Another year ends. Another year begins...

Hi Everyone,

I thought I would share with you the below message that went out as part of my professional newsletter. It expresses some of my hopes and intentions as we end this 2016 and set our sights toward another year.

Dear Friends,

We are at the end of another year. For me, it has been a year of expansion and growth as well as hard lessons and immense challenge. Each year seems to bring something new. At the same time, the end of each year lets me step back and see the familiar patterns that seem to replay year after year. Sometimes these patterns are exactly what I want for my life. Other times, I see clearly that change is long overdue.

One thing I have always appreciated about the winter holidays of Hanukkah and Christmas is their attention to light at the darkest time of the year. It can be hard when, literally or metaphorically, things are very dark. It can be even harder to find and appreciate small moments of light in the midst of difficult or dark times. The religiously rooted imagery of these holidays is about light, and, in this hemisphere, we celebrate them both around the time of winter solstice, when the dark is closing in around us and the season is getting colder (as cold as we can get in Los Angeles).

The solstice has always been a time to go inward. To visit the shadowy parts of ourselves that we don't want to look at, and to make choices about what we want to do with what we find. It can be hard to go into those dark places, trusting that we might find light emerging through the darkness. The end of another calendar year affords us that opportunity as well - to reflect on a year gone by and ask ourselves how we might want to live differently (or the same) going into the year ahead. Whatever the reasons, this time of year offers us a profound opportunity to pause and look within, to recognize at deep levels what still needs transformation and release, and to take the honest steps to embrace difference where difference is needed.

One thing I am learning as a continually aspiring healer is that no healing is more important than my own. Attention to that is first and foremost, and any healing others receive requires me to do the hard work on myself that I don't always want to do. As we go into another calendar year, my resolve to continue this work of personal transformation feels renewed. I know the world around me needs it more than ever, but, much more simply, I know that I need it.

I invite you to continue your work of transformation and growth as well.

With all wishes for goodness in 2017,
Jonathan