"New Year, New You" Vibes Aren't For Us

This week I had 4 conversations with women who; in their words, felt bad/lazy/behind/blocked/overwhelmed with the fact that it's already mid January and they still haven't done any of the "New Year's stuff" that they "should" have done (like make a plan for the year ahead).

I happen to believe that this is a good thing and I'll tell you why...

In Australia, January is still school holidays and it's scorching hot with children, travel, catch ups and to-do lists everywhere. The energy floating around is often chaotic and overfull.

In the Northern Hemisphere, January is deep winter and often it's the coldest, gloomiest part of winter with little to look forward to once the holidays have ended. The pervading energy can be very heavy and dense.

In both cases the energy of "New You" can be really difficult to tap into because there is often very little internal space for us to fit it in. And yet our inboxes are bombarded with messaging prompting us to make big moves, change ourselves and spring into action.

Most of the sessions I do with people over this period are about just trying to hold on to our frazzled edges and make it through in one piece... not exactly "redesign yourself" energy. Which, often takes a lot of life force energy when we're ready to do it.

So, what do we do?

Well, in 2017 I started noticing a pattern where many of my people (including myself) would get a rush of new energy sometime in early to mid February. 

So I looked into it, and it turned out that these shifts were consistent with the Chinese New Year. Somehow, the Chinese New Year was never on my radar before that. Yet, it consistently felt like there was a 'false' new year with a lot of narrative and "shoulds" around it followed by something much less glamorous about a month or so later. It almost felt like we just needed a minute to warm up to the new year and let the dust settle before a new page could turn. Every time that feeling of "newness" came, it was more aligned to the shifts in the Zodiac calendar than it was to the Gregorian calendar. 

Here's what I love about that: 

• The Gregorian calendar is based on solar cycles (Earth's orbit around the Sun) which is more Yang and masculine in it's very nature. The messaging we see from the mainstream narrative fits this. There's a lot of "Go big, hurry up, don't miss out" vibes that often catapult us into hurried action that isn't sustainable. Yang is indeed an essential energy to align with, but if we're not careful it also can overheat us and burns us out pretty quickly. 
• The Chinese calendar is based on lunar cycles (the Moon's orbit around the Earth) which is more Yin and feminine in nature. In the Chinese calendar, the first day of the month coincides with the new moon. Each month is 29.5 days to coincide with the moons cycles, equinoxes and solstices. 

It's no surprise to me when women feel more aligned with these more gentle, moon cycles across the calendar year than with the solar cycles... considering our monthly internal cycles are also synced to the moon's rhythm. For my dudes reading this, your inner rhythms are in sync with the moon too.

Tangent but, they have discovered that as all humans breathe our right nostril (yang) will flare more when the full moon is present and our left nostril (yin) will flare more when the new moon sits darkly overhead. This leads to the opposing hemisphere of the brain being slightly more oxidised and active than the other which can have an affect on our overall disposition. The moons subtle rhythm affects us all more than we realise and science is slowly reminding us of that.

Ok back to what we're really talking about... the invitation is simply this:

January 1st is one opportunity to ride the coat tails of a current of energy that allows transformation. But in most cases it is the weaker of the available options. If you're feeling it, great. But if we're not feeling it, no amount of "should" or "could" or force is going to be enough to embrace lasting transformation.

Just wait.

Chill out. 

Go slower. 

Even slower than that. 

Stop even. 

In the darkness and the pause and the quiet when everyone who was running has gone past us and it seems like we've been left behind... we see that we are right were we're supposed to be. 

In the Southern Hemisphere it's when the burning summer fizzles out just enough for that balmy late summer haze to set in. Australia Day is over, schools are back in term and the beaches let out a big exhale. 

In the North it's when the gyms go back to being quiet, everyone is over that initial "back to work" hump and there's the earliest scent of Spring slipping through the crisp, cool breeze. 

It's so subtle that it's easy to miss, and yet it's clear that something has shifted. There's been a solidifying, a steadying, a settling. This is the current we're waiting for.

Force is never going to get us where we want to go without a lot of inner anguish.

Should is a short term strategy with long term costs.

If big shifts aren't calling you right now, don't make it happen and don't stress that you're missing out on the only annual ship leaving the docks this year. 

Lean back and put your feet up. Another current is coming soon and if you're the type of person who feels things on a more subtle level maybe you can already feel something deeper just very gently starting to stir.

This one can't be rushed or hurried.

This one is completely in alignment with divine timing, but you already know that.

On January 29th, we enter the year of the Wood Snake. 

Serpent energies tap us into our innate power that lies dormant in our very DNA. Coiled up, waiting to rise and be woken. The ability to shed our skin when we outgrow the old versions of ourselves. That ever renewing, introspective and inner knowing energy amplifies here. 

Wood is a very stable element. It's flexible when well watered and sways without snapping even in the most turbulent winds. 

The year of the Wood Snake offers us a deep resonance with Mother Nature and our own inner cycles that link us back to her. 

So trust your own subtle cycles, shifts, callings and inner stirrings. Don't force what isn't there. If February comes and goes and that "newness" still doesn't stir in you, there's another sunrise just around the corner. Another shift is always forming and the one which is most aligned to your vision will feel like a full body yes that calls you forward. 

Breathe deeply until that one comes, and trust your body when it asks you to wait... especially when no one else is. Your rhythms won't look or feel like anyone else's, and that's exactly how it was always meant to be.