I HAVE A QUESTION FOR YOU

How does 2026 feel? 

For me, I’m riding with nature (lol), still in rest and hibernation mode. I did very much appreciate everyone being on the same page about closing out 2025 in a quiet and restful way and January feeling like a clean slate for the collective. Feels good. 

I’ve had several themes cross my path that I’ve wanted to send letters about and this morning I realized I have a compilation of questions, really. 

So, the questions I have this morning are… 

WHAT IS YOUR GARDEN LOOKING LIKE? 

My therapist gifted me with another beautiful analogy last week. She said, imagine you are a house and in front of this house (you) there is a garden. You’re either tending to it or you’re not, and you can envision what it looks like if you are not. A mess that is your responsibility. So the first step is to tend to your own garden. 

Then, she told me to imagine having visitors at my house. Are they using the walk path or are they trampling all over my garden? Crushing all my flowers, leaving their loose garbage all over my place. If they are, maybe I need to build some fences that show my visitors where it is acceptable to walk and some signs that give them directions of what not to do in my space. 

This isn’t about flowers or fences, it’s about taking care of ourselves and teaching others how to show up around us by communicating our boundaries clearly. Now, if these people are accustomed to showing up at our house how they always have, that is understandable and you have to decide if these people are worth teaching to move differently with you. If you do and they choose to continue to walk all over your garden after you’ve been clear where your fences are…..well. 

ARE YOU TRULY LETTING GO? 

Another big theme for me, letting go of the past and people in the past. I was thinking that if I still feel deep feelings and I find myself thinking about something, that I am not fully letting go. It would make me frustrated with myself and annoyed that I felt I was actually ‘holding on’. 

Shoutout to therapy, baby. Letting go is a whole ass process that includes all of that feeling and all of that thinking. Letting go does not mean to erase. You don’t erase the past, you don’t erase the existence of a person. That’s just avoidance (whew). Truly healing and coming to terms with the release of something is when you can allow it to be in your awareness and you feel okay, whatever ‘okay’ is for you. You accept it as something that happened. You honestly find gratitude in wherever you are with it. 

Feel the feels. Think the thoughts. Let your ego get stronger with it. It’s all part of the process. And eventually, you’ll feel peaceful about it. And that’s how you know, you’ve truly let something go and have healed from it. 

ARE YOU BEING NOSTALGIC? 

I went to church on NYE and baby, that pastor was in his bag. A few bars that have stuck with me: 

Be honest about what was, hopeful about what will be and grateful for it all. 

Some nostalgia can feel good or it can feel bad. However you slice it, BE TRUTHFUL with yourself. Sometimes we romanticise past situations, sometimes we only focus on the bad. If you are going to go there, just be honest. 

ARE YOU DISAPPOINTED? 

Whew, I’ve been doing a lot of journaling around being disappointed by people. As I’m on my healing journey, I’ve been forcing empathy and grace for people. And yes empathy and yes grace to how people’s trauma and own circumstances can affect how they show up around us. AND, people can also just be flat out disappointing. 

My gem here is to USE the disappointment. Feel it and allow it to teach you something. I know I am. 

WHAT STORY ARE YOU TELLING? 

I’m just going to drop word for word bars from my angel, meditation teacher Sarah Blondin. 

Our experiences can cause tremendous suffering. But it’s not what we go through that is problematic, even if entirely painful. It’s the words we use and the story we tell about it that causes repeated discomfort long after the moments pass. We must cloak a story that serves our body and the life that will live through us. 

You can write poetry of your days, make art of yourself.

Choose a story of: 

This hurts, but I will not remain hurt.

This felt hard, but I will not be hardened. 

I will use my will to tenderize this. 

I am afraid, but I am with my fear, not alone in it. 

Write the story you want to live in. 

WHAT SCENARIO ARE YOU ENVISIONING? 

As the year ramps up, you may naturally have some reflections, thoughts, questions or intentions within yourself. My question to you as you move through your days, are you envisioning the worst case scenario or the best case scenario? I have witnessed what it looks like to deeply want something to go a certain way but drowning in all the ways it could go wrong. Why do we do that? Sometimes it feels safer, sometimes it feels more normal, sometimes it feels like we’re trying to soften a blow if things indeed go left. 

But with the same energy, we can imagine things going right OR at least just be present with what’s actually happening now without getting too far into the future. Nurture your days, hours, minutes and what you can control. 

Moral of the story, half glass full thinking. 

I pray one or more of these questions hit you with a gust of moving energy. To think, to remember, to get motivated, to shift, to feel something you need to feel today. 

Always with the love! 

SHANI