I want to tell you all of the magical things that happened in 2014. (Celebration loves company and you are exquisitely good company.) I want to tell you about the brilliant lights who showed up for Step into Your Starring Role (and the ways that they’ve shaped their worlds in their claimed roles). I want to say more about my dreamy collaboration with Lauren for Beyond Compare and the ripples of impact that we’re seeing from those who have stepped into the depths of the work.

I want to tell you about the conversations, the meals, the interviews, the travel, the breakthroughs, the healing, the community, the opportunities, and the highs Highs HIGHS that made 2014.

AND? The LOWS, Lows, lows of 2014. It’s all part of the glorious jumble that is this messy and blessed life.

But…I’m feeling way more called to be useful and helpful to YOU.

So let’s put the focus on YOU. Specifically, on your 2015.

I know you’re busy. I know I know I know. And? If you take me up on this wee task, I promise it will be a gift to you that you’ll thank us both for, so pour a second (third?) cup of rooibos or Peet’s and DO THIS NOW.

Write a letter to yourself from December 30th, 2015.

Remember your 5th grade teacher had you write one of these? Thrilling to see all that YOU made happen in 12 short months, wasn’t it?

Write it but good. Freeform, like you’re writing to yourself…’cause you are. Quirky, like you. Charming, like you. Effusive, like you. Truthful, like you.

It’s a letter of all that you’ve seen and experienced and won and conquered and overcome and delivered and done and healed and enjoyed in 2015. Write it from the perspective that all of these wondrous things have happened…’cause you’ve made ‘em happen.

If this takes more than ten minutes, you’re probably overthinking it. (Maybe something to consider overcoming in 2015?) And if what you write doesn't quicken your heart rate, you're probably low-balling it. (Maybe something ELSE to consider overcoming in 2015?)

Notice how the “theme” and the “word” and all other goal-setting 101 staples that you’ve been struggling to name start to reveal themselves. Notice how the plan you’ve been white-knuckling to map out starts to take shape.

And then you’ll see, really see how magical things happen when we remove ourselves from another’s plan and align with our own inner whisperings.

TAKE NOTE: This letter isn’t about the “how’s”.

Leave plenty of space for serendipity to take its place. Or put another way? Know that those “how” details are already being handled backstage by your trusty subconscious stage hands. Leave it to them for now. 

Once you’ve signed “With love, from 2015 Me”, I have a request.

Send it to me.

Let me help hold this exquisite vision of yourself for 2015.

I promise it’ll be kept in sacred confidence and held with love, care, and belief. (It’ll go straight to my personal email address…no one else on my team will see it). Just you, me and the universe will know of the joy that 2015 has in store for you.

Yes yes?

All righty then.

Write on and send it to me.

I’ll be fireside awaiting your responses.

Thank you for helping me create the magical year that was 2014.

It was.

And 2015? Phew. Hot stuff.(The word that showed up for 2015 in my own letter was "UP". THAT feels about right.)

xx

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 Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact

Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.

‘Twas the night before Christmas Eve, when all through the house,The cats were going apeshit, like they just saw a mouse. The wrapping paper was shredded and mangled and slobbery. It looked like this house was the scene of a robbery. The stockings weren’t hung ‘cause we hadn’t finished shopping But Nat King Cole was blaring, so we were she-bopping. The oysters were chilling on their bed of crushed ice (We forgot the Kid's aversion, so she had fried rice.) We scurried and hurried to cook, box and wrap, Pledging tomorrow would yield ample time for a nap. But that's most unlikely as our time’s far from free We’ll spend the day seeking solace down at Grandma’s tree. We’ll then join my family for Christmas Eve fun, Opening stockings with wine and boeuf bourguignonne. Christmas Day will be frantic (but playful at least) As we join Greg’s family for a loud holiday feast. In the remaining holidays we’ll reflect on the year, Counting up every last blessing, prayer and tear. 2014’s been one filled with sadness and joy Learnings upon learnings upon learnings, ahoy. As I integrate and plan and plot and scheme, I’ll carve plenty of time to allow for my dreams. Your dreams too, and the dreams of your people, (Apologies if that sounds overly sweet like a treacle). The next year promises to bring opportunities and new light, And I know so well it requires heart and courage over might. In a moment this sacred, I’m reminded of Luke, (Or Linus on-stage without fear of rebuke): 'Peace on earth to my brothers and sisters, I say, Let’s dig even deeper to share good will every day.'

With deep love (and even deeper gratitude),

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 Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact

Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.

You’re feeling the darkness we’re moving into, aren’t you? In spite of the holiday lights, the festive cheer, there is a weighty, contracted, even sombre energy.

Me too.

In the northern hemisphere, the light is growing dimmer and dimmer until we reach the longest night of the winter solstice. And then the sun begins its return.

But that’s just part of the story. A metaphor for the contradictions I'm feeling all around me.

We’re approaching the 10-year anniversary of my mother’s passing at the end of this month. Baking her signature Christmas cookies and singing her favourite hymns yields that paradoxical experience of feeling both her presence and her absence in the same skipped heartbeat.

In the meantime, I’m bearing witness to that painfully liminal space my daughter’s swimming in. Neither a young and innocent little girl, nor a street-wise teen. Yearning for toys under the tree and sensing that she’s “not supposed to” want what she wants.

It’s a time of well-wishing and worry. Of magic and melancholy. Of celebration and sorrow. Of grace and greed. Of hope and hopelessness. Of compassion and commercialization.

(And you know I’m not just talking about the holidays here, Loves. I’m talking about the news from around the world.)

For a light-seeking reveler like myself, it’s easy for me to turn towards the light. In fact, I can reframe dark to light so fast it would make your head spin. I know it has that effect on me.

But this year, it’s different. I’m being called to honour the need I’ve ignored for years. Instead of craning my neck towards the light, I’m going to allow myself to really be in it. To feel it. To not transmute it.

It’s scary and stifling…and somehow a complete relief. Awakening consciousness is like that.

And so, this year:

I’m not going to pour sparkles over the shadows. I’m going allow the dark to be dark and the light to be light. I’m going to allow the sadness to be sadness and the joy to be joy. I’m going to eat the cookies and sing the hymns and cry and stomp when I am called to do so. I’m going to grieve what needs to be grieved and celebrate what wants to be celebrated. I’m going to look back, and I’m going to look forward. And I’m going to look right here, AT the mystery of the present, IN the mystery of the present.

In the quiet respite of the dark, I’ll be able to see. 

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 Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact

Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.

I just finished devouring Amy Palko’s soulgift From Revolutionary Lips for the fifth time. And I will do so again and again. In her foreword, Amy says: “early readers reported back again and again this sense of being taken on a journey. And not just any journey. But one that would take them deep into their own lived experience of their body, their desire, their voice, their frustration, their loss, their wounds, their sexuality, their place, their heart, their shame, and their truth.”

I was one such early reader. But I think I was wrong. I think in this revolution, Amy’s creating an exodus, really. It may be MY journey. But it will be OUR exodus.

Dancing with Amy's words, I see it laid out like this:

The collection, the journey, the exodus, the revolution starts with a sigh. An awakening, really. A scan, an inventory of what’s here. Really here. Soft belly, stretch marks. This mysterious land with no map. To learn, by us, for us, from the inside. Oh, it’s THIS leg of the journey that we avoid. And many of us stop here. Stay here. Wishing there was a map. Sipping tea and shrugging shoulders with resignation. But when the tea’s gone cold and the prospect of not moving forward becomes unbearable, we rise from our chairs. And we walk to the edges of oblivion. To the depths beckoning to be explored. The wounds of broken spaces, Scabby places. We will smell the rotting of pain and taste the metallic blood of grief. We force ourselves to stay here, probing the toothache of the soul, because we know it’s here that the questions reveal their gold. And yes, we know they’ve locked people up for less. But we must keep looking ‘round corners to see what’s here. Twists and turns. Collars flipped up to guard our necks from the chill. Until we see the glow. There it is. What we’ve hidden for so very long. What we’ve silenced. What we’ve ignored. Our desires. Ready to be reclaimed. Ready to be chosen. Again and again. Ready to take us home.

Yeah. It’s like that.

It must be like that.

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I wanted to talk to my beloved friend (and this week, I'm thrilled to have her as my house guest!) Ronna Detrick about this business of wanting and owning our desires.

Here's the poem I've chosen to read and to discuss with her. May it lead you home.

Latent

The veil of ambivalence settles close to the skin when desire lies latent - tamped down by stories of excess and extravagance. Oh, she's too much, we say, all the while denying ourselves the permission we seek to want what we want without shame without fear without

Ahhhhh.

Please consider this questions and DO share in the comments (or over on my Facebook page for Amy and Ronna to see):

Who would you be if you could want what you want without shame, without fear, without...?

Thank you, Ronna. And thank you Amy, for the gifts upon gifts of this collection.

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Amy Palko is the creatrix of Red Thread Voices – a publishing house that aims to offer a home to the voice of exiled feminine, She is also a goddess guide, poet, photographer and lecturer whose work has been featured internationally. She lives in Edinburgh, Scotland with her husband and three teenage children, in their home that overlooks the deep harbour, and the wide mouth of the River Forth as it opens up to swallow the cold waters of the North Sea.

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 Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact

Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.

I talk a lot about your people wanting you to succeed. And for the most part, I mean that in an over-arching, “your people want you to succeed in life” way. But I also know it to be true SPECIFICALLY as it relates to business and our work in the world. It’s what I believe with every fibre of my being. Because I live it.

Every win that I’ve enjoyed, every home run I’ve knocked out of the park, can be traced back to someone who’s had my back. This is no spiritual bypass…I also acknowledge my abilities, skills and talents. But allowing other people in? To hold and champion and bolster me? To ask for help when I’ve needed it, and even BEFORE I needed it?

It’s been the key to the success that I’ve enjoyed so far in this lifetime.

And while it may be the most foundational tenet of my belief system, it’s a hard pill for many to swallow, so impressive is the body of evidence that they’ve amassed over the years of being cut down by their others (or having cut themselves down to size to fit in).

So, I want to speak to this. I want to speak to my sisters. (Brothers, thanks for being here and for reading. And by all means, lean in. My sisters are your sisters.)

Sisters: since the beginning of time, we have relied on each other to survive. We know that Paleolithic women worked together to create shelter. Ancient Egyptian women supported each other during the perilous time of pregnancy and childbirth. Iroquois women work the fields in community, harvesting the “three sisters.” Frontier women administered homemade remedies to one anothers’ families during times of plagues. Sumbanese women weave and dye the textiles that are the fulcrum of their economy.

There is no time in history (ahem) that we cannot find evidence of women collectively, communally, and cooperatively working together to assure each others’ survival.

So yeah.

Helping each other to SURVIVE? Sure. We’ve been doing THAT since the dawn of time. Helping each other to THRIVE? Those are brand-new baby muscles we haven’t learned to use yet.

Because we are so very new to this whole THRIVING thing.

It’s what Elizabeth Gilbert points to in her monstrously powerful ICAN speech:

We are living as women in a very interesting moment of history and namely what that is is that we are all, all of us of this generation, and by this generation, I mean any woman born in the Western industrialized world in the last 80 or 90 years, in terms of human history I call that one generation, and something very recent, we are all the subjects of a vast and enormously historically unprecedented social science experiment. And that social science experiment is: what happens if you give women autonomy? What happens if you give them literacy? What happens if you give them education? What happens if you give them legal protections, political rights, access to their own money, chances, power, opportunity all these things that women have never ever had suddenly, we have.

[…] And it's tricky and one of the reasons it's tricky and I would say trickier for us than for men, is that we don't have, unlike men thousands and thousands and thousands of years of role models of autonomous, powerful, independent, literate women who had that sort of control over their own destinies. We don't have those kinds of examples. Not only do not have them mythologically, classically and throughout history, we often don't have them in our own families.

And then fold in our businesses on top of that?

It’s like my soul sister Julie Daley shared with me:

We use whatever our business is as a front for talking about things that really matter. We're only stuck in this work, you see, because our real work was taken away from us several thousand years ago. We looked on the map, but our town was gone. We looked through the catalogue but couldn't find the course we wanted. It's as if someone removed our chair but couldn't take away our longing.

- Marianne Williamson

And we don’t know where to put it. Not only is this business of thriving is new to us. This business of BUSINESS is new to us.

So how can we actually and legitimately feel into the truth that I know in my cells?

(Deep breath.)

By daring to believe. Talking about the things that matter, and daring to believe that it matters to me. (It does.)

I don’t have the proof of history books or Wikipedia citations on my side. But I know what I know and I know this:

I want you to thrive. And I know you want me to thrive. It just makes sense.

You can feel it too, right?

My wins are your wins. My tears are your tears. My success is your success. My survival is your survival. My thrival is your thrival.

And yours is mine.

That rival bullshit is the long shadow of the patriarchy.

You get that, right?

Know why? Because we are each others’ people.

And your people want you to succeed.

See how that works?

We KNOW how to help each other to thrive. We KNOW we can celebrate each other without the projections of hero-worship. We KNOW we can consciously critique each other for mutual advancement without the acrid aftertaste of disdain.

We just need to DO it.

Are you with me?

Dig a little deeper today and shine some thrival love on your sister. Swing out with wild generosity. Be outrageous optimistic on their behalf.

And dare to believe them when they respond in kind.

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 Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact

Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.