What seems to be happening this year, of course, as planned always, is more challenges in terms of ‘do things differently from now on’. Its call is deep and it is not messing about. Instead it feels authentic and with a meaningful purpose behind it. The voice of ‘new’ tells me to close my ears to the old, conditioned and ‘the norm’ and look outside of the comfort zone or rather outside of the box we have put ourselves in. Having been in a box for most of our lives makes sense. That’s what everyone had always done and many will continue to do, but what it is about this year that asks us to step up on a different ladder, take a different turn? Just try and see, what have you got to lose, yet we hold on, fear comes over, doubt sets in and we retreat into our shell, which is effectively a self-constructed prison.

The thing is we all know that there is this place within us that now and again calls us to do things differently. It is there nudging us gently, ‘go on, go on’, but we are very good at ignoring that voice, as other voices, e.g. judgement, criticism and doubt are so much louder we are more likely to surrender to those. It is just how things have been created for most of us throughout our lives. At some point we come to a conclusion, or rather convince ourselves, that there is not much point in changing anything, why do it, it is all ok as it is, too much hassle. What it is too much of essentially is fear. We are scared. No one likes what we perceive as failure, how would we recover, oh no, but how do we live without trying and failing, how else would we know what works and what doesn’t? This is not easy and I am right there with you.

This process of un-knowing, un-conditioning, un-becoming seems like, on one hand, an unattainable goal, too hard, potentially filled with pain and disappointment, but, on the other hand, it is exciting, liberating, ‘not giving a damn’ type of brave and all-embracing life just as it is. It is true, essential core living, fully present in life and focused with eyes and heart wide open.

This is exactly the process I am talking about. Many do take this path and they do fail, but the thing is what we don’t realise is that we have all the potential to get back up again. We’ve all been there, done that, we know we can go through the toughest challenges and survive and all of us have plenty of life examples to support it. It is not a myth, it is real-life experiences that we can draw upon when fear strikes. We can fail again and again, but we would have lived something different, something alive and uncertain and had a chance to shape something into a thing of beauty and confidence. Yes, nothing is easy, but why would we want it to be?

I feel like a young part of me is writing this, the one that had never had a voice and being silent for so long produced internal fire ready to come out. Luckily these days my voice and internal fire are in good balance providing a good foundation for taking a leap into something new and freeing.

Air element has taken over my spring so far, it seems, and I can see why exactly. Whenever we are presented with a challenge or a dilemma one of the defences is to use our head more, fly into the mind and identify with everything it has to say. The mind is not always right, however, and learning to decipher mind messages is a useful thing to learn. It is also important to get to know your mind generally and what it tends to do in various situations. There has been days when I was aware of my mind working overtime it was making me exhausted, but I let it. It had to work things out and not all of it was bad, I must admit, but I had to bring it back into my heart and my body eventually, as we cannot function in the Air, in the mind alone indefinitely. I tried to balance out the mental defence with tapping into the feeling body and align with the Water element and also Fire when I felt some passion was needed to support my ‘good’ thoughts.

The whole thing needs to ground now and this is what I am still working on. I need that Earth and waiting for the moment when I can dig my hands into it again to start planting seeds for real and allowing my whole being to balance out. Waiting for warmth to come in and root me back into the earth. I think that will help greatly. There is still doubt that comes in now and again, but I no longer feel fear. A large part of me is trusting the process and my inner knowing and allowing for the chance to decide and manifest whatever is needed. I know I will be ok whatever happens, as when I hear ‘oh no, you won’t be’, I know this is only my mind talking, which is often supported by what we are conditioned to hear by a society, a family system that is not functioning well or simply fear that is present in the collective on so many levels. It is that prison calling ‘come back, come back’, as it is also scared to be left behind empty and meaningless.

This spring why not start dismantling our prisons brick by brick through engaging with one, two, three new ideas and implementing them, trying them out to see how they feel. Do something different this year. Why wouldn’t we want a different experience, which often is actually more in alignment with our inner calling than we realise. What we are experiencing is a call back home, which is what it is all about. We are called to do that full circle of un-becoming, un-learning and coming back to the way we were born to be.