as the sun sets

a poetic reverie of the monthly lessons i learned over the past year

Throughout 2023, I reflected each month on the biggest lesson I had learned:

January: Emotional injury needs just as much tenderness as physical injury.

When something big and difficult and devastating occurs, you have to pause. You have to give yourself time, patience and understanding. Space to allow the emotions to flow through you. You can’t judge yourself for how you cope. You can reflect but emotional injury should be treated just as tenderly as physical injury. Remember that you will always heal.

February: Move with your internal rhythms.

When I’m busy and social I benefit from balancing that out with space for rest, solitude, nature, poetry and softness. Nature resets me and connects me to devotion. Moving with my internal rhythms and seasons is always worth it. Resisting feels like swimming upstream.

March: I deserve respect.

I deserve respect from myself and others. I am worthy and offer kindness and passion to the world.

April: When you are around the right people, you will feel a sense of ease in your body.

You won’t feel scared or nervous and the conversation will flow and the silences will feel comfortable. You’ll feel so excited to be around them and safe to be messy and imperfect. It will feel like acceptance, support and inner healing.

May: Everything I need in order to heal, is within me.

Healing is possible and all symptoms of dis-ease are from parts of me that are doing old patterns that they think will protect me. I’m grateful for them, they have always been there for me, trying to protect me from getting hurt but I am ready to create new neurology. All my limiting beliefs were completely made up or given to me.

June: I am a poet and a writer.

I am a poet because I write poetry and it’s as simple as that. It is such a beautiful thing to support others, lift them up and encourage their artistry. We don’t need capitalistic validation to be artists. Write, paint, dance purely because it makes us happy and feel alive in our being.

July: We always come back home to ourself.

I deserve to show gratitude to myself for showing up everyday and putting in the work. We always come back home to ourselves and the waves of life pass. Patience and tenderness are so important. Perfection isn’t what helps us, the tiny moments of tending to our body, feeling devotion in our hearts, regulating the nervous system, reaching out to a friend and getting sunshine, they are the medicine that slowly builds up to feeling a difference.

August: Home is a feeling in the body.

Places and people can feel like home but ultimately home is an experience within the self that is cultivated no matter your location. Earth is our home and our habitat. I can feel safe and connected even while I travel to brand new places or when I am entirely alone. It is a softness inside. A feeling of being part of nature.

September: Taking risks helps our brains grow.

Even if things don’t turn out perfectly, we still learn and develop and grow. It’s okay to try, because our true self is constant. It’s like a radiant light, it continues to shine even as the external aspects of life swirl and change around us. All the fluctuations of emotions, thoughts, the body, relationships and life itself don’t change the essence of our higher self.

October: Feminine rage is beautiful and sacred.

You have to let your emotions out. I’ve always been afraid of anger, however I’ve learned that it can be cleansing and it is powerful. It is something that teaches you that this is not what you want or deserve. It is a powerful expression of the divine feminine that is not going to accept mistreatment and disrespect. I accept, love and celebrate my feminine rage.

November: Don’t wait until you feel better to do the things you wish to do.

Doing things we love and dream of is what makes us feel better. When it comes to low self esteem, early experiences shape our beliefs about ourselves and create our rules for living, which ultimately reinforce those limiting beliefs. You have to do the things that you’re avoiding to prove the limiting beliefs wrong.

December: Trust your intuition.

It is incredibly powerful and insightful. That internal feeling we get can be the ultimate source of wisdom and guidance. It can sense things that no amount of over-analysing or intellectualising can figure out. Always listen to your instincts.