New Year's Integrations

...why wellbeing is about integration not resolutions.

The day the sun stands still

Today, 21^st December, is the shortest day of the year.

Today the sun will set (in the UK) at around 3 – 3.30pm, it is the day in the year with the least sunlight but it is also the last day of the trend for more darkness each day.

Across the world this day is a Solstice.

Today marks the Winter Solstice as the sun begins to journey a little more northward, bringing with it a little more light each day for 6 months before beginning it’s descent again from the Summer Solstice.

But wherever you are in the world, a Solstice (one today and one mid-Summer), is the day the sun stands still (in Latin sol = sun and sistere = stand still). It marks a halfway point – in the North the shortest day before we move towards more light and in the South the longest day before the move towards more dark each day.

People often use the 1 January as the start of a year (the calendar year of course, brought in by the Romans) but I think there is also worth in us using the cycles of light and dark to mark time and to reflect on what we are moving away from and toward. In this Claim You, I invite you to hold a moment of pause and stillness (and if you don’t read this on 21^st December then hold your own inner Solstice moment whenever you can…) to consider how your year ahead can become one of true wellbeing and personal power. And how this might mean you need to consider the dark and the light of you.

Integrate the dark and the light

Why does this matter to self-worth?

I’ll keep this super simple.

I don’t believe we can feel truly at ease in ourselves and in our lives if we don’t consider both and this is why the core message of my book is to:

Understand and make sense of your internal pains and struggles (dark)

And

To move and choose – not to stay in feeling but to also live in action and to make your life rich in choices that align to health, wellbeing and healing (light)

When I look at my life, it isn’t free from dark days or struggles (from within me or helpfully lobbed in by life). But it is richer than it ever has been before with a deep sense of self – I get myself, I understand my past, I know who I am and what I need. It isn’t always easy to feel this is ok but it is more common than ever before. I know my dark. I know what it is about. I know it is part of me.

And

My life is never without mistakes or learning but it is full of choices which mean I hold deep purpose, meaningful friendships and connections, experiences that are individually nourishing to my head, heart and energy (art, woodland - trees, deep chats about life stuff, dance music, meditation, tequila-based cocktails…). It’s not perfect but I have a clear sense of what I need and what all humans need to be truly well. I do get caught up into cultural bullshittery around aging and bodies and money and success that is described through numbers (Instagram followers or income) but I can see it for what it is and I try to unhook myself over and over and navigate back to what feels like light for me.

Today, on the Winter Solstice I am going to make a commitment to myself and I hope you can join me in the same. Today I invite in the power of integration and I am considering this in the light of personal healing.

Can you take a pause today (or any day soon) to do the same?

A Winter Solstice practice

I want to see and accept the dark in me – for me it is self-doubt, inner-critic, a focus on doing over wellbeing (e.g. tasks over rest), curse of comparison, a bit of ego (wanting everything now and as big as possible). I want to accept these parts – to integrate them truly into who I am and to give up a version of future power, purpose and success where I am only the light version of me, I accept that there isn’t a future which is just the light of me (the easy to like ) and that a beautiful life doesn’t rely on me utterly being rid of the dark, being without my dark…I am holding space that it will be there, maybe on many days, and that I will still be living something truly magnificent.

What is the dark you see in you?

Which parts of you do you struggle with? What are the parts you find hard to accept? Which cause you pain and difficulty?

What parts do you need to integrate and hold space for?

Can you pause here with me and imagine that your best future awaits you and that all these parts will be coming on that journey with you?

Let yourself soften any rigid views of what success looks like…make room for you to be just as you are in the absolute best life ahead. Let go, not of parts of you, but of conditions of worth – conditions which you have to fulfil or conform to in order to feel fully worthy.

You don't have to change.

You already are worthy.

You don’t have to have all the answers. But maybe you can feel a direction of travel – can you see what a first step might be? Perhaps you have already taken it here, in seeing some of the dark in you and reading what I have said here…what might tomorrow’s step look like?

Imagine the best future - with all of you integrated into it.

And now we have considered the dark, let’s move towards the light.

Do you have a sense of what would feel good for you – what the direction of light might mean? Here are some words that might help you feel into the light…fun, softness, kindness, freedom, expansion, trust, growth, pleasure, connected, safety, joyful, creative, inspiring, adventure, rest, peace, reassurance, comfort, grounded, love, seen, dancing, splashing, eye-to-eye, collaboration, pride, still, tall, accept.

What has helped you this year?

What can you gather up, build on and take forward?

What might you need more of? Can you invite space here – set an intention, “I invite in an abundance of light, I call in more….(insert the word or words which call to you here or find your own if my list doesn’t offer the right ones).

For me, I am feeling the word trust. I want to invite in an abundance of trust – trust in myself, trust that my purpose is unfolding and I don’t need to push and pressure myself. Trust that what is for me is already in me and will come. Of course, I will work and reflect and choose but I want to trust deeply in myself. I want to believe in the light I hold within me, as much as I am aware of the dark.

I want to trust I can be both and live a wonderful, meaningful life.

I trust that I already am and that more will come,

I will keep going with choices that nourish me – lots more rest than my dark thoughts tell me is ok, meditation and breathwork, community space, friendship and love, seeing some art, eating less meat, moving my body, getting into daylight. None of this is perfect but I know the direction of travel for my health and wellbeing. It popped into my head to do a dance class this year…perhaps that will be something in the direction of light.

If you want to feel better in yourself then I encourage you to see that both the dark and the light have a place inside you and that you integrate them within any New Year’s future you build intentions and resolutions around.

Your self-worth will be truly steady and strong when you can see both and make a place for both.