Lessons And Rhythms Of 2026, Year Of The Fire Horse

In this short talk, you'll learn the most important lessons to make this year of success.
The Year of the Fire Horse will be wild. It will take us off balance. It will call us to be heroic and rebellious. It will be a difficult year to conserve our energy. Here is how to navigate the lessons of this year to make sure you get the most out of it, without burning out.

Transcript

Every single year has its energy. So every year we start to transition and about end of November, Another gateway is the new year. And then finally the Chinese new year, We transition completely. What we're transitioning into now is 2026 year of the Fire Horse. There's two practices I taught at Menla earlier. It's ancestor self-compassion and intentions. The two most important things to remember for the year of the Fire Horse are your roots being grounded and staying true to your intentions, Staying true to your wishes. If I were to call this year, If I were to give it a name, I'd say clarity or year of boundaries or year of saying no thank you or year of looking to the private sphere, Not to the public sphere. So this will not be a good year for making a difference in society. It will be a good year for making a difference. Family, Close friends, Ancestors, Inner circle, Your body. 2026 year of the Fire Horse is the year of the sun. And in many ways, That's wonderful. It's a yang year. So there's yang years and there's yin years. Last year, I did the same talk. Last year, The year of the wood, Well, It was the wood snake. It was a yin year. So the snake has this yin energy. It was the year of unity, The year of collaboration, Welcome. This year is a yang year and it often switches. Before that, 2023 was wood dragon. I love the year of the wood dragon. My energy can be very yang. The year of the wood dragon, It was the year of action. That's the year I started the individualized journey, Which more than 200 people have gone through now, Which makes a huge difference. I started retreats in Italy for judges, For general counsel, For the general public. It was action. I did a lot. It was very natural. Last year, Yin year, We were asked to be yin. It was harder for me. There's not as much energy in the air for us to turn onto. But now we're back to the energy of the sun, Yang energy, But there's a twist and I wanted to present on this because there's an important twist. Everything around you will start to be very, Very yang. There will be energy in the air. That's a great thing for your spiritual practice. If you focus on practicing this year, You'll make quick progress. Whatever you focus on, You'll make quick progress because you have energy from the outside supporting you. But there's a very important parentheses. And it's that the energy of the year is so active that to survive this year, You actually need to become more yin. So it will be like this wild galloping horse going somewhere and everything around you will feel like this horse that's impulsive, That is rebellious, That will do the unexpected kind of events, Will throw you from one direction to the other. And you won't really be able to stop this horse. And if you take a very strong, Forceful approach, The horse will just like throw you off. And by the way, The horse is on fire. So it's going very, Very quickly and it can throw you off very well and it's very hard to keep up with. So what are we gonna do this year? We need to become grounded and yin. So this year, Rest more than you've ever rested. You will win if you're not rebellious. You will win if you don't try to be a hero and save society and stand out. Because the energies are so active around you, You'll have hero impulses. And right back to me in a month or two, You'll have like hero tendencies. Raise your hand if you already have savior heroism tendencies. A lot of the people drawn to my work tend to. I myself have been working through mine for the last 10 years to limit them. This is a really good year to limit them. So don't focus on huge reforms in the outer world or activism, Although you'll be tempted to. Write down now what's most important to you about this coming year and stick to that. And it's the sticking to that that will be very, Very, Very important. So if you've had your head in the clouds past years and you've kind of gotten away with it, Buddhism is all about not living in illusions, Not worshiping false idols. If you have been living in illusion somewhat, If you were a dreamer, You more or less could get away with it in the year of the wood snake and the year of the wood dragon. But the year of the fire horse is gonna be raw and unforgiving if you are not grounded in reality. So yin energy is the energy of the earth. And you need to be that energy of the earth to counterbalance this wild energy of fire, Which will try to swoop you up and get you to be like a chicken with its head cut off. So other people will get burnt out this year because of this bright, Rebellious energy that you can turn onto and become bright and rebellious. You might get burnt out, Other people might get burnt out, But if you follow this advice, You won't. So it can be a year with a lot of anxiety, A lot of exhaustion, A lot of burnout. Or it's a year where you stay very grounded to the three or four main intentions you have to your inner circle, And then you'll go through the year. And by July, You'll have incredible results because everyone else will be getting burnt out, Everyone else will be off track and you'll be very much on track. So last year, 2025 was the year of collaborating, The year of unity, Especially unity with your own body, Collaborating with your own body. And every year has its lessons and we take the lessons of last year to have a really successful next year. So it's like in a video game, Like you go through one level to reach another level. If you learn those lessons of unity with your body, This year will be easy because this year you'll just listen to your body and you won't get caught up with this warm, Fierce body of the fire horse that's taking you somewhere. You'll still have all the answers in your body. This is why we did all the work on the board yesterday. How do you build energy? How do you stay connected to yourself? How do you stay grounded with your ancestors? So this last year really did pave the way. This fire element of the sun, It has a really positive aspect to it of expansion. And like a fire is reactive. Like you throw a log in the fire, The fire grows. So intentions will come true very quickly this year. Karma will work itself very quickly this year. There's almost like reality itself, The universe itself is almost reactive. It'll give you feedback very, Very quickly. So setting intentions will be very, Very rewarding. So it is a great year for ambition. Just the wishes have to be yours. You need to cultivate the kind of happiness that's right for you. But everything will be dynamic. Everything will be fast moving. And you can kind of get a high from it. And because of that high, You get adrenaline and you can burn out. So more meditation, More massages, More rest, More time with family, More time with kids, More time with pets, More of those like ordinary grounded pleasures this year than ever before so that you don't lose all your energy. And on the outside, We'll have big news, Big swings, Disruptions in the market, Innovations. You might have like that swing in your relationships of like relationships being hot and cold. So like a fire going out and a fire that's on. Just know that ultimately you're timeless. This year will pass. What matters is your inner state and don't let yourself live or die by these kind of mutations and changes because it's not the most important thing. The most important thing is that you stay connected to your intentions. And there will be like a joy to this year of this like thrilling, Spirited, Powerful beast of an animal that's going so quickly and riding so quickly. You need to stay balanced. So think about that acrobat in a circus that can like stand on the horse as the horse gallops. Very good balance, Very good flexibility. This will be a successful 2026. So we need to work with the energy each year to make our wishes come true. If this year you're like, I'm gonna put my fist down. It's not gonna be like this. If you try to use pressure or status or force or brute force, You won't succeed. You'll burn out. You can impact the outer world this year through your inner world. So through your inner peace, You can create peace. Through focusing on your intention, You can create change. But if you try to fight the outer world, That will be burnout. This year you will feel impulsive. Because it's fire, You'll have a lot of impulses. Stay grounded, Meditate so you don't follow immediate impulses because the impulses will be very strong. Everything will have a strong rhythm. And another point I wanna make about this year of clarity of staying in balance. AI is entering the internet. Fake bots, Fake speakers, Fake videos that seem real. This is a year to stay grounded also because it'll be hard to tell the truth from lies. This is a year in which the internet will no longer become credible. So you won't know if what you're reading or what you're watching is actually real. The answers will be in your intuition, In your body, In what feels true for you. So this connection to reality, Ability to stay sober, Is incredibly important this year too because of how AI is moving forward. We did feel like we could trust the news, Maybe not 100%, But most of the time. And that we could trust what was on the internet and speakers most of the time. Now the people you see on the internet will be mostly unreal, Fake people. Just like if you put something into AI, It could give you a false answer and not even feel bad because it doesn't have a sense of consciousness and it doesn't have a sense of right or wrong. It's an artificial intellect. The artificial will be everywhere and it'll be up to you to use your instincts, To use your instincts and sense of clarity deep inside to tell what's true. For that, We do breath focus practice. For that, We do open awareness practice. For that, We spend time in nature so we can tell, So that we're not led astray. So again, I just imagine like the horse galloping impulsively wherever that horse wants to gallop and you're the one that needs to stay balanced through all that. So that's another important point. And I think we're almost done. We'll open it up to questions very soon. The yin approach that I'm talking about is saying, I accept universe, Okay, It's like this, I'll work with this. Universe, I'll work with you. If my relationships seem to be going in a direction I don't expect, I accept, I'll work with you. I have this phrase that everything that happens in love is good. Everything that happens in a love story is good. Treat it as good. Someone wants to be with you, Good. If you like that person, Good. Someone doesn't wanna be with you suddenly, Good. Someone wants to be with someone else, Good. Just as an approach, Everything that happens in love is good. Whatever direction my business, My job, The world takes is good. Just decide right now, Let's all make the decision right now that it's good and that will keep you grounded. You'll work with reality as opposed to fight reality. So this year, As you go into it, Imagine that you're a tree. A tree is like the opposite of this wild horse. A tree has deep roots. This is why we do ancestors practices. A tree says, This is where I stay. This is where my leaves are. Maybe I'll grow like in this direction. I'll grow new branches, I'll grow new trees, But I'm not going over there. Like I'm not going halfway around the block. This is my area, This is mine. I'll work with this. So lawyers will understand this well. This is the year of understanding what's in scope and what's out of scope. Decide right now what's in scope for you. I'll do these things this year and I won't do these other things. We have an exalted Jupiter this year. Jupiter is the planet that governs your body, Your spiritual growth, Your inner circle, Your kids, Your close friends. So that's what we cultivate to be really, Really successful this year. And this year focus on winning without a fight. Winning without fighting anybody. Winning in those yin ways. So think about winning without losing resources. Staying connected to your resources. Staying connected to your good mood. Staying connected to the happiness that you have inside, No matter what. And recognize that everything in reality is valuable to you. Reality itself is valuable. You'll be triggered to say everything is wrong. Everything is not the way it needs to be. And you'll go into stress and fear. Be very adaptive this year. Be very flexible. So again, Think of the acrobat. Think about the acrobat with this very flexible body and think about the tree that's also grounded. So if you follow this advice, You'll have access to your full energy. You'll actually succeed because the goals you have, If you don't get distracted, You'll reach them more quickly. And if you follow this advice, Most importantly this year, You will not burn out.