Stillness

The beginning of a new year (2026!) offers hope; traditionally it is a time of celebration, a midwinter celebration when the longer nights bring us inside to come together around a fire perhaps, to feast and strengthen our common ties, to share and reaffirm bonds with each other. It is also a time that can be most triggering. Old childhood hurts can be easily reignited at a family gathering.

Periodically my mother would ask: why is it the old hurts keep coming back? She was not someone given to introspection; ‘don’t open that old can of worms’, was a standard response when I pointed out that wounds cannot heal if they are not tended. Equally a wound cannot heal if it is constantly picked over. An animal will naturally lick a wound to clean it. However if the animal keeps licking the wound, it cannot ever heal.

 So, how do we care for our invisible wounds, the old hurts we usually carry carefully hidden to the outer world? Old hurts become entrenched, the acute becomes chronic – it is the stuff of transgenerational trauma since whatever is unresolved in one generation gets handed down to the next.

We will do almost anything not to feel an emotion we have classified as ‘bad’. We push it away, deny its existence, maybe act out and blame others. We are told we should accept what we cannot change, yet the discomfort doesn’t just go away.

We make resolutions at the end of the year, promising ourselves that we will do better in the year to come. Mostly those resolutions are abandoned by the end of January. What compels us to repeat the pattern? How is it that we hold on to the very things that cause us distress? We judge ourselves for not being a better person and when that happens we have confused ‘doing’ with ‘being’. Do we ever judge an animal or a plant in such a way? Who has ever considered a tree being wrong simply for being a tree? The wish to do better gets mixed up with the wish to be better. There is a difference between doing and being, is there not?

I tried for so long to be ‘better’ when what I really needed was to heal the wounded parts in me. I judged myself precisely at the time when I would have needed some loving care, some compassion. I put myself away and hid behind the persona that matched what I thought others might expect of me. Those expectations are the symptoms of powerful conditioning. I did not want to feel anything that I had determined as being bad or wrong. In doing so I missed what those very feelings were attempting to communicate with me. Feelings, emotions are information. Not wanting to feel them indicates an unwillingness to let go of a position, an idea of myself that I have created in order to be acceptable, in order to belong.

How much have I sacrificed for the wish to belong? I have been willing to give up my power in order to fit in. Either that or have given away my power by refusing to fit in. This is not the same as exercising my power through taking responsibility for those very uncomfortable feelings and the thoughts that go along with them. Not speaking up, not saying what I was really thinking and feeling is a form of relinquishing power.

2025 was a year of letting go for me. Life does not respond to any wish on my part to control anything. While I may not be able to control circumstances, I do have the freedom to navigate whatever currents the flow of life presents. So what does lie in my control? Perhaps there is only the ability to respond to whatever arises within me. It is not in my control, nor is it my responsibility to direct what anyone else thinks or even how they act. I cannot even control whatever feelings might arise. However, it is very much within my control as to how I respond to whatever arises.

Feelings are integral to how we navigate the world. Our consciousness is rooted in the ability to feel; sensation is information from which we get clues about what decisions we need to make, what direction to take. We might think that we are helpless in the face of what we cannot control, yet there is also an opening. We can be present in the face of challenging emotions, and our ideas and judgments about them. We can make space for what wants to emerge through us and so develop resilience, freedom and a sense of belonging.

I give up my power whenever I do not show up, when I do not speak what my heart tells me needs to be shared. When we say or do nothing in the face of something we may not agree with, we are tacitly agreeing. Remaining silent in the face of what you know not to be right for fear of others’ reactions is one way we give away our power. How often have I thoughtlessly submitted to mechanisms by not giving myself the distance and time needed to become aware; instead being reactive, or not wanting to rock the boat, be difficult, go against what I imagine others believe in.

My wish for 2026:

Be present in a world that begs you not to be.

Be still when all is moving and changing around you.

In the face of all the distractions give yourself the gift of space and time for your natural curiosity to guide you, for your intelligence to express what is deep in your heart.

May all your responses be creative and be filled with compassion for others and most fundamentally for yourself.