I hope your holiday season has been one where you could find some stillness, room for love and kindness. It's not always the easiest time of the year, and the pressure we perceive as well as the buzz and stimulation can be ever so tiring at times.
We've spent the last nine days exploring the wilderness of the Highlands, which has been so inspiring, beautiful and grounding. But it also had its challenges, as life does.
I had pinned happiness on the next thing, the next trip, the next awe-inspiring moment. But really, it's in the here and now that the gifts truly lie. By sitting with what comes up, whether light or dark, on a mountain top viewpoint or at home indoors, the act of self love remains.
I had judged myself a little, early on in the trip. It was day three of being in one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, that so much fear and sadness surfaced. I felt the pressure I'd placed on myself to 'make the most of this time' but honouring myself, in all that I am, whether elated with happiness or sad, was the biggest act of self love.
And so I sat with it. Cried amongst the trees. I felt the raw anger of my projections of fear at my perception of the mess that the world is in. I breathed heavy sighs with my hands on the earth.
A deep surrender that I was not okay.
But the world carried on. Nature in all her beauty kept flowing, and it was there for me the moment I dropped the weight I thought I had to carry.
The old has to crumble before the new can begin, and that includes the old we are still holding onto. Letting go of the shoulds made space for me to be with how I really felt. No amount of external distraction or doing will replace the love found in being with all of yourself.
Merry or not so merry holidays, you're allowed to be in all the places you feel you shouldn't.
