want on the walls of my home, and learn to surf.
I like to think we can do the impossible.
“Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Alice in Wonderland.” says Alice in Alice in Wonderland.
What are some of the impossible things you want to believe in?
Write them down and see what happens.
Because… why not?
With Love,
Emily