Sitting here at the beginning of another year, 2024. I do always enjoy reflecting on the year ahead on this first day of the year. The external environment, as I sit here, is quite gloomy and grey and I think we could say that is a good metaphor for our world situation. For many people personal situations this past year have often been feeling overwhelming and not as transparent as perhaps we would like them to be.  

When I feel into what can unfold this year, I get a deep sense of ‘more than what we may expect’. Perhaps starting the year with a grey and gloomy feeling and the closeness of 2023 not being a great year for many people may require us to take a deep breath and have a “let’s see” start to 2024. I suspect each of us will be challenged to explore more who we are and who we are not. Challenged to discover more about the world and humanity around us.   

A lot of the upsets, conflicts and dynamics in our world are complex and to recognise this complexity. To recognise this complexity and understand the conflicts within ourselves - how can we be our own best friend in those challenging moments. How can we allow and bring in acceptance, forgiveness, gentleness and kindness to be of support?  

We all have a deep need to be seen, to belong, to connect. Sometimes we may not receive that from the outside - circumstances, the others in our lives, the surrounding environment – that may not be able to provide the safety, security, kindness, and connection that we need. Can we allow that within ourselves? Can we truly see ourselves with kindness with care, and possibly even with love and compassion?  

I really encourage you to experiment with this. I find when I come into that place of care and love towards myself it is much harder to blame or point the finger out there. Even more than that, I find when I have that attention on coming home to myself there is so much more access to wisdom, to insight, perception. My ability to respond to circumstances is easier, more relaxed, more kind.  

I have a feeling that 2024 will present plenty enough challenges where the invitation to rise and be kind will be a better option then many other first reactions! We have enough fighting in our world, we have enough conflict in our world. Let us see if we can bring about connection and kindness instead - and I also encourage allowing space for mystery, space for what we don't know. It can be very easy to draw conclusions - conclusions that our mind comes to from what we've read or what other people say or what we believe – and maybe our conclusion is valid, yet can we give some space for what we don't know, for what may unfold that is outside our normal understanding and reference? To give space for mystery, magic for new understanding? And not just on a personal level but perhaps even on the bigger topics that are happening in our wider world, maybe also for those that we care about, that we love.

Our whole body, our whole system is trained to expect problems, to expect trouble – it is understandable as it is a very good survival tool that we have inbuilt within us. What I'm suggesting is something slightly different which is expecting that things might be positive where life might be surprising in their newness or in the unexpectedness and offer opportunity, potential. This may not always be externally but also may be within yourself and how you are with yourself.   

Once again, I encourage kindness to self, and of course kindness to others! It is a way to connect with ourselves and with each other. Perhaps in that aura/vibration of kindness it can be easier to drop into a deeper stillness, a deeper listening, a deeper remembering. A remembering of who you are, remembering of who WE are - to feel into that deep place of interconnection with each other, the land, the world around us, the universe. 

It may sound a bit abstract, but I really encourage each of us to spend some time in nature - as often as you can, every day if possible. To feel the earth underneath your feet, to feel that deeper connection to all that is. To feel supported and to feel held - we are not alone, we can never be alone, truly alone. When we deeply get that sensitive caring and love that exists all the time – it is profoundly healing and supporting.

My encouragement to all of us is 2024 is to dive deeper into kindness, dive deeper into this deeper listening and remembering. I wish for all of us that 2024 is revealing, insightful and perhaps full of unexpected potential!


Thank you for reading …