F*@k New Year's Resolutions

I'm trying something that's feeling kinda baller, tbh.

I visited Hatshepsut’s tomb in December. She is the second historically confirmed female Pharaoh of Egypt. Felt relevant since I’m sitting with the ideas of strength and courage right now. 💪🏼

Hey,

Ever the contrarian, I’m feeling quite the opposite of the New Year, New You vibe of the moment. Perhaps it was my dance with Covid last week. It was kind of deep. I will try to speak to my unspeakable experience. I won’t lie: It was hard. Despite my vax status, I didn’t experience it as “a little cold.” It felt more like a medicine journey…an internal vision quest, of sorts: A deeply uncomfortable physical experience that when surrendered to was accompanied by a dreamlike trance, in and out of wakefulness, filled with imaginal experiences and messages. And perhaps the most challenging part of it was that after all the tough physical and spiritual journeying, I was left only with questions. No answers. Questions about life. My life. The future. My future.

I am sitting with those questions now.

I’m letting the uncertainty sit without being wrestled into an answer. I realize that so many of my resolutions of years past were put in place to avoid this very feeling of disquiet. Of fear. It’s as though I would tell myself, “You’ll get it together, Atoosa!” But what I talked about last week is building strength within me despite my physical weakness. My commitment to allowing myself to feel uncertainty. Vulnerability. I will not try to define what is (for now, at least) undefinable so that I can pretend, “Everything is GREAT!”

Because everything IS great. It’s exactly as it should be. No need to hide behind a resolution or a promise of a happy ending. What I’m starting to understand is that the greatest show of strength is vulnerability. The greatest show of courage is when we feel fine showing the world our soft belly. Right now, while the rest of the world makes declarations about their future food choices and the power of their relational boundaries (starting…tomorrow🤩!), I’m going to hibernate a bit. I want to sit with my uncertainty. I want to keep practicing holding the uncomfortable feeling in my body. I don’t want to think about writing this letter. I don’t want to think about social media. I don’t want to be present with anything other than my own exposed soft belly. I want to take my sweet time practicing vulnerability without any pressure to perform or conform. I want to listen to my body’s wisdom. My soul’s wisdom. I suspect my greatest strength and power lies on the other side of this quiet, gentle, self-loving practice. Or, not. TBD. 🤪

I’m leaning into what the great poet, David Whyte, calls The Winter of Listening. You can read the poem here and know just where I’m at and see if you may be in this zone, too. It just may be too soon for resolutions, my sister. Whyte says that “within this poem is an ancient intuitive understanding of winter as a time to leave things alone, to let things remain hidden, even to themselves. A time when to name anything would be to give it the wrong name, most especially refusing to name ourselves, a radical sense of letting ourselves alone, without even the most subtle, internal self-bullying or coercion.” In other words, vis-a-vis resolutions: Don’t believe the hype, it’s a sequel. 😉

I may not write next week. And still, I may. Please know that when I learn something there is no one I want to share it with more than you, dear Reader. But I am being called into the classroom for now. Weekly letter or no letter, you know where I am, 24/7, as always at atoosa@atoosa.com. I will always have access to my emails.

xo, atoosa

Soundtrack of my 🤍🖤❤️ :