37 Trips Around the Sun

In just a few minutes, I will turn 37 years old. 37 trips around the Sun. 37 years of moment after moment, hour after hour, day after day that add up to a life.

My birthday falls right around the Vernal Equinox. I really feel that energy this year. Old ways loosening their grip. The emerging of something new.

But, before we emerge into the new, it is worth reflecting on the old.

What has happened to me this year?

This year, more than any other, I have found myself stepping into a more grounded, more mature, more rooted version of myself.

The version that chooses to hold a ceremony to finally honor her father’s passing instead of flying off to Brazil.

The version that leaves a clear career path in pursuit of carving her own.

The version that chooses to stay in a relationship even though it requires vulnerable conversations and an honest look at my own ways.

The version that chooses to do the harder thing, the thing that requires more work; the version that knows that that which lasts also requires effort and commitment, not just pleasure (though that too).

I am grateful to this version of me. She feels older, yes, but also more sturdy. Wiser. I trust her more.

Another thing that has happened to me this year more than any other is the finding of my people.

For most of my life, I felt that I did not belong. I always felt strange, weird, different, too much.

It turns out, I am kind of different…and in that I am not alone.

I learned that I am Highly Sensitive. Somehow you can have a Ph.D. in psychology and never learn that 20% of the population have a more sensitive central nervous system and process sensory, social, emotional, and cognitive stimuli on a deeper level.

I found out that there are other women who feel an inner pull to dance barefoot, whisper to the trees, talk to the moon, play in rain puddles, and cry for the pain and the beauty of this world; women who are also remembering sacred, ancestral, forgotten, forbidden ways, who are also yearning to reconnect and reclaim the Power of the Feminine.

I discovered that I am not alone in rediscovering my own connection to body, heart, and soul. It turns out that there are many other people all over the world who are also feeling this unraveling, who are watching the old version of themselves fall away, painfully, and feeling their way towards living not from our heads and our conditioning but from body wisdom and soul.

Within all these people, I found that there are those that also see the connection between personal healing and collective liberation; those that are rooted in critical consciousness, the dismantling of all systems of oppression, and the raising up of all people, especially those whose voices and lives have been devalued and dehumanized.

There are those that are dreaming, conspiring, and co-creating a more inclusive, more equitable, and more beautiful world.

I do not know where this journey will take me next, or what this year will bring, but I now know that I am not walking alone, and that is a bigger gift that I can say.

I may not know every step, but I am committed to walking this path, the path that feels harder but more true…the path that feels scary and exciting and everything in between.

Here is to another trip around the Sun, another year of learning and growing through the ups, the downs, the connections, the adventures, and always through love.

<3

Irena