FIRE up your New Year
A Heart centered retake on new years resolutions
All the elements guide us physically and emotionally towards balance - it's their life's work. Nudging us back onto the path when we have strayed, lighting the way when we are lost, and helping us navigate the middle way. Summers heat and FIRES wisdom takes us over the threshold of the new year (Chinese New Year is January 22nd this year) firing our hopes and dreams for the coming cycle in its forge. While I'm not one for the traditional New Year's resolution list, the Fire element does offer a powerful reminder that we are not here just to pay bills, we are here to follow our bliss.
It's easy to get caught up working long hours to support a lifestyle that we only enjoy in slithers on the weekend. It's easy to become meshed into contracts with yourself or others that put material success or other people's needs above our happiness or peace.
The season of Fire comes along every new year to help us course-correct. It teaches us how to realign to our Hearts' higher wisdom with the people, places, and things that truly bring it meaning, sovereignty, and its sacred work in the world. When we lose contact with Joy as part of our natural beingness then Fire comes to let us know it's time to transform.
When we tune to the element's subtle language of joy, the imbalances become easier to spot. When joy is excessive (yes, you can experience joy that is too intense and too prolonged to be healthy) we feel agitated and restless. When joy is too little, the reverse is true, we feel depressed like the fire has gone out.
If we can be aware enough of ourselves, we begin to understand Hearts messages for what they are. Then we can open to their solutions for a return to the Heart of what we have come here to live - Joy.
So in line with the Summer season and the New Year that is upon us, here is a Heart led New Year resolution list that I hope inspires you to even more “in here”, and “out there” for 2023:
1. Whenever I feel the motivation for something diminish I understand it's time to switch it up or let it go.
2. When my zest for life feels thin and flat, then I will lean in to see what in me needs to change - a new job, new home, new friends, an adventure?
3. When my mind can't settle, I will stop stuffing things into it, and do yoga, meditation, or a breathwork practice instead.
4. When I can't sleep I will be especially kind to myself. I'll make a list of the things that worry me, and ask to be guided to the best solution for all. I'll open fully to receiving those messages because I know I'm cared for by something bigger than me. I'll do humming bee breath for 5 minutes in my bed.
5. When I feel despair and don't know where to turn or what to do I will forgive myself. Everyone gets lost sometimes. I will do something to halt the momentum of that sadness like yoga, meditation, or a swim in the sea. I'll focus on thinking thoughts I like about things I love, on gratitude for what blesses my life, and on appreciation for all those in it who hold and support me. I'll do this as often as I need to.
When we live from the Element of Fire and the Heart of our present awareness then it's easy to follow the trail of our feelings. If we can be honest with ourselves on this Heart path, then it will only ever lead us to the choices that make us joyful, connected, happy, and peaceful.
And Hearts work will have been done.
Settle your mind and align your body with me weekly in my online yoga and pranayama classes.
