Begin Again

Begin again.

Welcome 2021.

I think we have all had years that we were grateful to say goodbye to. Perhaps never before have so many in the same year felt the same. 2020 has proved to be a difficult and exhausting year – filled with the unexpected and with unforgiving impacts. There were many losses, big and small, that left no one untouched. But while we struggled, 2020 also gave us opportunities to build resilience and to take pause in our lives.

In the middle of a great challenge, it is hard to see beyond the chaos. It’s like being caught up in a swirling cyclone, not knowing where we are being taken, completely at the mercy of where the powerful winds take us. Eventually the winds settle enough that we can begin to see again, but often upon a landscape that is no longer recognizable. The very idea of beginning again can seem impossible.

We know that life is fluid, always changing, always evolving – contraction and expansion. Something dies as something else is reborn, pain experienced one day, followed by the sweetness of joy in the next. And while we know this, we rely on the pause in between the contraction and expansion. We are given this pause to catch our breath, to rest and restore, and to gather strength to move through the next contraction. 2020 may have felt like a year of relentless back to back contractions that offered little rest.

But like it or not, the world unapologetically keeps going. We can choose to go with it or stay rooted in our own suffering. We can remember that simply because we are alive, all things possible. Each day the sun rises, bringing with it the light of hope and opportunity. It is up to us to choose how we live. This is how we begin again, and again, and again.

We will stumble and fall from our own mistakes, we will stumble and fall because another knocked us down, and we will stumble and fall because the world literally shook us off our feet. Our power lies in choosing how we get back up. Our power is in helping each other back up and it is in how we choose to contribute to this world. Each and every life is a precious gift, including yours. Never underestimate yourself, for you are far greater than you realize.

Within each of us is the strength, wisdom, and heart to begin again. We don’t need to know anything more than that. We simply need to remember our own resiliency and purpose of living – which is nothing more than to live this precious life fully – embracing one moment at a time. If the only lesson we learn from 2020 is how to live fully once again, it would be quite a profound and grand lesson.

With love and light,

Laura McKinnon & your SYS family