Re-Storying 2020 Into A Nourishing, New Year's Narrative

We do not tell the stories we live,

But live the stories we tell ourselves.

What will you tell the world about what happened this year?

What will be the life you embody from this chapter onward?

Because as you write it,

It is writing you.

And there is no better storyteller,

No one more prolific at narrating life than you.

You have the choice to close this year with words formed by the mind that speak to its burdens or with a narrative from the deeper heart that whispers of its bounty.

I know this year has been hard on you.

It has kicked up the dirt and created sandstorms and thrown you into its orbit.

It has been of loss and of longing.

It has been of bare and breaking,

And it has been of solitude and dissolution.

But do not wear these scars from this year in honor.

Do not tell your children and theirs that this was the year that broke you.

Do not tell them that this was the place you lost your way and that this is where life became too hard for soul mending.

There have been many great depressions that scarred nations into scarcity and lack.

So many eras rebuilt on sorrow and survival.

And you are at a point now where the restoration of not only your own life,

But the greater consciousness needs to be drawn from a much more evolved blueprint.

You are right now a raw material,

An unrefined piece of gold seeking to be crafted by a loving hand into something new.

That hand is your own and it begins by restoring this year's losses and hardships that have been endured.

Can you see that in between the cracks of despair there has been made space for something new to grow?

Can you speak to the life raft that you have discovered within yourself?

Can you see the necessary endings that have been long in their making?

Can you speak to the break that didn't fracture you but opened you?

Can you see how your emotions have been finally given the rule of house rather than been tamed and silenced,

Making you even more sensitive to the world?

Can you speak to these things first before the mind catches up and downgrades them into a drama,

A spectacle of history?

This is not a way of ignoring the tremendous and truthful hurt that this year has caused you,

But it is a way of seeing it and of accepting it and turning towards the heart to find the purpose within it too.

The state of tomorrow starts with what you believe in today.

You can choose to ink this year with a pen that inclines you towards your own heroism.

It begins with you,

Your story and what you will tell the future generation about this time.

You are the story bearer,

The medicine woman,

The alchemist.

You are the history book that others will read and find refuge in when their time of despair comes.

So let us reframe this year's painful narrative into a most truthful story of strength,

Hope and transformation,

Allowing you to walk into the new year without the residue of fear.

Come into the body now.

Begin by closing your eyes and find your way through the breath.

You may feel like this year has been one big inhale,

One long held breath,

But it's time to breathe again.

Take a few deep inhales,

Lengthening your exhales as if you're letting go the year out through the body.

Feel what residue is left of this year within your body.

It pools and pockets within you.

Notice any tension areas,

Any tightness,

Any tiredness weighing down your body and breathe them open.

Now find a feeling or a word that sums up this year for you.

It may be an emotion you have struggled with most.

Or a recurring theme of anxiety that has left you depleted.

It simply be one limiting word that sums up your journey through this year.

Now locate it within the body.

Where does this word or feeling reside within you?

The belly,

The throat,

The pinched shoulders,

The jaw.

Just notice where it is and let it sit within you for a moment despite its weight.

Now place your hand over this area.

Simply bring your breath into your hand and begin to tenderize its hardness,

Its limiting word,

Its singular narrative.

Begin to dislodge this old story from your body through the healing energy within your palm.

Every time you exhale,

Your palm releases a pulse of healing waves into your body.

Take a few more deep breaths,

Focusing on softening this area of ache.

When you are in this space of breath,

Presence and body,

You form a triangle,

The strongest weight bearing shape that provides immense support.

Feel this trilogy of support within you.

Breath,

Presence,

Body.

Take your hand now and the pain,

The tightness that is still left within you and move it over your heart.

The heart is a bridge that takes whatever is left of your story,

Your pain,

And walks it across to the other side to meet with spirit.

What is left here can be made into meaningful work under the guardianship of spirit.

Your suffering can be most beautiful when manifested into art,

Into song,

Into dance,

And into the world.

That considers this pain as sacred to soul mending.

You are now free to write a new kind of story from a fresh,

Blank page,

Wiser for the year behind you.

Take a deep,

Final,

Affirming breath to acknowledge the power you hold within yourself to re-story pain into a nourishing narrative.

You may open your eyes when you're ready.

They say that the only way around something difficult is through it.

This is what you have achieved today by breathing through the heartache,

Breathing through the loss,

The loneliness,

The limited story.

Each narrative you hold about yourself and this year is stored within the body.

The story of loss hangs over bent shoulders.

Story of crisis gathers on aching hips.

The story of depression reads like crumbled newspaper lines on old palms.

But you also embody the story of your heroism.

It speaks through the strength of your spine and sings through the rendering of your heart.

It's up to you what is brought forward into this new year.

What has burned you down this year has really been an enkindling.

Your pain has been an awakening into a heart that can hold unfathomable love for yourself and for the world.

We do not tell the stories we live,

But live the stories we tell ourselves.

So tell yourself about the hero's journey you have taken and invite what you have learned into the new year so they may rise as foundations from these ashes.

Thank you for being here on this journey with me today.

I would like to extend my sincere hope that you travel into the new year with a full heart and a sturdy hand to the mendings that will be made from these times.