Happy New Year
Hello loves,
Happy new year!!
First, this is a more personal letter than usual - and I feel this is one of the ways I’ll be using this medium this year. To share my deepest and most personal. Someone recently told me of my writing that I put words to how life feels - I loved that so much. Intimacy is one of my deepest desires, in all relationships. I want the deepest and truest parts of me to touch the deepest and truest parts of you.
I’ll also be sharing occasional essays - I have one in the workings about the difference between Power over; Power with and Power and why I’m only interested in the latter - it’s pretty spicy!
If you’re mainly here for my take on politics-y things, I recently did an Instagram live on Harry, Meghan and the Royal Family which you can WATCH HERE.
But now for the personal.
2022 was a year of death for me. Friendships fell away. Parts of my business that were no longer true just started breaking. My family moved from London to Ibiza, which is so far proving to be one of the best decisions of our lives. And I dropped down to an even deeper layer of grief missing my sister. “They” say year 2 is the hardest, they are right.
The thing about death though is it is always preceded and followed by new birth. Winter into spring. Reincarnate. When everything that is dead gets stripped away, we are left with a crystal clear skeleton, one that feels so bare but also so open to being filled up with life.
For the last few years a word has emerged as the energy that will hold my year, the thing I am to be devoted to. I don’t choose it, it just appears. As you can deduce, last year was DEATH (definitely wouldn’t have been my choice! But it was just what was true). This year it came as clear as day - CREATION.
This year I am calling in creation in all places. I started DJ’ing again, I’m going to learn the guitar. I want to create magical experiences for Ocean. And create romantic experiences with Jack. And more fun filled experiences with my friends. I want to write more. Create new life changing programmes and experiences for my students and followers. Mostly I am feeling the call to shift my energy from consumer to creator. And in this to be a living practice of my belief that the path to a better world will come less from fixing what is broken and more from creating what is beautiful.
I’d love to know if there’s a word coming through for you for 2023. Email me back and let me know.
For me one of the greatest things that is in creation for me right now is community. I love community. I still think of my days at university as the best in my life, living with my friends, out together every day and night, in constant connection. I’m so grateful to have had that experience but as we all grew older, chose different life paths, evolved to different versions of ourselves and moved to different corners of London or the world, this tight knit community naturally fell away. And the last few years even though my dearest and best friends who I love more than anything are in London, the energetics and size of the city meant that most of the time in London I felt lonely.
With our move to Ibiza - the reentry of community has been one of the most divine things. My 35th birthday was last week and we spent the afternoon on the beach with our Ibiza community - sun shining, disco playing, naked swimming, babies running around, me drinking champagne from the bottle (oi oi).
It was the most beautiful day, and a few times in the day people asked me “how are you?” And the response that came was so clear. I kept saying “I’m really happy”. And it was funny, because I’m sure I’ve said that over the past 2 years. And it’s not that it’s been untrue. More that it’s been incomplete.
But here in these last few weeks, I’ve just felt..really happy.
And I’ve been in spiritual practice long enough to know that just like when I’m feeling low, this too shall pass. There will be dark times again. And then light times. And then dark times. All the way to the end.
But in those moments, where we just feel.. really happy. I think we get to let them be what they are - just amazing. So many people messaged me to say they felt me in a way they haven’t for a long time. I think that’s true. And I feel me too.
So from me to you.
May you have happiness this year. Perhaps you’re destined to have a year full of happiness. Or maybe this is a year of death for you (good luck - holding you!). But there will inevitably be a few small moments of happiness along the way. And my wish for you is that you let yourself have them. Fully.
I love you,
Holiday
PS: I also want to share that I will be a featured speaker again this year at The Power of Mediation summit starting tomorrow.
This is an incredible and FREE summit features an esteemed group of dharma teachers, meditators, and mystics (including me!) who offer deep reflections about how they’re holding space for themselves and others in these volatile times. We’ll share ideas and techniques for staying in compassionate presence with yourself and others as the world we’re all a part of evolves.
The summit runs from tomorrow (Tuesday 17th Jan) until Monday 23rd Jan and you can watch all interviews for free until it ends.
