What’s done is done, what has passed is gone now and there is no use in harking back with your attention to live in the past. Let it be. What you can and should do is reflect.

Take an honest look at the things that unfolded for you and examine them, because as Socrates put it: “The unexamined life is not worth living…”. There are beings who are unable to examine their own existence and are therefore, due to the lack of this capacity for self-awareness, relieved from this mission. But we are people, equipped with morals, ethics, memory, imagination, past, present and future, as well as all of the potential selves we could be. Only a human being can consciously decide who they are going to be.

So consider this day as a preliminary before a new symbolic era starts as the clocks strike midnight on Dec 31st. If you’re so blessed to grab some time for yourself alone, assess the year we’re about to leave in the rear view mirror. Don’t just think about it, feel about it. Step into the clearing of unresolved issues, emotions and situations and make your peace to get out of your own way. Apologize for what you’ve done wrong, forgive the wrong that has been done to your either on purpose or by pure unfairness, release the worries and fears, open the fist around the things you’re clutching so hard that your fingers are turning blue, say thank you for the beauty that’s been plentiful, even when you could not see it all the time. Do all this alone or extend your gratitude and apologies to those who need to hear it for real. Clear the way so you don’t drag the old issues into a new year and not to make it a copy of this past one. Decide what stays and set disciplines in place to substitute that which needs to be let go of. Extract wisdom from all you’ve been through, the lessons that might have been unexpected silver linings in bad times and the good that came as softness amidst the fights. There are far more things out there than the narrow spectrum of experiences we’ve had so far and in the eyes of the universe we’re all just children, learning all the time. The trials, softness, challenge and opportunity will present themselves through the next year as well but from the clearing you can move onto the next more complex ones and abstain from the frustrating loop of the same.

Find the clearing, it’s an emotional place. You’ll know when you find it. There will be peace with what is. No delusions, expectations which need to force to force reality to abide by their entitled demands, no resentment, no panic, no feelings of being overwhelmed, just you, the clearing and abundance in the opened spaces of possibility. Work from there; make your decisions from that place. Find the clearing.