Exiting Gracefully

We are on the cusp of exiting a year that was, by most experience, full. Full with evidence of a world changing and needing our conscious attention, and evidence of our own need to shift the ways we have lived; personally and in the collective. We end a year that has brought creativity, destruction, love, trust and doubt, loss and birth, pain, joy and new ideas. We have been unfolding...

The end of a year is just like any ending. It is a moment of goodbye, and goodbyes are very often either skipped over in the anticipation of the new, or are felt as the sudden emptiness of loss. The holidays can be a time for coming together and of showing love, and it can also be a time when we remember what is no longer here, what we miss and what we still have incomplete.

So, how do we want to say goodbye to what was once familiar? How do we exit a year, a relationship, a career, or a journey? How do we want to be in the world and what do we want to take with us into the next phase? There is an integrity and resource in ending consciously before we jump in to the new...

Goodbyes do not need to be 'closings'. They are so much more a blessing to our future when we allow them to be 'completions'. Closure is shutting a door. Completion is when we complete unfinished business, we tie up loose ends, we say what needs to be said, we decide what the resources were in what is now gone, and we consciously bring them with us to color and shape our lives. When we say goodbye to a year, to something or someone, we can take a moment to review the good times, the not-so-good times, the pain, the love, and we honor it all. We take to heart what we feel, we acknowledge what we have learned, and we associate with the gifts within.

This is a time when we have the opportunity to take care of ourselves and be especially compassionate and kind. The loss we feel now can bring up all the other losses we still grieve, so be gentle with yourselves during this year ending. Take some moments to review and appreciate the journey you have taken. Make some notes about what needs to be completed in your heart and out in the world. Honor the feelings you have about what you miss. Let them be acknowledged and pass through your body and out into the air around you. Celebrate your accomplishments. Remember how wonderful it is to feel the gratitude for what you have and love. Sit with it all. Breathe. Turn to those you love and share your thoughts about what you leave behind, what you will bring with you, and who you are right now.

© 2007 Justina Vail Evans. All rights reserved.