Intentions in 28
I just read a thread from sighswoon that was basically like “last year I was an old man and this year I am a baby” and tbh I felt that so much except more like last year I was a child and this year I’m a teenager but also in my mid-30’s even though I’m not. I find myself straddling these overlapping lines of constant “what the fuck am I really doing” and “I can do anything” and “how do I do everything”.
As I write this I am watching people clear out the yard in the apartment below me that will soon be for rent. I want this apartment - I love my area, I want a yard and more light and space. I don’t want a roommate. I don’t really want to move, but also I do. I feel scared of more expansion and I feel scared of the potential rejection if I wanted to step up into this - that my landlord would say no or I wouldn’t be able to afford it. But I am letting myself want it, letting myself inquire into what it would feel like to be steady and stable enough to take that step forward. If it’s possible at all for me right now.
That feeling summarizes so much of my experience as I step into this year. It’s like I can see myself so clearly but in some way am learning to trust the resources of who I am. It’s not that I don’t have enough in the world or opportunity - I certainly do. There is this naive insecurity about what I envision not being able to match up to what I can create. While I know this isn’t entirely true, the sense of it is there. Often in my life, this feeling is a weight upon me. It bears down on me like I have jumped into a lake fully clothed and I am swimming to shore from the middle. Wanting to make it to shore, but not sure about the totality of exposure that is necessary in making it there. In shedding myself.
This now feels liberating. There’s that “if you don’t do it the universe will do it for you” energy here of if I’m thrown into the water and asked to strip myself down, what will come of it? Instead of waiting for someone else to witness or save me or holding onto things I don’t need, what is my own willingness and strength to pull myself to shore?
I felt myself drifting in 27. This was necessary - I needed to allow myself to feel myself float. I needed the seaweed of my thoughts to touch my feet. I needed to see where the current would take me and the different temperatures of different depths. Lately I’ve been feeling more determined again - less passive, but also less controlling. I don’t feel the need to work against or change what is natural in time, in my own nature while also recognizing I don’t need to acquiesce to it either. It’s sort of like… I can’t change what poison ivy is but I can pull it from my land. I can’t stop it from popping up but I can protect myself from it. I can be watching of it, instead of ignorant to it. I don’t need to deal with it every day but I also don’t need to overwhelm myself with weeding it when it’s gotten too much.
Does any of this make sense?
I think it comes into surrender. I have surrendered 100 times to many strange and wonderful and painful things this past year. Surrendering not just as a letting go but also as a relieving myself from needing to figure out what happens on the other side of letting go - of figuring out what will next go into my hand. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe my hands need to be free. Maybe they are meant to shape and carve and dig - not grip and grasp and twist and turn.
26 was a clearing of space. 27 was an exploring and settling into new ones. 28 feels like grounding and utilizing - building a relationship with the world around and within me. I feel more grounded in myself. I feel sturdier. I feel less of a need to be happy all the time or to experience the world in a certain way and more grateful for what is and can be. I feel more willing to utilize what I’m realizing and remembering I have available to me. I feel like I spent a lot of last year hoarding and compartmentalizing and organizing… wanting to make sense of what was in my possession whether literal or intangible.
In 28, so far, it feels easier to utilize. It is easier to do the dishes. It is easier to get groceries and make a meal. It is easier to not get stuck in time. It is easier to have thoughts that are in dissonance with my actions and beliefs - sometimes it’s 11AM and all I can think about is smoking weed but I still get my work done and I still feed myself and I still show up for everything I need to.
There is a sense of inner equilibrium that has become available to me, like I have strengthened all the stabilizing aspects of my life.
Intentions of 28
embrace being tired in a way of completion; of having used all my energy for something I believe in
cultivate peace as a choice or a quality rather than a feeling; of being at peace with my choice vs feeling at peace
processing emotions - not thinking about them and understanding them but truly feeling them and letting them move through me
embracing learning - going over courses I’ve taken again, investing myself in learning french, allowing myself to make mistakes necessary to this process
nourishment as a top priority - in food, in company, in daily rituals, in beliefs
gratitude daily - for all aspects of life, in all moods and feelings of life
not rushing - towards ideas, or people, or timelines. asking myself if what I am running towards or fixated on is actually what I want right now or if I’m scared that if I don’t do it right now that I will miss it in the future
presence - as per above, what is happening right now? What do I need right now? How do I want to show up right now?
I’m not a mind reader, I’m not a time traveller - I can’t determine what people are thinking unless they are saying it, I can’t determine what is going to happen only assess what is happening
patterns as a function of growth - and within this, knowing that good and sustainable growth takes time. growth isn’t linear, it isn’t the capitalism version of it that we are used to. growth includes plateaus, growth includes the necessary nourishment, growth includes love, growth includes a certain amount of predictability
asking myself what I need instead of what I want - which means tuning into something beyond what I’m feeling and considering who I want to be for myself and what that requires
embracing boredom - instead of scrolling or playing a video game or zoning out to TV can I embrace lounging around and staying present? Can I embrace not knowing what I want to do or not feeling satisfied or inspired?
focusing on pleasure - this isn’t just immediate pleasure, but also long term pleasure. the pleasure of having money in my savings, the pleasure of having the food I want in my fridge, the pleasure of having sat with and processed new and/or challenging things and being in the growth of that work
asking and listening - I’m learning constantly that meaningful conversation and communication is often so much more than personal vulnerability and sharing. It is asking questions, it is truly listening and not with the intent to respond. I want to offer more quality of myself instead of quantity of myself
worthiness - worthiness based on my values, worthiness based on what I truly want to engage with and what makes that viable for me and safe for me. Worthiness in pricing my offerings, worthiness in how I spend my time, worthiness in long-term wants + goals, worthiness as extending from presence to future trajectory (not just what I feel I am worth now, but what I want to be worth and how I want that to appear in my life)
sacred space - sacred space as time for myself, sacred space as my everyday rituals, sacred space as my home and body - but also everywhere I feel at home and can take my body. Where I am present as a sacred space. If every space I am present in is sacred, how does that change how I show up in the world?
forgiveness - focusing on forgiveness, knowing it doesn’t need to be externalized to be real or valid. Learning the boundaries and needs of my own forgiveness. Understanding forgiveness isn’t a removal of pain or experience but a willingness to find nuance in it
nuance - changing my mind, knowing that not everything needs to be understood or fit into a box, allowing contradiction between my thoughts, feelings, and needs
structure - for years I denied that I needed and wanted structure. I felt that structure was conditioning for a 9-5 energy that I didn’t agree with. As I’ve grown and gone to therapy I’ve realized I just was never given structure and that my resistance to it is more a testament to my survival without it. This isn’t necessary and I know it now in a way I couldn’t look at before. I generally feel like a failure in the face of real and supportive structure because it asks me to build pathways I feel I should have always had and my feelings around not being adequately supported in this.