Thank you 2024

As I begin decompressing from an amazing week of hosting a retreat with twelve beautiful and courageous women I am integrating the magnitude of what I absorbed during that week and the magnitude of the year I’ve lived.

This has been a wild year indeed. One filled with changes and more changes. My whole life since my husband died seven years ago has been a series of changes and transformation. These twist, turns, deconstructions, has all been reordering me to this woman I am becoming. In the middle of these changes I was not comfortable. In fact, it was downright painful and challenging. Changes can be painful, but only because resistance is at the center, we are afraid of the unknown and of what we might have to let go of. What these deconstruction energies are doing is moving me from one aspect of self I use to be to to another. I’m changing skins.

When we are in transition, we are in the chrysalis stage. We’re goo. All the “us” we’ve ever been, every story, every thought, emotion, action taken is being broken down and  assimilated into the new body that will form. This “goo” is the material that will form the new inner and outer self. This is much like the transformation that butterflies go through. Nothing is wasted, all the materials of our experiences is used to create a brand new version of ourselves. Menopause certainly feels like this.

This year I was called to do a deep shedding. The previous years have been an internal shedding, this year the shedding came in releasing most of my material possessions. My house, items in the house, etc, none of it held any value to me anymore. This deep shedding set off a chain reaction within me and externally in my life. When I decided to let go and surrender to the unknown, that was when my new partner came in. A partner that I can walk this path with, a partner that is as open to life as I am, doing his own shadow work, being vulnerable, open to deep intimacy, laughter, and so much more. This was not on my agenda but I’ve welcomed it with an open heart and said yes to a new experience. It’s a love experience that is rooted on living life in the present. While I was not expecting this new person in my life, I accepted that life always has its own agenda.

So here I am again, parts of me being dismantled and parts of me being reforged. Both can happen at the same time. On this latest retreat of wild women, there were so many shared stories. Stories that caused us to cry, laugh, stories that made us click our fingers in agreement, stories that made us come together as women. Stories are an opportunity for us to come together and move into greater intimacy with each other. It levels the playing field of me and them to an us. It’s the human bond growing towards the center or middle.

I’ve realized there are so many stories in me that I want to tell and share. This is evident by the daily blogs I’ve written in Costa Rica. Stories that have been locked up, ruminating in a dark cell waiting for the opportunity to come alive. These stories are like waves of the ocean. It has curves, and ripples and crashes against the shore with power, it wants to leave what it dredged up from places far offshore or the bottom that it no longer needs. Stories are like a pregnant woman waiting to deliver her baby to the world, for that first breath to be taken. Stories bring us to life.

My why over the course of these twenty odd years I’ve been doing healing work is to bring all of our stories to light. To bring the darkness up and shed light to heal. My why is because we all deserve a shot at living life not just in survival mode but in a thriving mode. Thriving in all four of our bodies. The mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual/energetic body. This is wholeness. This is the creator being embodied in the body. Heaven coming down to earth. This is the manifestation of the divine. We are that and we deserve to experience the fullness of life in that way. My why is first to heal myself and then share that wisdom with others. I cannot share wisdom where I have not traveled. I choose to travel in the dark spaces of my own inner landscape because it holds gifts for me. It sometimes feels like I’m in a Super Mario Brothers Game, flying through dimensions grabbing jewels and mushrooms and being powered up with great strength. The inner landscape is the final frontier. It holds all we are desiring for ourselves.

I’m deeply grateful for each and every soul I have connected with small and large. Grateful for our shared experiences together. Grateful for our desire to grow, explore, and expand ourselves into the highest version we can think of. I’m also deeply grateful for Mother Gaia, the Divine Feminine for being my constant guide. I could not do this walk of life, death, and rebirth without her. I’m unsure of what next year will bring as I am trusting in the mystery that awaits me. In the splendor of the song that I am singing, joy to me. It doesn’t matter how deep my trauma was in my past, I am using my deep joy for life to eclipse all of that. My focus is not on what was done to me but what I want my life to be. I can walk with both the shadow and the light for I am both, the yin and yang. The masculine and the feminine. The sun and the moon. Spring and fall. The shadow and light is seen everywhere. Both are needed to create.

I want to thank 2024 for being a year of abundance for me. Abundance not defined externally but internally. Thank you to the year of the dragon that indeed did not disappoint as the dragon is symbolic of transformation. May 2025, a nine year, be a year in which we all begin to loosen the fetters of things that no longer serve our highest good. As it will be preparing us to enter into a brand new reality when 2026 emerges.

May you be blessed, carried by the divine mother, and may your stories create a rich colorful tapestry guiding you to the masterpiece you are becoming. You are the masterpiece of life. Live it well!!!