Let’s Be Honest – Standing on the Edge of 2020

I am writing this for you, my beautiful reader, who has been battered and thrown around by the events of last year and are standing at the edge of 2020, wearily. I know that you are tired and I know that you are scared. I want to share some things with you that I have learned of late, and I want you to know that you are going to be ok and you are going to make it.

First of all, welcome to a new decade. The whole “new decade” bit really threw me off for a bit, mostly because I just forgot, but I was relieved to hear it. What a beautiful, new palette we have to work with. You’re going to need some tools – new tools – to do this a different way this time.

The most important thing that you will need to build the rest of your year (and really, your life) upon is the understanding and acceptance that life is basically a complete mystery and things just do not have the answers. I’m sorry. I really am so sorry, and I wish I had different news for you, but this is how it works: lots of things, both “yahoo forever!” and unspeakable, happen and we just can never know why. When the awful things happen and we chase the why, we begin a desperate and downward spiral of misery. Please, please accept that life is a mystery and stop chasing whys that you can never find. Start by trying this belief on daily (sometimes you have to take this minute by minute).

You are going to need honesty: beginning with yourself, and then, with others. We can have no hope of true change nor fulfillment if we do not know ourselves properly. You cannot do this work alone and you were not meant to. Find someone that you can trust to do the work with, and go gently. Live close to yourself. You might not know it, but you actually do have and will be given everything you need to do this and more. Remember: we don’t get what we want, but we always get what we need.

You will need openness. You will have to let this life crack you open in the places that you have spent the most time patching with cement. What you need – and all you need – is a hairline fracture, just enough to let the warmth of Spirit (whatever that means to you) hit you. That warmth might come from nature, or pets, or the snuggles of your children. But I want to let you in on a secret: if you’re really brave, you will begin to lift up your head and see that the brightest light and softest glow will come from others. If you are open, it is the grace of others that will begin to thaw you.

You will also need willingness: the courage to lift up your palms and surrender. Surrender, as it turns out, does not mean to lay down and die and be captured. The definition of “surrender” is actually to join the willing side. This might be that you put down the sugar or the bottle or the phone or the credit card or the toxic relationships that leave you on pins and needles and wondering. But, be willing. Willingness is a simple decision to say yes to life and yes to the now of it.

So, let’s decide to live in this new decade differently. Wherever this article has met you, if you’ve made it to these words, know this: things are gonna be ok. May you be happy.