I’m not really one for new years resolutions, but the allure of a fresh beginning is swirling strongly in the collective consciousness right now. There are certain external markers (such as the new Gregorian year) which can be used as a catalyst for change, but I’m a big believer that we can make change at any moment in our life, for me that seems so much more powerful than waiting for a date to begin our resolutions.

Rather than looking forward to the year ahead, I prefer to use the date to look retrospectively at the year that has passed. Honest, raw reflection always provides stronger medicine for me at this time of year than promising myself something that I probably won’t remember by the end of January. Once I’ve reflected on the year that was, I can think about cultivating certain qualities that will support me into the next. With deep reflection change feels natural, and not forced or imposed.
In all truthfulness, 2024 was hard. It was a year of tests, obstacles and what felt at times like a passage through the underworld. From supporting many others in clinic, so many of you echoed the same sentiments. In my own life there were many external events that played out. Personal sicknesses and injuries, a number of deaths and major illnesses amongst my nearest, a huge off-grid house move. It wasn’t that any of these couldn’t be handled individually, but that they kept coming relentlessly, with such little time in between to breathe. I felt like every time I came up for air something else was crashing down.

I’ve spent my first bit of spare time here at the farm planting a garden. Simple beds of greens and tomatoes, a bed for herbs, and transplanting things out of pots, potatoes for a later harvest. I think subconsciously I’ve just needed to water something I could tangibly see grow.

We live cycles and cycles within our lives, all of which last different amounts of time. We experience a week of winter every month when we bleed, three months of winter from June through August, and sometimes there are periods of our life when everything seems deeply underground and nothing we plant takes hold. The beauty of these difficulties lies in weathering the storm as best we can and knowing that this too shall pass. When the nights feel the coldest we hold on to the knowing that everything in nature is in constant motion, even when it looks like dormancy.
Long winters also produce beautiful fruit, and there have been many wonderful things born from the year that was. I celebrated ten years of clinical practise, ran my first in person events – a five part foraging workshop, a mushroom tincture making workshop, my beautiful clinic thrived and I ended the year with full books. In my personal life there were also so many beautiful moments with my family and we made our dream of moving completely off-grid a reality. If there was a lesson from 2024, it was to be present with every part of my life (the messy and the plentiful), and to not ‘wait’ for the perfect circumstances to experience joy. The perfect circumstances do exist, but are so fleeting. Every day is full of countless moments waiting for us to open ourselves, regardless of how imperfect they might seem, as long as we can relax ourselves enough to be present.

So if you aren’t one for new years resolutions, you aren’t alone. But, I do encourage you to take some time to reflect and extract some wisdom from the year that went by, even more so if this wasn’t your most ‘amazing year yet!’ (as so many of the social media accounts out there tell you they are having). And if you still really want a radical resolution, skip the radical and replace it with small and consistent. Little things, done with consistency, will get you to your goals.
Comments