2019 Is The Year Of Shedding, 2020 Is The Year Of Becoming

This is the year that you let go.

Of the old clothes, the debts, the weight, the half-assed relationships, the opinions of people who aren’t an active part of your life.

This is the year that you let go of who you used to be. This is the year that you forgive yourself, and you start to set yourself free.

This is the year that you let go of your doubt, your resistance, and your hesitance. This is the year that you let go of the shreds of the past that you’re still keeping close for comfort.

This is the year that you learn letting go is not a peaceful release, but often an intense confrontation. This is the year that you let yourself feel scared, so fear no longer controls you. This is the year that you see your situation for what it is, so avoidance no longer guides you. This is the year that you see others for who they are, so attachment no longer keeps you stuck.

This is the year that you need to let go of all the relics of your past, because in a few months, you are going to have an entirely different life.

In the same way that the tide must rescind before it can crash, every landmark year in your life must be preceded by a year of shedding.

This year is one that is defined by progress. It is not about reaching a finish line right now, it is about taking one step forward today, and then the next day, and then the next.

Often, stepping forward means first stepping back. Stepping back often means first turning inward. When we do this, we recognize that our minds create a sort of safety system that we navigate our lives through. We define ourselves by what we are and are not willing to do. If we want to press forward, we must look deeply at this, and ask whether or not this truly serves us.

Most of the time, it doesn’t. Most of the time, the safety is being small, seeming perfect, keeping up with appearances and shallow relationships. It’s about pleasing other people, and evaluating our worth through their eyes. It is being unwilling to feel discomfort, because we were once punished for it. It is recognizing that we feel so empty because we have been building an existence for someone else — and that is no way to live.

This is the year that you let go of your past selves.

This is the year that you thank each of them for getting you through, and then you let them go.

You need to give yourself the space to become, and the space to release. You are not the person you used to be, and you will never be that person again. That person no longer exists, and so you must mourn for them, grieve them, thank them, and release them.

In the process, you’ll find yourself removing everything that they once built. Habits that served them, belongings that they loved.

Your body is in a constant state of rebirth. Your skin reforms itself every month, the cells of organs re-create every decade or so. You must learn how to do this in your mind. You must learn how to burn and release and let the old parts die.

You are not one person throughout the course of your life, you are many. You are many different selves that are build as adaptations to what you need. Right now, you’re being called to release all of them, because what you need is a fresh slate. What you need is to clean up the past, because the future? Well, the future is where things really start to get good.