We arrived here on December 28 late at night, after a week-long festive visit with my family, celebrating two big birthdays (70th for my mum and 100th for my grandpa). It was an immensely joyful, heart-warming and also intense time. Hence I was glad to be able to take it slowly for a while before starting the new year full-on.
Digital detox and selfcare
I took the first week of January off with as little digital communication as possible and no social media. Instead I took time for silence, reflection, listening. I felt a bit like in a comfy and quiet cocoon. Like in the past two years, I completed a year compass to reflect on 2022 and set intentions for 2023. I went for walks, cleaned the house, cooked delicious meals, ran some errands, baked bread, went to the hairdresser and made plans for the year ahead. Also, I did again the “burning wishes” ritual with journaling that I tried for the first time last year. On Christmas Eve, I had written down 13 wishes themed around what I hold dear in my life and what I would like to see come to fruition. The one wish that remained for me to take care of is “I learn, gain new insights and have helpful ideas”. What a lovely motto for my 2023!
Celebrating free Fridays
The commitment to doing less that I gave in November resulted in me taking all Fridays off since then which proved to be a wise and liberating move. I am glad and grateful to work in an environment that supports me in taking time off. In fact, the colleagues at hppyppl celebrate as well as I do that I am able to have a me-day. And ultimately, I am certain, gifting myself with conscious free time will also benefit my work on all other days of the week. Fridays are now for taking long walks, learning, reading, long yoga sessions and meditation. Speaking of which, I am happy to share that I have started a yoga teacher training.
Passing on my passion for yoga
This was something that I had on my list for quite some time. I have been practicing yoga on most days for roughly 10 years now. The practice and experience of yoga have done so much for me. First aspects that come to mind are:
- Feeling more confident in my body, finding my own expression
- Getting a sense for what feels right, listening to my body
- Challenging myself to find my appropriate edge
- Practicing patience and humility
- Taking on the position of an observer to what is happening
- Using movement to process emotions
Looking at all these points, I feel that yoga has been a catalyst for my own transformation, for self-reflection and coming to terms with who I am and what I am about. The teacher training will enable me to deepen my understanding of yoga, to add more layers to my own practice and to pass this passion on for the benefit of others. When the barn is ready, I am planning to host regular yoga sessions there for people here in the village.
Barn project on “pause”
The barn project has been on standstill for more than 6 weeks now due to weather conditions and holidays. This coming week, a big leap forward is supposed to happen when the new roof ridge is created that will be well above the old roof. Once the new provisional roof is created, the old one can be taken down. Let’s see… This project has been such a rollercoaster in the past couple of months with a lot of back and forth. I have come to detach myself emotionally from it a little bit, otherwise I would worry too much. The advantage of the frost and snow was that I enjoyed skiing around the village again in December which was wonderful.
Setting intentions
I found in recent years that much more effective and powerful than “SMART” goals for me are intentions. They are more gentle in nature than tough figures and work better for me. They invite things in instead of running after them or forcing something to happen. Here is some of what I hope the new year to bring for me:
- Doing more facilitation work up north with new and existing clients
- Enabling hppyppl to grow and evolve further
- Becoming a certified yoga teacher
- Taking time to enhance my facilitation
- Spend quality time with those who are dear to me
- Going on a trip to Ireland with music and hiking
- Sailing on the baltic sea
- Spending a workation week with hppyppl in Bingen at our new office, yay!
- Keeping my free Fridays on most weeks
- Inspire and support people around me
…and of course some twists and turns I cannot foresee right now. 😉
I wish you a healthy, inspiring and fulfilling year, dear one, wherever this finds you. Lots of love from northern Germany!
Bye-bye, hamsterwheel! 