Crafting a New Year’s Intention

Winter is my invitation to surrender. I bury into myself just as the four-legged's burrow into the earth, both of us seeking replenishment through the solitude.

I have found myself praying for the first fall of snow. Nothing quiets our homes and communities like being tucked under Grandmothers blanket. Her duvet of white covers our messes and hides our collections of things that we scatter across a land we dare to call our own. Our humanness is never held against us, though—her patience is infinite for folk like we. Instead, with gentle eyes and soft hands she reminds us of how special we each are by mirroring the beauty of our individuality and our interconnectedness, represented by every snowflake that she lets fall; our separateness is a miracle but together we can build mountains.

I have been in stasis for a while now trying to prepare for living the New Year in a new way. 2016 had stripped me bare, removing entire limbs of my life that grew from my actions and usurped the roots of foundational knowledge I fed on.
It was transformative.
It educated me.
And it was devastatingly isolating and painful.
I would dig into every event as far as I could go and drown in my role as an antagonist because deep down, behind every misstep and mistake was this truth: I intuitively knew better but lacked the confidence in myself to listen.

New Years Day is a marking point we all identify with. It's a reset button, a passage in time we use as a permissive marker to live in a different way. New love, more income, better health—all of these typically take priority on our lists but what about our spiritual selves?

For the past four years, I have implemented a New Years tradition of asking for things to happen to me. Not once did the Universe let me down—I got every single thing I asked for, often delivered in ways that I didn't. That's an unspoken caveat in manifestation work, though. To Spirit, every experience is a powerful learning opportunity. The challenges we face are expressions of our true Self that need refinement, not retribution, but far too often we will devolve into self or circumstantial punishment instead of focusing on what's really being asked of us: character improvement. When hard things happen, the Universe isn't asking us, "How are you going to survive this?" It’s asking us, "How are you going to respond?"

If you feel inclined to reminisce on the lessons of this year instead, consider questioning where you made good things bad and the bad things better. 
What actions and reactions were you responsible for that you are most proud of?
What brought you healing? How did you bring joy into your life? And with whom was there laughter?

Instead of following the trail of breadcrumbs that keeps you from starvation, why not instead follow the pathway that leads to plenitude? I can think of no greater disservice that we create upon ourselves then running away from what makes us scared instead of chasing all that makes us happy.

Seeing rainbows ahead,
-Jamie Homeister