As the year comes towards the end, I yet again become aware of how seldom we hold rituals of closure.
When we were more in contact with nature, it was common to celebrate the beginning of each season or the end of a period like harvesting with a ritual – usually of gratitude. Now, we just seem to drift from one year to another, without putting definition into the passing of time. No wonder we comment that life seems to be passing us by.
What I believe we need to do is to allow ourselves to stop and reflect before moving on. This enables us to feel the appreciation of what we have and what has been before so that we are up to date (so to speak) emotionally, and therefore in much better shape to appreciate what the new period has to offer. What better time than right now (or sometime before the end of the year) to mark the passing of this year?
Year ends are not all about having the Company Christmas party and the family around for a meal on Christmas Day or the frantic gift purchasing and exchanging that so can fill our year end lives. Nor is it all about catching up with friends over drinks or writing the obligatory Christmas Cards. These can be important but imagine how much more meaningful they would be if you were in touch with what those relationships really meant to you. What if you were feeling gratitude and appreciation when you wrote to a friend to wish them well for the New Year.
The end of the year can be so much more than mindless busyness, if you allow it to be. It is the perfect time for reflecting on how we are in our lives, who and what we have in our lives that works for us and even what or who we have around us that we no longer need to carry forward with us into our futures.
The ritual of closure at a year end is about filtering out the wisdom of what you have learned from your experiences this year and savouring them to take them forward with you for the next year.
Allow yourself the time to feel the gratitude for all things that have contributed positively to your life, whilst becoming aware that you have choice about what you will be allowing to continue in your life that is not enhancing or bringing value to you.
I call this closure of the year ritual ‘The Point of Choice’ because it is right now, right here, that you can create choices that can affect the rest of your life!
I have been asked to, and will be facilitating, a number of ceremonies this year end to help people appreciate what they have in their lives already and help them let go of what is not working for them before envisioning what they want for the next year. Some of these will be in the form of workshops and others will be based on doing an experiential meditation ritual. I also work one on one with individuals if they feel that they need a private space to process what this sort of ritual can awaken.
