* This is an excerpt from my most recent Love Letter. There’s still plenty of time to download the Unravel Your Year 2017 workbook and join the Find Your Word course. Let’s start this year as we mean to go on!
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For the third time this week my corner of London is shrouded in heavy fog — it’s like being in a cloud which is exactly what this week’s felt like. I love the liminal space between Christmas and New Year. I love how everyone is a little slower, a little smilier, a little more reflective. Even though it’s been a hard year for so many of us I’m feeling at peace with 2016. There have been political shocks and terrible things happening in the world; much-loved celebrities have passed on and people continue to do unspeakable things to each other. And yet, now I am on the other side of my baby nephew’s month in hospital, I am slouching towards 2017 with gratitude in my heart. Thankful that Sammy is still here, with his very first tooth and on the verge of crawling just like any other baby, unaware of what he has been through and what is still to come. Thankful that his big brother, Noah, wanted to spend Christmas Eve sleeping in my room so I got to have the first cuddles when he woke up on Christmas morning. Thankful that I was able to pay my corporation tax in a timely manner and that my business continues to support me as a single and very independent woman. Thankful that I have fresh food my fridge. The big and little things of life.
It’s been a deeply emotional year, much more than I’d expected. I’d known for a while that my word for 2016 would be LOVE but it did not manifest in the ways I’d initially hoped — and with hindsight I’m glad. LOVE was falling for Elizabeth’s dog, Ollie, and deciding to move house so I could find my own. LOVE was being my sister’s birthing partner. LOVE was feathering my new nest. LOVE was looking after Noah full-time while my sister and her precious baby son were in hospital without a diagnosis. LOVE was putting my life on hold for six weeks while we waited and hoped and prayed. LOVE was being selfless. LOVE has taught me so much about HOW to love this year. I’m not sure I could have made it through without it.
And so I am here on December 31st cracked wide open. I’m sick, of course — I always get sick at this time of year — but it almost feels like a clearing out of the old to make space for the new. My word for 2017 is SEEN. After a year of devoting my energy to my family I’m ready to step back out into the world and be SEEN: in my work, in my relationships, in this next iteration of my life. Have you chosen a word yet? I am so wildly in love (there’s that word again) with this practice and I cannot recommend it highly enough. There’s been some really deep and insightful sharing in the Find Your Word Facebook group so if you’d like to join us you can sign-up for the mini course over here.
This time last year I was in Providence, Rhode Island, curled up on Elizabeth’s chair by the window, laying out a few tarot cards as I journaled my hopes for the coming year. This year I’m in a new home but back in my NYE ritual of cards, journaling, a long bath and clean sheets, my favourite way to welcome a new year.
I feel ready for this next chapter. Whatever you’re doing for New Year’s Eve, I hope you do too xo
