What I’m Releasing as 2025 Ends
I know everyone is talking about what they’re leaving behind in 2025, about it being the year of the snake and all of that. And honestly…true, true, true for me. It was a really freaking hard year. But hard in a different way than years past. Not all of the “hard” was new. And letting go became very necessary.
Life communicates with me through my body. Every yes, every no, every communication, reading a book, watching a show, I feel everything viscerally. A program I’m in once said some people feel their emotions through pain. That hit home. Feeling is my strongest intuitive sense. And when you live in a body that feels everything, it makes sense that chronic health issues eventually followed.
After a virus and a series of high-stress family events more than twenty years ago, my cup didn’t just overflow, it flooded.
I’m a seeker by nature, and all of this sent me on a journey I never saw coming. I honestly don’t know what it feels like to live without pain or discomfort, to eat whatever food I want, to wake up with energy, or to have energy for what people call “normal” life. I know it once existed, but no memory what that is like.
What I know now is that my body was trying to get my attention. Something isn’t right. You’re moving in the wrong direction. Your life isn’t aligned. You’re saying yes when you want to say no. And somewhere along the way, you lost yourself.
That condescending doctor back then who said, “It’s just stress”? Turns out, he wasn’t entirely wrong. Stress DOES create or exacerbate illness. I didn’t know that back then. I focused on the pain, digestive issues, and fatigue, chasing diagnoses and treatments. A virus combined with stress created a cascade of issues that forever changed the direction of my life and the lives of those I love.
And yet, within all of that, I found passion, purpose, beautiful people, teachers, and a world I came to love. I spent decades trying to heal, every protocol under the sun, more money than I had. Much of it became an education in healing and modalities so for that I am beyond grateful. I could be worse, this I know. I’ve created a semblance of a life. But I haven’t really lived. Not fully. Not in years.
I used to think I was saying no because I didn’t want things. But really, I was afraid, afraid of getting worse, of disrupting the delicate balance of the little energy I had. Afraid of food. Afraid of movement. Afraid of life.
Then 2020 ripped the floor out from under me, like it did for so many. Suddenly there was something else to fear, something big, added to the scale. And at the same time, strangely, it did something else too. For the first time in a long time, I couldn’t rely on many of the things I used to keep me “afloat.” But the world slowed down so completely that I didn’t have to keep up with it anymore.
Layer onto that a traumatic work situation, another virus, and a parent with cancer, and my nervous system was done. That was the moment the fear tipped into extreme burnout.
This year, my body couldn’t carry it anymore. Symptoms worsened. Panic attacks increased. The signals got too loud to ignore.
And one day, I woke up and thought: What are you doing? You can’t live like this anymore. You aren’t healing, you’re managing symptoms. Oooof.
It was time to slow down. To find regulation. To choose peace. To stop chasing protocols and start rewiring fear, processing emotion, and saying no when I mean no.
I’ve let go of many things over the years, but at this end of year I am choosing to let go of something I relied on for nearly fifteen years to manage my symptoms. From the outside it may not seem big, but for me, it’s HUGE, the thing that once kept me upright. And I can finally see that real healing means fully addressing the patterns underneath it all, even when that brings physical discomfort. Healing isn’t linear. I’ve always known that. Now it’s time to let that be ok and know I am safe anyways.
I’m scared. AND I’m ready.
This may seem strange, but healing can be scary. When you’ve lived in survival for so long, you don’t actually know what’s on the other side of feeling better. There’s a tenderness in that unknown and a lot of courage too.
I’m choosing radical responsibility for my healing. No more outsourcing. A daily devotion to my practices, to slowness, to letting go. I no longer force healing.
I let what needs to fall, fall.
2026, here I come. Freedom is no longer something I chase. It’s something I choose.
If any part of this feels familiar, maybe you don’t need to fix anything right now. Maybe the invitation is simply to listen, to your body, your pace, your quiet knowing, and see what it’s been asking for.
Namasté