I won’t fall into the trap of creating a list of what I want to manifest in 2021
Instead, I’ll welcome this new year and new age by becoming aware of all that I learned in 2020, as I created and lived boldly through my heart 💘
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I learned (once again) it’s not what you get, but how you are acting and living as you walk toward those things that create an ecstatic Life
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I learned how to create and flourish in the midst of a pandemic
To surrender to uncertainty and even get energy from the unknown
To create consistently, no matter the outcome, to unhook from the outcome and to continue to walk in my desired, intended direction
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I learned to exercise the muscle of Empathy and to act with it even if I couldn’t fully put myself in someone else’s shoes yet
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I learned and embodied what Excellence really is—it’s not perfectionism, but the best I can do in any moment, while always knowing that I can do better
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I learned to feel anxiety instead of pushing it away and I experienced it as a balloon-like energy painfully expanding in my chest
And I accepted it, I held it and I stayed with it as my deepest Self, until this internal “weather” moved into another feeling pattern
And I did it all again the next time
and the next time
and the next time it appeared
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I learned to hold my frustration (and my irritation, and my sadness...) just as if I was holding a crying baby on my shoulder
To not deny any part of my experience—the “good” or “bad”
No matter how much my mind tried to accept the “good” exclusively
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I learned that I can be an emotional eater
And I learned to uncover the emotion that I’m trying to soothe with food and to hold myself fiercely and lovingly in that emotion
Exercising the sacred power of my awareness and letting love flow through me
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I learned to seduce myself back into creating—to use my Masculine to create the container to actually sit down to create and let my Feminine energy reveal what wanted to be born through me
And let the creative energy that came through turn me on and fuel and infuse and give birth to the work
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I learned that I could go deeper into myself, hold myself with integrity and to create containers of self-growth, not relying on outside coaches and teachers
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I learned what the deep Feminine is—it’s earthy and instinctual, truly being with what is
The lowest of the low and the highest of the high
That she can hold it all
That we are meant to experience it all
Even the deepest and the darkest
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I learned that my Shadow is not to be feared
That it holds the rejected, as well as the undeveloped parts of myself—the dark as well
as the gold
And that they all deserve my attention
Among the rejected, dark parts lurking in the shadow I was astonished to find my bitchiness and my emotionality
And among the undeveloped, gold-in-the-shadow I was overwhelmed to unearth my sexuality and my sensitivity
I learned that this past year was the perfect time to discover all of this
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In meeting my Shadow more fully, I learned to descend to the deep Feminine and return tempered and wizened and embodied and emboldened
And I learned to put into words what I energetically desire most in a man—one who is willing to make his own descents, to develop depth, power and wisdom, to know himself on a deeper level and to hold himself in it all
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I learned and was cracked open in discovering the truth of Romantic love and how I fell under it’s spell—and through that I was humbled to embrace my humanity
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I learned to speak my truth regarding my boundaries—over and over again—with awareness and clarity and kindness
And I learned to speak unarguably—to state my truth from my perspective, to own it, without blaming or shaming the other
And to hold myself in the wake of how it’s received
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I learned to listen to my deep Feminine instinct and ended a long-standing connection that was taking too much of my energy, despite objections from my mind that I should instead continue to act cool and proud and detached
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I learned that as I grew in my power to hold myself implicitly in whatever unhelpful thoughts and painful feelings occur—that I can do it strongly and lovingly with others
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I learned what truly put me on this path of self-development and unending growth and keeps me traveling on it
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I learned to trust my aging
And in doing that I began learning to touch Wisdom
As well as deep Love
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I learned to take pictures that feel like they capture my energy, my connection to my deep self and the desire to be connected to others
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I learned to be with my Self, fully and in all ways and conditions
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I learned to hold the opposites—light and dark, dark shadow and gold-in-the-shadow, Masculine and Feminine and to begin incubating their eventual merging into Wholeness, into Unity
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And, I learned that what we want to manifest in this new age can be crucibles for growth
They stimulate growth
But they are not the thing
They never could be
Whether the desire is
more money
Or a new job
Or a partnership
Or a “better” body
They sacredly give us an arena
To live the true Secret
Like making money from our deepest heart, by acting with empathy, kindness, generosity and humility
Getting a new job and then being responsible, kind, honest and creatively engaged in the work every day thereafter
Relating to an intimate partner with love and care and kindness and vulnerability
Connecting to and treating ourselves with self-love, self-awareness, kindness and self-faith and trust
This is the gold
The magic of Life
This can be activated and lived
In every moment
Not some time in the future
Whether we’re getting all of those things we want
Or not
As we learn ever deeply to trust Life and it’s Divine Timing 💗💎🌟
Happy New Year and much love to you! 🙏🏻💘🙏🏻💘🙏🏻💘
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In this video below, I share about what made 2020 (in my opinion) our most important year yet
Until next time ✨
Much love,
Lauren