SO LONG 2025-HELLO 2026

 

SO LONG 2025, HELLO 2026

2025 is on its way out and I am shedding no tears as it walks out the door and into the past. The year was both good and not so good. In numerology, the year 2025 was a 9 year which means it carried the energy of endings, completions, and undoing. I gladly say goodbye to this year. 2026, which is a 1 year carries the energy of new beginnings, a starting point. I am looking forward to this year to see where the journey will take me, my loved ones, friends and my country. 

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Because I do believe every upset is a set up, and the treasure is often hidden in the dark,  I have been able to make it through the year with faith and hope still alive in my being. When life seems to be going south, I have a tendency, after I rebound from the hit, to look for the treasure hidden in the experience.  It seems I have done quite a bit of treasure hunting this year.

I experienced my share of days, and even weeks of feeling emptied out this year. I have not written or posted on this blog since March, 2025. I wanted to write but felt empty of words, thoughts, insights or imaginations. For a while, I really tried to manufacture something, but finally gave in to the inner knowing  that I needed to leave it alone and let it be.  This was hard for me because as a writer, I need to write. However, when there are no words, writing is impossible. I actually have had moments of thinking perhaps my love of writing and creating were at an end and I would never write again. 

I have been here before so I was familiar with the call to step aside and quit trying. When I gave up my resistance to going back into the emptiness and the no-thingness, I felt better and rested in the stage of life I found myself in.

Emptiness not only hit me in the area of writing, it also hit hard in my physical well being. Long haul covid continued to take its toll on me and added to that was degenerative disc disease in my C4-6. I suffered a lot and after months of pain management, I decided to see an orthopedic surgeon. In October I had an anterior discectomy and fusion. The recovery process of almost three months really hit me hard and there were times when I doubted I would ever feel good again. Once again, I finally gave up my resistance to feeling bad and went with the flow. I am now in physical therapy to regain my range of motion in my neck and to strengthen my neck, arms and back muscles.

The uptick in cruelty and just plain ugliness  from the top down in our country has thrown me for a loop. For a while, I felt like I had lost my balance and saw no hope for the saving of our democracy. However, as I gave up that struggle and decided to be an active participant in standing and marching for what my heart longs for, I began to see some light. Seeing the massive peaceful protests taking place on a daily basis in every corner of the country has filled me with hope.  I now believe the people can make a difference.

Through all of this, I have once again found the fullness that is present in the emptiness. There is no empty space. What looks and feels like it is empty, is really full. If nothing else, the emptiness is full of emptiness, and that is okay. I have continued to learn through experience that if I quit resisting what is, I can live in continued contentment and peace. 

If it feels empty, embrace it....let it be. If it feels like all creative energy has gone away, embrace it...let it be. If it feels like I will never regain my physical health and well being, embrace it....let it be.

Emptiness, aloneness, lack of motivation, doubt, the carrying out of cruelty to other humans and/or life forms used to worry me and cause me a lot of angst. Thankfully, I am learning to just let it be. Sometimes I cry my way through whatever is going on, other times I just sit with the sickness I feel inside over where life is taking me and over what is happening in my body, my country and the world.

My intentions, as we move into new 2026 energy, are to live life to the fullest, to continue to be aware of resistance to life and to give it up, to love myself unconditionally and to walk in light, love and kindness. 

Happy 2026!! May your journey through the year be light, bright, joyful and peaceful. 

BEING IN THE LIMINAL

Liminal-Transitional area between two places or states, such as between the past and the future or between one destination and another. It can be physical, emotional or psychological.

Being in the liminal is usually being in a place of uncertainty. There is a lot of doubt and not knowing when in this place. It also can be a place of emptiness.

I have been in the liminal quite a few times in my life. I once stayed in the liminal for close to four years. Though filled with discomfort, it turned out to be one of the most enlightening times in my life.

It happened after my first book was published,  I was busy promoting the book and myself as an author. I was writing articles and being published in many magazines. I was busy being my creative self. One day, I began to know in my core that it was time to give it all up and leave behind my identity as an author, as a blogger who had a world-wide following,  and as one who was on a path of success. I really struggled with this and it took a while for me to give in to the call to no/thingness (the liminal) and to walk into the unknown. 

Looking back at that time in my life, I feel intense gratitude for the call of the liminal. It started out as a very difficult place to be. I wanted to promote my book, I wanted to write, but I was empty and quickly realized I had nothing to say. I wanted to fill the space. I wanted to know. I wanted some certainty. What I did not want was the feeling of being hollowed out, a failure and worthless.

My book was not selling, I was not writing and I felt intense feelings of loneliness.

Thankfully, I began to give myself over to just being where I was. I found myself going within more and spending more quiet time alone. I spent a lot of time reading, breathing, walking in nature and just being. It was during that time when I felt the call to volunteer to be a Guardian ad Litem. Working in the court system with abused and neglected children changed my life, and I slowly began to experience a deep healing in my own inner, wounded child. 

If I had not answered the call to not only enter into the liminal, but to learn to live comfortably in it, I would have missed the entire healing experience. I would have been so busy with my life I would never have answered the call for a Guardian ad Litem. Life definitely changed for me, and as I reflect on that time, I am certain my life would not be what it is today.

I learned some deep truths in that quiet, liminal space:

1. The more I know, the more I know how much I do not know.

2. I do not know much, but what I do know, I know.

3. I became conscious of how unconscious I can be.

4. The empty places are really full-they are filled with emptiness, quiet, calm and bliss.

5. I learned to quit focusing on the bright, shiny stars and focus instead on the darkness between the stars. That is where the power lies.

6. I now know it is okay to be no/thing, in fact it is freeing to not have to try to be some/thing.

As I slowly began to come out of the liminal I started writing again. My book began to sell, and nine years later it is still selling worldwide. I am blogging again and I am in the process of completing a second book. 

When I quit fighting the liminal, I lost who I thought I was supposed to be, and found pieces of myself I did not even know I had. I am still meeting myself and becoming intimately acquainted with the real me. That does not mean I have answers, or certainty about anything. The difference is I can be okay in the uncertainty.

To those reading this, I want you to know: YOU MATTER, WHETHER YOU ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF UNCERTAINTY OR NOT!! 

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH EMPTINESS OR UNCERTAINTY!! JUST BE WITH IT AND ENJOY THE QUIET. 

YOU ARE LOVED, JUST BECAUSE....FOR NO REASON EXCEPT YOU ARE LOVABLE!!

EMBRACING NOTHING

 I keep feeling compelled to write, but when I sit at my laptop it seems I have nothing to say. So, I ask myself, "What do I write about when all I feel is nothing?" The answer is, "Write about nothing." 

Here's what I know about nothing. I am okay with nothing, or no thing. I am okay with emptiness, quiet, silence, inactivity and a quiet brain.  When I was first introduced to this stage of life, I wondered what I would do, how I would manage, what life would be like for me. 

I was introduced to nothingness in 2016. My book had just been published and I was busy on social media promoting it and myself. I was blogging weekly and thinking my book would catapult me back into the world of writing and leading seminars, facilitating women's circles and offers to get back into public speaking. None of that happened. Instead, the opposite happened.  I stepped into nothingness.

This was hard for me, because I was raised to believe that idleness was the devil's workshop. To that, I say pshaw!!  To me, being idle is a great way to rest my body and mind. I also thought for a long time that I needed to always be doing something, because if I didn't, I did not have the right to be here. It's like I needed to earn my right to life. In my mind, not doing anything did not contribute to my right to life. It was important to me that I identify as a contributing member of society.

But here's the thing: Staying busy for the wrong reasons is not always good. Especially if we are staying busy to avoid doing nothing. 

I understand that "nothing" can be scary as hell. It can feel like we are missing out on something. It can also be scary because nothingness is usually accompanied by quiet, and if we are running from ourselves, quiet is usually not welcome. 

One thing I learned from embracing nothing, is that nothing, instead of being empty, is actually full of potential. When we elevate ourselves to a place of nothingness, we can find our authentic self, our true being. As long as we are busy doing what is expected and being who we think we are supposed to be, trapped in whatever we identify ourselves to be, we run the risk of missing the essence of who we really are. We also miss the possibility of being all of who we came here to be. 

I notice how many struggle to be full. I did it for years, and often, still do it. I sometimes fight being still. Perhaps the next car, house, job, gadget, device, piece of clothing, pill or slice of entertainment, will fill us and give us that happy feeling. And perhaps it does fill us for a time. But, before we know it, we are waiting for the next "something" to come along.  In the meantime, while we are pursuing stuff to get our emptiness filled, the emptiness is sitting there waiting for us to pay attention to it and embrace it. 

Some important truths I learned in allowing myself to be engaged in nothing are:

• I now know for a certainty, that the more I know, the more I know how much I don't know,
• I also know that emptiness is not really empty because it is full of emptiness.
• I have become more conscious of how unconscious I can be
• Even when I am just sitting on the deck looking at the trees ,and doing nothing else, I am fulfilling my purpose.

It is hard to explain the wonder of letting self go into nothingness and emptiness. It is there, that we are able to clearly see the hole that needs to be filled, and to understand that in nothingness we are able to fill that void. This is where we find the something we are missing. Allow yourself to sink into the abyss of quiet. 

 

"Nothingness is an absolute infinite potential, not an empty box." ~ Adyashanti