Hello everyone! I’ve been doing some journaling and reflecting on 2025, and it felt right to share this here- Maybe others can relate 🤗

This year asked me to hold so much: financial insecurity, relationship insecurity, family insecurity, job insecurity.

Supporting a partner through long-term unemployment. Losing savings. My stepdad being diagnosed with cancer, during which some deeply painful and unprecedented family interactions unfolded. And at the very end of the year, finding out that the job I desperately need-not just for myself- will likely let me go by this coming March.

Throughout the year, I kept drawing lines in the sand a few months ahead. Each time I thought, I can’t make it to March,or to August. Something is going to break because I cannot keep going. I even offered myself to the universe as a sacrifice:  if you have to- break me, because I cannot continue. In some ways consigning myself to lose my mind and myself. Yet nothing would change. Instead it felt like the universe kept releasing more and more weight onto me, as if it wanted to turn me to dust before it would release me

But somehow, every line in the sand passed.

And I did break, not “through” in a way that made me feel proud every time (there were tears, arguments, exhaustion; I did not feel like myself at all). But each time, I did break more open. Looking back I think I broke several times- yet I held things together for everyone when it mattered, and I also stopped hiding my deepest feelings, from both myself and other people.

Holding it together at such a high level forced me to fight harder for myself and what I want too. Looking back, I intentionally carved out space to fulfill longtime goals: traveling with friends, meeting new people, doing a bucket-list wilderness trek I’ve always dreamed of. I stayed out until 5 a.m. to see one of my favorite artists that no one else wanted to see at 33 years old ( for the record I still don’t think that’s too old to party but for some reason others do) and had the time of my life. As much pain as this year brought, it broke me open to myself.

Yesterday, we got the news that my partner has an offer. It’s under his qualifications, but it will help our situation so much. My brain is still processing it after all this inertia.

So now, if anyone read this far- what does this have to do with M/BODY? 🤣

What sparked this whole post was something Marnie said in the Becoming signature:

“This is not yet resolution. This is the phase of your deepest exhale. After a year of internal alchemy and facing our venom, this is when the snake begins to loosen its grip. You are no longer who you were; you are in the process of becoming.”

It felt like a message from the universe directed personally to me (Marnie’s special gift 💫). After last year, I know I am not who I was. In the end, I got what I asked for when I begged the universe to break something. I asked it to break me, thinking that would end in self destruction- instead I am beaten but still standing taller afterwards (I am lucky to have a good therapist who also deserves some credit)

I don’t yet know fully who is here now, but I feel renewed in my commitment to continue that exploration through 2026.

Thank you all for this space and this community. I so appreciate that everyone here is moving through their own trials and celebrations, in different stages of life, and that M/BODY holds space for it all. If anything, this year taught me that there is nothing without tuning into ourselves first. Being able to hold space for others begins with holding space for yourself.

Happy New Year to you all. And to close, I’m sharing a photo of the most wonderful gift in my life, my dog (who also held my heart all year ❤️ it feels weird to call him a dog because he’s my fairy godmother lol) demonstrating the theme of emergence and becoming for the year ahead