Inside each of us is something secretly longing for fulfillment. It may go unnoticed until the last of the holiday trappings are put away and the darkness of winter is inescapable.
It may draw your attention with needling feelings of self-doubt, disquiet, or restlessness. It may emerge as a gnawing hunger for something yet waiting to be named. For many, just the turning of the calendar to a new year brings out difficult yet exciting “questions to self:”
What direction can I take this year?
Where am I going with my life?
What is my purpose?
Something in you knows you are meant to live life with purpose. Something in you senses that it isn’t really about lack of time that keeps you from doing what you are meant to be doing. Feelings of “not knowing” may awaken you but don’t be too quick to run for the light of activity and distraction, supplanting purposefulness with productivity.
It may be hard for you to do what winter asks of you. Perhaps you fear or devalue the season of darkness and hibernation. It can be difficult to tend the seeds of your longings with adequate quiet and inwardness, or notice that the soil of your soul has gotten depleted of necessary nutrients. Your focus can get so riveted on the fruits of harvest, your own and that of others, that you forget the importance of another season of the soul, the inwardness of winter.
It is only when your mind is quiet that you can hear the voice of your deeper wisdom, reminding you of your source of guidance and the unique set of gifts, talents, and perspective that you alone can embody.
It is only when your body is at rest that the sound of your own heart beating and your own breath moving, signals that you are tuning inward to the self you have been your entire life, the self that you long to intimately feel.
It is only when you have sufficiently slowed the outer movement that your inner movement arises in the form of totally fresh dreams worthy of remembering and living into.
There is no greater intimate gift you can give yourself this season than space for quiet, for inner listening, and for receiving your dreams. It is in this space you go beyond that which your ordinary mind thinks is possible. You witness your deeper desires and your imagination is free to leap toward unthought possibilities waiting to be expressed.
Find the four trailheads that lead to deeper knowing: intuition, perception, insight, and vision. Pay full attention to these forms of knowing. Clarifying your goals and planning will become an easy, natural next step.
Welcome this season of hibernation. It is a time to savor empty space and dream dreams. Pay less attention to the harvest of the days and more attention to the seeds you are planting each day and the dreams you are given each night. Give attention to self-discovery for it is the pleasure of knowing yourself well that leads to a life lived on purpose and the satisfaction of being who and what you are meant to be.