December marks the beginning of the winter season. The light wanes here in the Northern Hemisphere, and cooler temperatures dominate the day.
It is a time of deep silence and retreat, when Nature stops, rests and gathers strength and wisdom for the coming burst of new life in the spring. In the silence of winter, is the opportunity to discover your own essence, deep in your heart.
Many years ago in my spiritual guidance training, we learned that our soul lives in our deep heart—the area of our heart that is beyond our ego and everyday experience. It is the deep heart, where our soul lives, that whispers to us guidance on how to live our most fulfilling life, far beyond what our minds can imagine.
Each winter, Nature calls us to stop, go within, and reconnect with the wisdom of our own heart. It is there that our soul can share with us what we long to hear—the way to live a truly glorious life that allows us to bring out our full potential and live our deepest purpose.
Our soul follows the same seasonal rhythms as Nature. It goes through a rebirth just like most of the natural world. For our soul, winter is a time of letting go, clearing out all that has been from the previous seasons, and creating space for what wishes to be birthed in the coming year. If we take the time to go deeply within and cultivate inner silence, we will start to hear what our soul longs to create in the coming year.
The challenge that many of us face in December is the pull of many outward demands on our time: attending holiday gatherings, completing end-of-year work activities, entertaining guests, shopping for gifts, spending time with our families and friends. These demands can put us in direct conflict with the soul’s call to go inward. Very few of us can take the time to completely step out of our lives and turn deeply inward to commune with our soul.
And then January hits and most people scurry to set New Year’s Resolutions that, for the most part, don’t last much longer than February. When I was a gym member, I used to see the numbers of people at the gym spike in January, but wain by February.
Why not try something different this year?
There is a beautiful practice I am offer as a process to support your soul through this winter season. It has four steps, which you can do at your own pace, but ideally should be spaced out a few days apart to allow for time to distill the learning from each step.
- Harvest the seeds of the life you have lived
- Take time to reflect on the past year and journal the answers to these questions.
- What were your most important events and learnings?
- How did those events influence and change you?
- What are the learnings you will take forward into the New Year?
- Take time to reflect on the past year and journal the answers to these questions.
- Create space for the new life
- Go through the different areas of your life and clean out everything that no longer has life or connection for you. You can do this literally by cleaning out your closets, desk drawers, files and cabinets. Unless you make space for a new life, there will be no room for something new to be birthed.
- Practice tuning into your deep heart—your soul
- The birthing process takes time; it doesn’t happen overnight. Cultivate a daily practice of meditation, spending time in Nature, tuning in—whatever allows you to be in the silent space within where you can hear the whisperings of your soul. Practice patience.
- Sort out what is essential versus what is not
- Evaluate all you are doing and identify what you can let go of. Simplify your life so that you make more time and space to support your inner process. Creation is a two-stage process. It occurs first internally before it occurs externally. The more you can support what is unfolding internally, the more you will start to see it occurring externally without effort. You will be attracting what is needed to support your soul’s unfoldment.
I encourage you to try this process and see how it impacts your life. In a time when there is so much pressure to “do,” the process will help you “be.” Being is a much more joyous experience and will help you attract what you need to live a fulfilling soul-directed life.
This winter season, I invite you to dive deep and connect with your soul so you can birth a more fulfilling life in 2024. I’ve created a worksheet that I share with my clients at the end of each year to help them create a heart-directed vision for the coming year. You can download it here if you would like to use it to guide you on creating your vision for 2024.
The fear gripped me; I could barely breathe. As I looked up at my white-knuckled hand frantically grasping the fraying root, I searched with hawk-like intensity the cliff wall for another handhold. A part of me knew that at any minute the root would snap, and I would plummet into the black yawning abyss below. Tears streamed down my face as I sobbed and gasped for air through my constricted throat. My chest felt as if 200 pounds were pressing down on it. I was sure that at any moment the end would come.
All these years the situation has been the same. I find myself clinging to a crumbling reality, my ego believing that death is eminent. And the voice has always been there telling me that everything is alright and to just let go. Insane. How could “falling” be “alright?” How could “death” be “alright!?” Yet something, some small quiet place inside me knew that the voice spoke truth. My grip relaxed, and I slipped just a bit. Panic. My grip tightened.
In the end, I’ll fall, whether I let go or just give up. I know that without doubt. And I also know at my deepest awareness—that small quiet place inside me—that falling will be a relief…a letting go of effort and struggle and pain. How long can I hold on? How long will I hold on? How long will my ego-personality continue to struggle and toil away searching and grasping for the perceived safety and love on the crumbling cliff-wall of my reality?
December marks the beginning of winter. The light wanes here in the Northern Hemisphere, and cooler temperatures dominate the day.