May you allow yourself the gift of desire
What will 2023 be like?
What treasures and surprises, lessons and experiences await you?
Goals are helpful, as are visions and plans, but when we use the achievement of them as a measuring stick for our worth and value, we place ourselves before the whim and whiles of whatever happens to us along the way.
I received some advice when I was a teenager from a prophet, which - let me tell me how strange and dissonant it still feels to write that - has proven to be sage advice time and time again:
Make your plans, and hold them loosely.
So, dear friend, as you make your plans, as you goal and vision and dream, hold them all loosely. There are others things for you to set in concrete, to make foundational, to stake your life on. And they have nothing to do with achieving and succeeding.
And isn’t that just the grace of life? While we are capable of so much, our worth and value do not lie in our capacity for work.
The things that should be on your list to achieve, dot points to remember to do, checklists to run through before you head out the door should be things like this:
- Unconditional self-acceptance.
- Generous narratives about yourself and others.
- A sense of responsibility about your place in the world that doesn’t freak you out but fuels you up.
- Stand in your power - soft front, strong back.
- A commitment to the love of self, love of others, love of the earth.
- Accept and allow - all of it and everything.
- Reject hatred in all forms.
- Ask for help.
- Be someone that others else can ask for help.
- Uphold your boundaries, and respect the boundaries of others.
- Ebb and flow.
- Grace and forgiveness.
- Strength and values.
- Integration.
There are more you could add to that list, but I think you get the idea.
There are many things I wish for you in 2023. There are so many things I’m hoping for myself, too.
I hope that your risks pay off. I hope that love stays true. I hope that betrayal doesn’t visit you. I hope that anger only burns holy and righteous and that shame stays in its place, alone and unattached. I hope we are able to put skin on our dreams and hope on our wounds. I pray that we move and heal and grow and become. I pray that we rest and laugh and dance and kiss.
May 2023 be for you an exploration into the life you want, the life you desire to live, the kind of life you’d wish for the person you love most in the world.
May you discover more and more about who you are and why you’re here, and the things that make you feel alive. May you learn to be gentle with the things about yourself that feel sharp-edged and worrisome. May you learn to lean into your wounds instead of hiding yourself away from them. May you love yourself so fiercely that you will uphold your boundaries and respect your body. May you learn the value, more deeply and truly, of your soul and mind and flesh.
PRAYER: May you allow yourself. May you accept yourself. May 2023 be that for you.
Written by Liz Milani
Instagram: @thepracticeco
From this week’s series, "What Will 2023 Be?", with a subscription, in the App.
