Winter Ritual for the New Year
It's January 19th 2018.
And in case you're feeling behind, or like you've failed yet again at this whole resolution idea - I have a new perspective + a ritual for you.
/// First the new perspective ... what if, instead of resolving to DO something, you first knew how you wanted to FEEL ?
For the past few years, I've declared a "Beacon Word" - a word that encapsulates how I want to feel for the year.
This concept - of declaring how you want to feel instead of what you resolve to do , I learned from Danielle LaPorte and her book The Desire Map. It's a powerful piece of work - the premise is that when we know how we want to feel, we can then create and shape our lives around that ... "knowing how you want to feel is the most potent form of clarity" she says, and I agree.
To tap into how you want to feel ... you could try a few things:
1 - Read The Desire Map and discover it for yourself
2 - Hire a coach, myself or someone else, and start to dive into the work this way, having someone hold space for you to explore this ensures it happens (I hear so many people tell me that they bought the book and never did anything with it!)
3 - Meditate and ask yourself - how do I want to feel?
So instead of forcing and pushing yourself to be a whole new you ...why not become a more whole, truer version of you - one that is in touch with what you desire most and how you want to feel.
/// Next up - The Winter Ritual
This winter my husband and I did a new ritual.
We went to a partner/acro yoga workshop then cozied up at a lunch place, ordered a few vegan coco-locco lattes and started to "complete" 2017.
I learned of this "completion" ritual from Kate Northrup, both on her podcast and in her program ORIGIN.
"Completing" is also a concept that I learned while doing grief work, where one essentially feels the ups and downs of events that have occurred and delivers undelivered communication. In grief work, the communication is said out loud between a coach and the client, where as in our Winter Ritual, we said them out loud to each other ...
To Complete 2017 we ...
We celebrated major experiences by month
We grieved major losses from the year
We distilled the lessons
And we proclaimed what we were most proud of
Next we shared what went well and what didn't go so well across our relationship, parenting, health, finances, etc.
And we looked ahead at 2018 with a combination of how we want to feel and what we want to experience (travel, fulfillment, creating a home, etc).
We plan to review our 2018 dream every month, to see where we are aligned, what's shifted, and if we want to course correct.
No forcing
No cramming more in
No pressure
Just more of what makes us feel connected and closer to ourselves and each other. I hope this gives you inspiration to feel more this coming year.
Would you like a simple PDF Template of this ritual? I made one for you! Download it here.
xx - Ashley