This time a year ago, I’d just spent the weekend in a room full of beautiful women, intentionally setting up a container for the year ahead. I finally got to hug some of my dear Origin Collective community in person. I got handed my #dolessplanner in person. Heavy—literally and also with its invitation for what it would give me in the year ahead. Full of gold highlights.

I’d made the decision for a somewhat whirlwind trip to New York City quite late, after my partner and I had had a particularly full end to the year before. We need a break—but not just any break. We needed a soul break.

And I knew being in that Kripalu Center room, in community, with women who desired what I did was just the tonic that would refuel me for the year ahead.

What surprised me most at the time was that my energy was so inner. When usually plans and visions would pour out of me with full force and I’d cover a full poster board with colours and circles and all sorts of dreams, instead, this time I sat staring at a blank page.

At first I got agitated with myself. Why fly across countries to be in a room dedicated to planning my year ahead if all I was going to do was sit and stare?

But then it dawned on—after years of letting go of my need to please, of my pattern of busyness, and of needing to be “on” all the time, I knew better. After years of integrating Kate’s teachings and the “Origin way” I knew that the silence, the blank page, the staring was all part of my cyclical process.

I needed the blank page.

I needed it desperately for 2020.

I remember sharing with the room my experience. Of sharing how what I think I most needed to “plan” was actually, quite simply, nothing.

How it felt a little silly coming out of mouth, and yet it also felt so true. So necessary. So embedded in my heart. I know that the year ahead was my year for spaciousness. And what I most needed to make that happen was to surrender.

So I did. I surrendered to the planning process. To being present to what my body and soul needed in that moment. I listened deeply. My “plans” for 2020 rapidly became to trust.

And this was all pre-pandemic. Pre March 2020. Pre all the changes, adjustment, challenging conversations, joyful moments, and all that last year brought.

I could never have gotten to that place of surrender without that planning process. And that room full of women, held by my dear mentor Kate Northrup and community manager TaKisha August.

So much magic has unfolded for me over the past 12 months. And its required deep trust, deep surrender, acceptance of deep joy too—amidst all the heartache, tears, confusion, and pits in my stomach.

I know that the more I deepen into my joy, my place of knowing, I also deepen into my grief, my ability to feel all of it. And while that may sound a little “scary” or at odds to begin with, it’s actually precisely what I want in my life.

All. Of. It.

I know it feels tough and exhausting at times right now. And I know you’ll be tempted to push it all away. That deep feeling work. That surrender.

My hope is that your intentions for this year will come from a place of allowing. From a place of knowing you are worthy of your joy. Of seeding from within your heart first, before being washed away by what’s outside of you.

I don’t believe in New Year resolutions, or goal-setting at this time of year. But I do believe in containers—sacred ones that set you up for a year of joy, and ground you in trusting yourself to lead the way.