What this year taught me

Some years don’t ask for plans or new goals. They ask you to pause. To notice what has shifted, without having been able to foresee it beforehand. This was such a year for me.

Not because everything turned out differently than expected (although that was also true), but because life showed me, in several ways at once, that it cannot be predicted. That you can build, learn, create and at the same time be confronted with events that cast everything in a different light.

What this year taught me most of all is that growth doesn’t always come from adding more.

Sometimes it comes from stripping back. From discerning. From staying close to what is truly yours.

I learned who my real friends and valuable connections are.

Not the people it’s easy with when everything flows, but those who stay when things get uncomfortable. Who don’t immediately try to fix things. Who make room for silence. My circle became smaller, but sturdier. Less wide, more true.

I learned that life cannot be planned.

That you can study, work, build something new — and at the same time be confronted with whatever presents itself, regardless of your agenda. It made me more humble. Less focused on control. More willing to move along with what is, even when I don’t understand it.

I learned to recognize my own boundary.

Not as a concept, but very concretely. In my body. In my energy. In the moment I felt: this is enough. Boundaries turned out not to be a limitation, but a form of care.

I healed a piece of old pain.

The old feeling of not being seen. Of not having a place. It ran deeper than I thought: not only in my mind, but in my system. This year brought situations in which that old pattern was touched, and in which I noticed I could respond differently. Not by pushing harder, but by staying where I was. By taking myself seriously.

I learned again about the balance between thinking and feeling.

Thinking is familiar territory for me: understanding, interpreting, analysing. This year asked for something else. More slowing down. More listening to what presents itself before it finds words. That may have made me less sharp on the outside, but more honest on the inside.

I learned to let my son go a little further.

His first steps into a bigger world, with his own place, his own rhythm, his own experiences. It required trust. And it showed me that letting go doesn’t mean disappearing, it means staying present without holding on.

And I learned to let my father go.

That is not a finished process. It unfolds in layers. In memories. In absence. In the way he can suddenly feel present precisely through his absence. It changed my place within my family. As if the system had to realign itself.

What this year also showed me is how powerful it is to have been standing somewhere for some time.

Six years of building creates depth. Experience. A voice of one’s own. It makes something yours, without needing to guard it.

That gave me peace.

The realization that forms can be recognized, but not the ground from which they emerged. That what is true at its core cannot simply be taken over. And that I don’t need to add anything, only to remain with what I have been carefully building all these years.

What may have touched me most this year is that I have come to stand more firmly in my place within the whole.

Not by becoming harder.

But by becoming milder. By making choices. By carrying less that is not mine.

When I look back, I don’t see “beautiful lessons.”

I see movement. Shifts. Growth that wasn’t always comfortable, but was real.

And perhaps that is what Christmas means to me this year: not finishing, but acknowledging. Not understanding, but allowing. Not looking ahead, but staying for a moment with what is.

For these Christmas days, I wish you what this year taught me: kindness toward yourself, the trust to make choices that are right for you, and the space to not have to hold on to everything.

Wishing you gentle Christmas days, in your own way.

What this year taught me

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