Ah!
Welcome to the inbetween!!
That confusing time between Christmas and New Years after the rush of anything but also before the start of the next thing… the space where time (and calories) make no fucking sense whatsoever!
hello! Hi, oh wonderfully confusing time of year.
The inbetween is a space to let go of all rules, to shake up the year that has been, let it all tumble around together, and then scatter it out all around you in a haphazard mess. I wonder what will stick…
So, to recap!!
This past year has been one for wonders.
Truly.
It has been so magnificent, even in its mundane moments, that I struggle a little to convey the magic I feel with it. You know the feeling when we see a truly awesome sunset and it just fills us with breathless wonder?? Yeah… this year felt like that. I looked up from the book I was reading the other day and immediately started to cry. In just the small bit of time I had spent diving head first into a chapter of a fantasy novel, I had forgotten how beautiful the world here is. The one right in front of me. And so I started to cry. It has happened to me before, to be sure… but last time I think I was pregnant and can therefore (understandably) not be an adequate source of what is an acceptable thing to cry over.
This time last year I made myself a promise, I wouldn’t put anything into my mouth in the year ahead without first sharing my gratitude for it. And I am wholeheartedly convinced that this one small practice has changed everything for me. Everything.
…And I also started the year with devoting time every day to give my husband a blow job.
I know it sounds totally absurd. And a lot of people questioned not only why I would do that… but also why I felt the need to share it… and now, the best answer I can give is….. it seemed like a good idea at the time!
Which is usually a phrase I reserve for things I wish I hadn’t done… but that’s not the case here! I’m glad I started the year this way. I’m delighted I listened to my own intuition and followed through. The practice gave my husband and I both invaluable lessons that we possibly would have never figured out any other way.
I learned how much control of self it takes to be a person devoted to my own pleasure, and having the external catalyst of something like this helped me really prioritise my own sense of peace. It took all of my devotion to my self so that I had enough energy and desire to devote energy to him - without just creating resentment between us.
And for his part, he learned just how challenging it was to receive that much devotion while battling the feelings that he had to do something to earn it.
We both learned a lot. I can’t imagine doing it again right now, but maybe one day I will feel called to again!
And one important note I like to bring up whenever I talk about this: the current of energy in our relationship was already going more from him » me, so this practice helped reroute it. Yes, we are non-monogamous, but my husband is mildly obsessed with me. He loves my smell, how I look, my taste and my pleasure. He is devoted to me and our family, and that is not lessened in the slightest by the little factor of where our (mutually agreed upon and respected) boundaries lie. (…Just setting the record straight for anyone who hears “non-monogamous” and imagines any form of relationship that is not based on mutual devotion and trust.)
Back to 2024!!
I very nearly did it too, you know! I very nearly poured my gratitude into every piece of food that I put into my mouth. The first half of the year I was going super strongly. I would close my eyes at the beginning of every meal time, and hover my hands over my plate of food and whisper just how many things I was grateful for.
“I’m grateful for the farmers who grew this wheat and fruit and each individual vegetable. I’m grateful for the designer who created the packaging so I chose this specific brand of sauce… the shop clerk who sold it to me… to mother nature for helping to grow it… I’m grateful to my body for absorbing these nutrients….”
And the list goes on.
My husband and kids started joining in. Our youngest, in her own adorable twist, would walk around the table hovering her hands over everyones heads in turn, pouring her own gratitude into what she was grateful for. And I swear to you, even with my eyes closed, I could feel her energy in the crown of my head!! How cool.
And you know what else I felt? Eventually, with every meal time, I would feel the warmth of gratitude well up in my system. There is a muscle here, and I was exercising it. And as this muscle got stronger and stronger, the length of time it took for the gratitude to well up within me grew shorter and shorter. By mid-way through the year three simple breaths created the same feeling, and now all I have to do is close my eyes for a simple millisecond and it is hovering just there. It is a physical sensation I can tap into whenever I need it now.
I am convinced this lead to every good and wondrous thing that happened for me this year. It’s as if, by focusing on gratitude, I have the universe a map to follow on how to bring me more bliss.
2024 highlights
✨ finished writing my book
✨ flipping PUBLISHED my book!!!!
✨ planned and executed a launch party for my book - the largest event I had ever coordinated 100% on my own
✨ solo parented for at least 2 months of the year… if not more.
✨ travelled with a girlfriend in Bali and had the most ridiculous spiritual pilgrimage of all time
✨ felt all of my ancestors pain melt away from me, leaving me with a pair of angel-like wings on my back that I could actually feel
✨ discovered my brand new love: kundalini yoga
✨ have spent over 9,000 minutes meditating (and that’s only the ones counted by insight timer! Likely that number should be doubled)
✨ took our kids skiing for the first time - they loved it and it was SO GREAT to see them love it!!!
✨ had a lot of fun creating a new series called THE DESIRE HOTLINE on insta
✨ …then followed my intuitive guidance and decided to give up insta and social media for a year
✨ had a soul-session with two of my mentors that reconnected me with part of my soul I have been missing for a long, long time. Healed across multiple timelines, tapped into a level of seriousness and depth I have never before accessed, and spent the better part of three weeks in bed integrating. (Honestly, this was just a month ago and I am still most definitely integrating this part! But this is still a highlight of the year, to be sure.)
✨ hosted a Tantra workshop at a wellness festival (more of this please!!)
✨ felt a distinct sense of a new consciousness level DROP into my being… holy shit I think I’m a prophet! To me, this level of awareness connects me to the part of me interested in boldly sharing her Truth.
✨ spent a whole month in Bali with our kids after coming up with an absurd idea…. maybe we could live there next year…?
✨ came home, launched into three more weeks of solo-parenting, welcomed Husband home from India, followed by my parents from the States for a 5-week visit the very next day, found someone to rent our house next year because… we’re going back to Bali!!!
So thank you, darling soul, for joining me on this wild ride of a year. I am grateful for you, grateful for this space to share, and grateful for the truth that continues to find me.
I cannot promise that next year will be any less eventful or potentially absurd-sounding for us to experience together… best I can do is continue to offer you my truth.
It’s all I have. It is the path I am following and the destination that calls me forward.
And I can’t wait to see what unfolds.
Happy Inbetween. Hope you enjoy shaking up the pieces of your life and simply showing up with curiosity to see what sticks for the year ahead.
xx Cara