image: January’s image for the Yoga Wheel of the Year calendar

All the very best to you and yours on this, the start of a whole new calendar year! How does it find you?

I am in recovery from a nasty virus that visited just after Boxing Day. It was nasty enough to see me in bed for a couple of days. But I’m so very thankful to notice that today has seen a most welcome return of energies.

It’s funny, because on Christmas Eve, I had realised how full up I was with activities. If I hadn’t planned to work, then I was either making visits or keeping busy with domestics. I bet it is something you’re familiar with.

The truth is, I knew it was wearing me out – but on I ploughed, knowing I was all the while being gentle with myself and doing a lot less than I usually would at this time of year!

No surprises then, that my body got sick. It was the only way I’d stop.

So on my first day of the year 2015, I’m asking myself why, with all that I know and teach others, I still continue to push myself to the point of breakdown?

That, even with all of my commitment to self care practice and operating my business in line with my values – not to mention all of the self-awareness I have cultivated over the years, I would be complicit in pushing myself beyond my boundaries and keep piling on the activities?

Sure, when the warning signs made themselves apparent, I made adjustments. But it wasn’t enough!

The biggest struggle I faced in 2014 was to take heed of my own desires, the loudest of which was to create more space and time for Being.

The good news is that a lot of the work I put in which saw me exhaust much of the time I craved means that I have created more space and time in the year ahead.

My desire for this year is to take advantage of that time and go all in.

Some of the stuff I’m planning is a revised journaling practice to incorporate even deeper self inquiry. My journaling this last year or two has seen me skate about the surface of things, if I’m entirely honest, even when I’ve been working on the exercises in Mandala Magic.

I’m tired of skating.

I’m ready for something more: more truthful, more guttural, more everything … I want to penetrate every inch of skin, to carve into flesh and bone, dissolve atoms and see who lurks there in the shade of the public persona.

I’m also dedicating my visual expression to the practice of sacred art. I’ve been trying to think of another word, because sacred is so contradictorily ubiquitous these days, but there’s no other word that fits.

What I know is that I’m done with messing about, wondering what I’ll create next and following whatever prompt comes to my attention.

It’s time to integrate, assimilate, gyrate, hydrate.

I’m not a big sharer, it’s true. This proclamation isn’t a promise to bleed all over you – but when I was musing over the will I choose a word to guide my year? question, I opted for a hashtag instead. For my 2015, I’m making the commitment that

#iamtrulymadlydeeply

What about you? How are you all in for 2015?