So, we’re back to work, school drop offs, getting our lives in some kind of routine, and setting new resolutions and targets for the year. Hectic! I knew it would happen, but I didn’t anticipate it kind of happening so fast.

Though I do feel much better about the start of this new year this time around. I think it could be because last year I was at a place where God and I were in a teen and parent relationship. Boy did I challenge that parent of mine! And boy did my Father rise to each occasion, each question and debate (yeah, I debate with God a lot) and show me why He is my Father. This year I move with so much more boldness and so much more intention and a lot less fear.

This year’s theme on Art of Superwoman is ‘Grow Where You Are Planted’. I have asked my team to chew on this and think about what it means to them. Share with me in the comments what it means to you.

That said, I have a word to share with the AoS community as we prepare for a rather beautiful and magical year ahead. As we were planning 2022, Spirit said “go on ahead, the universe will conspire in your favour, so I pass that on to you as well. The universe is in your favour.

Let Spirit Lead You

Allow the energies you feel to flow through you and trust them. You are beautifully made, body, mind, and spirit. Trust these various parts of you.

In Steve Biddulph’s book Fully Human: A New Way of Using Your Mind, he talks about the Super sense; you know when your child is bothered by something, not by them expressing verbally but the body language. We know when someone close to us is lying to us or when a business deal feels wrong. Clarissa Pinkola Estés talks about it as the wild woman in all of us. That feminine power that just knows when something is off or even understands when happiness is true happiness. “This signalling system”, as Biddulph explains, “came long before humans had words.”

The super sense is visceral and not verbal. It’s that feeling in your stomach, the urge to clench your jaw, the tensing in your shoulder muscles, the curling in your intestines or the tightening of your genital area… It is throughout your body, that gut feeling.

Biddulph goes on to say, “If you want to find your ‘gut feeling’, just send your attention out into your body, especially down the midline – your heart, your digestive tract.

Which brings me to the next part of this message, normalise feeling healthy and feeling in balance. Feel fully. Your body will signal to you when something isn’t okay. It is important that you feel. Numbness is dangerous because the super sense never stops. Check in with yourself regularly. Lie down on your bed and bod body check ins – go from your toes all the way through your body taking your time to check in with each part of your body and asking it “how do you feel?”. Fast often – to get in flow and feel your body fully you need to also not have problems in your gut or blockages in your pathways. Remember food is fuel not therapy. If you find you are unable to tap into and access how you feel, please get help. Please see a therapist.

Stop Playing Small, You’re Not Doing Anyone a Favour

In Alicia Key’s biography, More Myself: A Journey, she talks about not asking for exactly what she wanted but accepting the minimum for a long time and earlier in the book she touches on something deeply spiritual, money.

Let’s unpack this conversation:

‘We shift ourselves not in sweeping pivots, but in movements so tiny that they are hardly perceptible, even in our own views. Years can pass before we finally discover that, after handing over our power piece by piece, we no longer even look like ourselves.’ – Alicia Keys, More Myself.

The journey of not trusting your gut, stems from long durations of not trusting yourself, because you’ve allowed yourself to be taken from one piece at a time, and boundaries to be crossed one at a time, until there’s nothing left for you.

I challenge you now to maintain an awareness of your worthiness and your value. You add value. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t, I promise.

Alicia Keys goes on to say, ‘But you don’t cross over into the Land of Self-Worth and just become a permanent resident. You must keep your passport current. You have to work to preserve your status.’

It is time in Twenty Twenty YOU to stop playing small. Some part of you right now is still playing small because you believe that’s what you deserve. That’s the energy you are serving in your father’s world. You’re not doing anyone a favour. Let me tell you, respecting and honouring yourself is so damn contagious (excuse my language – I just had to land this point).

Money Is An Energy Exchange

Now on money, this year we are getting not only financially savvy, but we will be putting the financially savviness into practice. And we need the money to do so right, right? Right!

So, it means we need to change our mindsets about money. When you get money, understand that you are part of a river and money flows through you. You are temporary passage, and it will always flow through you. You need to hold that thought and energy about yourself. The money you earn is not your last, but that doesn’t mean you should be reckless, protect your energy and where your energy flows. Money is an energy exchange.

You have given to your hands; mind and you have used your skills (energy) in exchange for money (energy).

Now, do you want that energy to dissipate into thin air? No, of course not. If you don’t believe you deserve that energy, you squander it.

Start thinking like a breadwinner and start making better money decisions this year.

The Power of Forgiveness

Another great teaching from More Myself is the power of forgiveness and forgiveness opening doors of opportunity to new versions of relationships that are perhaps not how we grow up picturing them. It is easy to create narratives about those that have disappointed us. But don’t allow anger to corrode you inside. The other person continues with their lives and here you are full of anger and resentment. Anger and unforgiveness is heavy and that energy shows, you get what you project into the world. If your energy is not of love and forgiveness, you start projecting that until you heal it.

In some of our forgiveness stories, there is no happy ending, and that’s perfectly okay. Some of our stories require us to “intentionally walk through the open doorways.” Sometimes it’s the end of the old and a start of new on a different perspective, other times it’s the end and you must acknowledge some relationships and situations for what they were. There are no coincidences in life. Some people are there to show us that we have unfinished emotional business to take care of within ourselves. This year, it’s time to do the work. It’s time to be fully vulnerable to God. It is time to posture up for Him and align ourselves spiritually and then watch the universe work in your favour.

We must understand that God’s work in creation (Genesis 1) was patient. I genuinely believe God could have created heaven and earth in one day and been like “it is good”.

But God took his time. God’s work is patient, it is meticulous, it is paced, it is timeous.

Just as the seasons roll into the next and the water touches the shorelines, God puts no foot wrong in His creation. As He puts us on this earth, that too was no mistake. He gives us each a mandate. A purpose, a divine instruction – to cultivate, to be fruitful. He didn’t say it would be easy. But we are here to fill up and govern. He has given us enough to get going and to cultivate.

You Owe Yourself Authentic Connection In Your Marriages and Relationships

Now in our marriages and relationships, I’d like us draw our focus to Genesis 2:25 as we start the year. In Twenty Twenty YOU, there’s a huge call on us to be intimate with our partners, no not sexually (but yes sexually too), but beyond the physical nakedness, we need to be vulnerable, honest, sincere, and open. These are the things that make relationships authentic and pure. No shame – just honesty and nakedness. And this needs to be done with love in mind. We need to heal the part of us that could potentially be a projection and give room for each other in doing this.

As mentioned above, it is okay to let go. It is also okay to realise that you have been living under the idea that the next person’s ‘perfect’ or ‘ideal’ should be what yours looks like. Embrace the open door – step into your own.

Listen to Your God-nudge

And lastly, when you have a God nudge to do something, it is okay to tell those you trust.

It is good to have counsel. But when you feel a God nudge, you just know! You just know!! Outside input and affirmation that you are on the right path is great and feedback is amazing. But when God has Yessed something, do it!

Oprah calls this the “resounding yes”. Practice again trusting God’s voice and hearing that resounding yes, you will start moving in spaces and claiming your place more beautifully and authentically.

So, as you move this year remember these things as they show up in your spaces, in your career, in your homes. Let God and His universe give you power in your earthly weakness. Submit your strength to the strongest One, and you too most certainly will be strong.

Happy YOU Year!

Resources to read/listen/consider for 2022:

1. Stephen Biddulph – Fully Human: A New Way of Using Your Mind
2. Alicia Keys – More Myself: A Journey
3. The Bible, of course (I love the New Living Translation)
4. The Sit Down Podcast
5. Journaling Every Morning
6. Eating Better For The Whole Family
7. Relationships

Let me know below what resources you would recommend for this year.