December marks the beginning of winter. The light wanes here in the Northern Hemisphere, and cooler temperatures dominate the day.
It is a time of deep silence and retreat, when Nature stops, rests and gathers strength and wisdom for the coming burst of new life in the spring. In the silence of winter, is the opportunity to discover your own essence, deep in your heart.
Many years ago in my spiritual guidance training, we learned that our soul lives in our deep heart—the area of our heart that is beyond our ego and everyday experience. It is the deep heart, where our soul lives, that whispers to us guidance on how to live our most fulfilling life, far beyond what our minds can imagine.
Each winter, Nature calls us to stop, go within, and reconnect with the wisdom of our own heart. It is there that our soul can share with us what we long to hear—the way to live a truly glorious life that allows us to bring out our full potential and live our deepest purpose.
Our soul follows the same seasonal rhythms as Nature. It goes through a rebirth just like most of the natural world. For our soul, winter is a time of letting go, clearing out all that has been from the previous seasons, and creating space for what wishes to be birthed in the coming year. If we take the time to go deeply within and cultivate inner silence, we will start to hear what our soul longs to create in the coming year.
The challenge that many of us face in December is the pull of many outward demands on our time: attending holiday gatherings, completing end-of-year work activities, entertaining guests, shopping for gifts, spending time with our families and friends. These demands can put us in direct conflict with the soul’s call to go inward. Very few of us can take the time to completely step out of our lives and turn deeply inward to commune with our soul.
However, there is a beautiful practice that stems from Advent that I am offering as a process to support your soul through this hectic and potentially challenging time. It has four steps, which you can do at your own pace, but ideally should be spaced out a few days apart to allow time to distill the learning from each step. If you are able to take a few days between Christmas and New Year’s, this is a wonderful activity to do in retreat during that time.
Harvest the seeds of the life you have lived
Take time to reflect on the past year and journal the answers to these questions. What were your most important events and learnings? How did those events influence and change you? What are the learnings you will take forward into the New Year?
Create space for the new life
Go through the different areas of your life and clean out everything that no longer has life or connection for you. You can do this literally by cleaning out your closets, desk drawers, files and cabinets. Unless you make space for a new life, there will be no room for something new to be birthed.
Practice tuning into your deep heart—your soul
The birthing process takes time; it doesn’t happen overnight. Cultivate a daily practice of meditation, spending time in Nature, tuning in—whatever allows you to be in the silent space within where you can hear the whisperings of your soul. Practice patience.
Sort out what is essential versus what is not
Evaluate all you are doing and identify what you can let go of. Simplify your life so that you make more time and space to support your inner process. Creation is a two-stage process. It occurs first internally before it occurs externally. The more you can support what is unfolding internally, the more you will start to see it occurring externally without effort. You will be attracting what is needed to support your soul’s unfoldment.
I encourage you to try this process in the month of December and see how it impacts your life. In a time when there is so much pressure to “do,” the process will help you “be.” Being is a much more joyous experience and will help you attract what you need to live a fulfilling soul-directed life.
This winter season, I invite you to dive deep and connect with your soul so you can birth a more fulfilling life in 2019.