Good tidings of great...wait, what?
small brave thing #206
Hello beautiful human,
Already I’m seeing the headlines, posts and invitations: Reach Your Goals in 2025. Start the Year Right. Now is the Time for … Now Now Now You You You Change Change Change More More More.
I like big visions as much as the next person, and that said, we haven’t even reached solstice yet. Before we get out planners for the year to come can we just…rest for a minute? Can I enjoy reviewing the year I’ve come through and curl up with a warm cup of something, gaze into the sparkly tree lights and feel…content?
Or if I’m being realistic, I know “contented” is not my native mode. It’s a hard ask. Maybe I could feel just a hair’s width more content than usual? I have to practice “contented” and imagine it most days… and this culture we live in makes that practice extremely difficult.
My mammal self wants to try. Wants to snug in and rest, dream, laze a bit before bustling into next.
I write this because of course I too am thinking ahead. I too have goals, plans, dreams, desires and visions. If you know me at all you know I have big visions. Lofty ambitions. I’m usually walking with one foot on the ground and one in the clouds of possibility and I’m not afraid to move in that direction.
Until I am.
The other morning I took time to feel into some of what I truly want. What next year might could look like. It’s a scary question to truly ask ourselves: What do we really want? What do we want to happen? What do we want to be? How can we get a step or two closer to that? Most of us (me too) listen to fear, overwhelm, insecurity, old patterns and habits and settle for what’s familiar. We cut off our possibilities before the questions are out of our mouth. For once the other day, I didn’t. And I took a step (maybe I’ll write about it later—for now, just know it was a real step, it involved other people, and it all felt like it was coming a little too fast but that is usually how change happens, right?). And after taking that step I felt the recognizable, expected emotion: fear.
Fear puts me in a state of unease, shaky, nervous. Again, the sensation (familiar to me these days) of stepping off a cliff without a map, without any guarantees. Just that somersault feeling in the midsection, right around the solar plexus. I hate that feeling. I started making lists and scrambling towards plans to make everything feel more solid and successful and secure.
And then, something happened.
I realized in the middle of scambling and scribbling that this, here, now, is what I am aiming for. I realized, or remembered, that to bring myself fully into this space would be to do the work I want to do. Work I have been aimed at, through everything. Work I come to with dedication, desire and intention. Work I am already doing. And with that realization and acknowledgment I felt, not fear, but great, enduring joy. As though I had suddenly tapped into the bands of harmony that move the stars and keep us all in orbit, coursing underneath and throughout the surfaces of everything.
How could I help but hear the echoes of angels in my mind? Be not afraid, for behold, we bring good tidings of great joy.
Joy is the fear-killer. Joy is the meaning-maker. Joy is a gift and always, always a surprise. Radical. A re-centering. A revolution in the deepest sense.
Whenever we move in the direction that is truly ours to move in, this is the deep, physical, embodied response: joy. Not happiness, necessarily. Not the glitz and confetti (although I love confetti and cupcakes as much as the next person and will always make room for celebration and cheer). Joy, with its deep, grounded, reverberating YES.
As unlikely as it may seem in this moment, JOY has become my star to steer by. Will it be my “word for the new year”? Maybe, maybe not. That question can wait. For now, I’m curled up with my hot chocolate and anchoring in this moment.
Wait, is this, maybe, what “content” feels like? A little bit? Maybe?
xoS
Your attention and time are true gifts. Thank you. xoS
(all the bits and extras below…gifts of gratitude for my supporting members in a grateful season).
And if you liked the post but aren’t quite ready to join the paid membership, you can always buy me a coffee.