A gift for the New Year

I don’t know about you, but for me, I don’t care so much for big New Year’s Eve parties.

The New Year is something more reflective than that.  It’s the turning point of the year.  The pause (breathe out and release), the turning tide, the next cycle.

New Year is a time we can reflect and dream.

In the final days of 2016, we can looking toward the New Year and feel into and ponder on what changes we’d like to make, and what experiences we’d like to have.

It is in from these moments of reflection that we can make conscious choices as to how we’d like to continue.

To this end, over the years I have created a New Year’s ritual that I’d like to share with you. This is my annual gift to myself that allows me to stop and appreciate all that has happened and to begin to look forward.

Here it is now as my gift to you:

Each New Year’s morning, I rise at about 4am and drive to the beach with a sleeping bag, candles, my journal and some nourishing yummy food for breakfast and a thermos of coffee.

Once I arrive (in the dark), I set myself up, climb into my sleeping bag, and doze until the sun rises.  I enjoy each moment of the dozing, constantly opening my eyes and being grateful to look at the stars.  After sunrise, I then open up my journal and reflect on all the things I am grateful for from the preceding year. Then, from deep within my heart, with as much clarity and honesty as I can, I capture my intentions and create prayers around all that is in my heart for the incoming year.

I ask myself:

  • What is it that I really want?
  • What matters most to me?
  • What are the experience that will offer me the greatest sense of fulfillment and wonder?
  • How can I make this year even more magical than the last?
  • If I was starting life today, with no past, what would I dream?

Once my writing feels complete, I eat my breakfast and go for a swim (often naked!) in the soft, morning light and allow myself to start the year refreshed and invigorated. It is my yearly expression of love and appreciation of myself, of life, and of all that is, that nourishes my soul.

[At sunrise…]

This is my ritual. Feel free to steal it in its entirety or to simply use it as the inspiration for your own New Year’s beginning.

I’d love to hear your new year rituals, intentions or prayers for 2017 leave your comments below

With love,

Shari