The journey inward is the most difficult and also most rewarding path there is. During these darkest times of year, most people fill the darkness with food, drink, and various forms of merriment.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with that. So while I wish you a Happy All-the-Days, I also invite you to take some time during the winter season to turn toward what feels like darkness, but isn’t in essence. It’s you! It’s all you.
If becoming who you really are were as easy as taking a pill, everyone would do it. So while I love The Matrix, life is unfortunately not that simple.
There is no pill: not one to make you fulfilled, not one to heal your childhood, not one to make your business work, and definitely not one to enlighten you. For those who realize that the pursuit of happiness or success is a child’s game, and evolution is something that you earn with blood, sweat, and many tears, you know there is no pill.
What we take is a lozenge that lasts a lifetime, and like something by Willy Wonka, the flavor changes constantly. Sometimes it tastes good. Sometimes it tastes terrible. But you trust that it somehow always is good for you because it’s true. What did Yeshua the Nazarene say? (It’s supposedly his birthday soon!)
The truth shall set you free. He conspicuously never said it would be easy, or defined what freedom was.
For those of you on this path, I raise my glass. You made it through another year. Well done! Forget your successes and failures, whatever that means. Success is just what we call things that went vaguely as planned and failure the opposite. How arbitrary. How controlled!
What did you learn this year? About yourself, about relating with people, about life?
And perhaps more importantly, what did you think was true that you unlearned?
I put more time and energy into my own inner work than many do in part-time jobs, and I learned this year that it’s somehow still not enough for my destiny-path. I’ve barely accepted this. A part of me is screaming about it.
I learned that what I thought was vulnerability hasn’t been so enough, and I found a part of me that’s terrified of people and life that I’m working with to help change that.
And while I’ve lost more layers of control than I can count over the years, I learned there is further to go, and the most authentic way of being in life for me right now is to feel like I’m constantly falling. I can bear this for about five or six hours per day.
I made a lot less money this year than the one before, which didn’t feel good, but it helped me turn inward and learn the above. I needed to experience just how out of control reality is so I could heal the parts of me that can’t yet bear that truth. That’s how much life loves us. It gives us what we need, not necessarily what we want.
To my clients and members, thank you for being on this journey with me. To everyone else on this list, I appreciate your engagement as well.
May you get what you need in 2024, and have the wisdom to realize it. If things are hard for you and you don’t get what lesson you’re supposed to learn, I’m always here to ask. I can promise you a compelling answer. I can’t promise you that you’ll like the taste. And if becoming a dojo member fits with your 2024 aspirations, we’d love to have you.