A year filled with thresholds
Reflections on a journey through 2022
You can listen to me read this newsletter aloud by clicking the play button above :)
Hello sweet friends,
This week I find myself looking back at this past year with a deep sense of gratitude. I am grateful for many things, many people, and many experiences. But what I find myself wanting to acknowledge most is the gratitude I feel towards myself, for all the ways in which I opened and stepped out of my comfort zone, again and again.
Often without realizing it, I followed my intuition past many thresholds. I learned to sit with the fears that inevitably arose in these unknown spaces, and I practiced continually saying “yes” to myself and my desires.
The journey has led me to friendships that I’ll carry with me forever. Connections that feel as if they span lifetimes.
I met my fear of being seen and I stepped into the light. I visited shame and found my power. I acknowledged the pain of not feeling worthy, and I allowed my heart to tenderly expand as I relearned the language of radical self-love.
I found a deep truth within me: that I have gifts worth sharing with the world, and big dreams took shape in the space created through this awareness.
I built daily practices and let them go when they no longer served me. I lost myself and I found my way back, again and again.
I learned that I can survive the unknown and that often my imagination of what the unknown will hold, is much worse than reality.
The further I traveled in this new and intuitive way, the more joy, peace, connection, love, and power, I found. And this strengthened my tolerance of the fear, pain, grief, and tenderness that I’ve come to embrace as part of my process.
This year I leaned into the ebb and flow, practiced letting go, and was carried by trust into spaces and dreams that I’d never imagined before.
I am grateful to myself, and I am grateful to you as well, dear friend.
Thank you for seeing me. Thank you for journeying with me.
When Cai realized that I was finishing my coaching training he asked emphatically, “Mama, aren’t you going to have a gradulations party with a cake and decorations?!” To which, after a moment of thought, I replied, “Well, yeah, I suppose we should have a gradulations party, shouldn’t we!” (Cai, as the self-proclaimed clever-five-year-old that he is, combines graduation and congratulations, hence “gradulations party”)
This song. How it takes me back to the Aether Retreat, the healing, the expansion, the peace, the resonant connection within and throughout. Kristina is creating this magical experience again in June, and I am so deeply grateful to be able to attend this year as well. You should join us!
These Cultivating Conversation cards. We brought them along on a recent date night and only read one before the conversation carried us away. It’s a sweet place to begin a visit of any kind.
With endless love and deep gratitude,
Raina
