The Year of Synergy-Discovering the Alchemy of Living
Self-Worth, Patience and Curiosity: Keys to a New Freedom
If I had to sum this letter up in one sentence it would be this: Self-worth can be the bedrock foundation for a new epic chapter in life; uncovering the building blocks for self-worth requires identifying the spaces where possibility resides.
Happy New Year, Beautiful Soul!
The new moon on January 11th shifted the energetic tides fully into 2024. It’s time to declare my personal theme of the year.
2024 will be my year of exploring my discomforts to become more intrinsically aware of self-imposed limitations.
In my lifetime I have experienced poverty— both physically and spiritually. I have also experienced states of wealth, where every need was met and every wish granted.
Both of these extreme states have taught me one thing, poverty may be a number, but it is the truly desolate that are poor of heart.
I live a blessed life, I have no real struggles. I have food to eat and share, time to give where it is needed, transportation that takes me where I’m called to next.
Yet.Â
There seems some days to be an emptiness. As if there is something I’m forgetting. The slip between time that I need to mend.
I am a child of the 80’s. Material excess was burned into my skin. Upon every image I viewed— television, billboard, or magazine: they all told me to consume, to live in excess, that beauty was skin deep.
My early life certainly played out that way. I had a car at 16 I didn’t earn, spent more than six months in a rehab I didn’t utilize, and ended up not going to college because I lacked the self-belief to do it on my own.Â
I was a product of my surroundings. Worse still, deep within I knew better.
When my parents patience and money dried up I hit the ground with a thud. Grief quickly followed. I was a shell of my former child self. Stuck inside addiction and lost inside my lack of self-worth, my life was directionless.
Superficial exteriors are fallible. I failed exquisitely.
A depth of character that is built through hard work allows for a longevity of a life well lived. I eventually found the strength for hard work but missed the lesson inside addiction.
There are only two moments in life that are definitive. Birth and Death— all the rest of life is just an echo.
Each choice we make creates an echo— action or inaction, it makes no difference. Any choice echos through life. Since life is made up of endless choices these echos build threads that are all interwoven, together the threads create a masterpiece. This masterpiece becomes our reality.
When I sense the emptiness it is because I have chosen inaction, and it is directly tied to the self-worth I didn’t learn to create as a child.
When the emptiness arrives, I tend to fall back on old habits. Since I no longer numb my senses with drink or drug, I search for the answers outside myself. The external search brings nothing that I truly need: material items, illusions of inclusion, numb sensations of fulfillment.
The empty space within is not filled, only replaced with a dopamine hit. Quick, effective, fleeting.
This year instead of seeking a fix, I will seek a solution.
Instead of filling the emptiness with things, I will fill it with patience and curiosity.
When I transitioned into adulthood I brought with me addiction and shame. It has taken nearly two decades of sobriety and self-reflection to free myself of those lies.
A new level of healing and empowerment is rising. The time has come to see what becomes of the emptiness when I face it from my edges of discomfort.
We cannot manufacture self-worth any more than we can manufacture meat. Imitation will not do. It must be created within the self, infused with the Spirit that created all of life.
This will be my year of creation.
To be one with spirit you must first allow yourself to be one with the spirit of who you are—as they are one in the same.
Exploring my discomforts through the practice of patience delivers me to the empty spaces that self-worth wasn’t built in.
Nurturing a perpetual curiosity to actively co-create with Spirit will allow for a state of grace to bring healing to the empty spaces. With playful expectation I strengthen the visions I hold for my future self.
Let this be my declaration: through the discomfort of forging new neural pathways for living an authentic life, I will discover the Alchemy of Living.
What declarations have you chosen for yourself this year? Did you pick a theme to live by? Perhaps you set goals or created a vision board? Please share if you chose to mark the passage of 2024 with visioning or goal making of any kind.
I’ve been making different forms of oracle cards for years now. This year I created one for each new moon in 2024. We will have 13! My family and I sat down on New Year’s night and made vision boards. I started this ritual with the girls when they were 8 years old. This year they came to me and asked for it to continue. Wonders never cease!
Blessings to you in this New Year of Adventure,
Lenaleah💕