Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Post #3312: January field notes
This post is the text from the Gabriola Island Field School email I sent out for the month of January. In the Field School year we started in March, and will end on the Spring Equinox.
As this week unfolds, I’ve been noticing that I’m not quite ready to return to the world post-holidays.
Not in a dramatic sense, of course. Nothing is wrong beyond the lingering cold and cough I picked up from my father-in-law. But I’m just not enjoying the increase in pace of the last few days. The calendar has flipped. I have early-new-year commitments. I spent this morning dealing with emails and banking. On Monday, my work routine will firmly reassert itself.
And I just don’t want to.
You know? I don’t want to give up the later mornings curled up in bed reading. I don’t want to force myself back into meetings and deadlines. I don’t want to give up the flexibility of my days to a full-time schedule again.
Part of what’s contributing to this feeling is very practical: January is already over-scheduled, even though I intended it to be a month of rest practice. Looking at what I’ve signed myself up for, I can see a mismatch between my actual intentions for this new year and the commitments I’m carrying forward. What I thought I was stepping into, and what I’ve arranged for myself, aren’t quite the same thing.
Last year, my guiding intention was to say yes more often—to stretch myself and take up more space as an organizer, facilitator, and visible participant in the work I care about. That “yes” year asked me to move outward toward people, projects, responsibilities, and leadership. In many ways, it was exactly the right thing at the right time. Beginning HRT, and the confidence boost that came with it, gave me greater capacity to explore my edges, my willingness to be seen, and my hands-on skills with people. It was a year of workshops and gatherings, of leading projects both in community and in my workplace.
But heading into this year—one that is likely to include retirement and a rethinking of what work means for me—things feel quite different. What I’m longing for now is something less overt and more inward: a shift in attention. I find myself returning to a regular meditation practice, seeking more spaciousness in my days, and trying to create room for emergence as I orient towards a new branch on my path.
And yet here I am, still moving as if last year’s intentions are the ones that apply. Still saying yes from a familiar place. Still operating out of habit-self, rather than pausing to examine my current time, energy, and headspace.
I suspect I’m not alone in this.
Do you notice this in your own life? That lag between the person you used to be and the one you’re becoming? How easy it is to keep acting out of muscle memory, even after a conscious decision to shift? Sometimes it takes longer than we expect for our outer commitments to catch up with our inner needs—for our lives to realign with who we are now.
This isn’t the first time I’ve encountered this kind of mismatch, and I’m fortunate to have developed tools that help me notice when it happens. Mindful practice. Regular forward planning. Working with my inner beings to renegotiate what my core self is allowed to become (therapy-speak for reconciling and integrating one’s needs).
For me, this feels like a very January practice. noticing and asking the questions:
What wants my attention now?
What no longer fits?
What do I choose to release in order to let new things emerge?
This month’s reflection is more personal and less overtly “Field School” than usual, though it may be entirely in keeping with the slowly returning light after the solstice. I hope you receive it as an invitation: to turn toward the version of yourself that is still catching up, and to ask what you need to carry into this new year to help that self come into being.
One Comment on “Post #3312: January field notes”
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Red Cedar 
“How easy it is to keep acting out of muscle memory, even after a conscious decision to shift? Sometimes it takes longer than we expect for our outer commitments to catch up with our inner needs—for our lives to realign with who we are now.” Oh I so much empathise! But like you, I have developed a practice over time that helps me recognise the ego / right brain domination, how to stay stop, take a deep breath or two and get back on track.