As the year draws towards its end it’s naturally time to reflect back on the year that was… and start to look forward to the new year ahead. It’s been a difficult year but one that has again, revealed to us much in our life that doesn’t really support us or enrich our experience on the earth plane. As we enter the countdown to New Year many of us are still holding onto these things that no longer serve us. In order to make the quantum leap into the New Year and the new cycle filled with awakened potential it’s essential to release these. An End Of Year Release Ritual is the perfect way to round off the energetic cycle of this year and make the transition into the next.
Cycle Endings
We live in a world ruled by cycles – night and day, seasons of nature, our yearly path around the Sun. As we pass the Solstice and move onwards, we can choose to acknowledge our place as a part of the Greater Cycles of life and the universe by performing ritual, just as our ancestors did for millennia. How we do this is our choice. We can choose superficial rituals whose effect dissipates in days or weeks, or we can create a meaningful ritual to powerfully support us through the coming year.
Many people start off their New Year by making a list of resolutions. Often, they deal with superficial or vague and poorly defined goals. However, many don’t achieve any of those goals. Some even make the same resolution year after year without achieving it!
Trying to set achievable goals to reach your dreams without first firming up a solid foundation for them, is like building a home over a sinkhole. Without firm footings it will collapse. Therefore, you need to get really clear about where you’re starting out from. Only then will you create the footings you need in place to create achievable goals. This Releasing Ceremony does just that by highlighting both the journey you travelled through the year and the lessons and achievements you encountered along the way.
It has been a confronting year filled with difficult challenges. But while these may have challenged us, they have also provided great opportunities for personal development and spiritual growth. Many of these challenges revisited familiar life lessons. Lessons that repeat over and over, spiralling back upon themselves. Each revisit brings a variation of the core lesson providing the opportunity to reach a deeper awareness of both the lesson and yourself. While the container for these lessons changed this year, it’s important to remember that the individual theme of our personal lessons remains the same, whatever the context.
This is a time of spiralling awareness and deepening consciousness where we are being invited to reclaim our True Selves. So, it is vitally important that we integrate the lessons of this year now in order to move forward unencumbered by them, and completely open to the journey.
Create Your Year End Release Ritual
Before you begin your Releasing Ceremony prepare your space. If you have an altar or sacred space, you normally use to meditate, or journal use that. If not create a special space for this ceremony.
First select a quiet, clear corner. Collect your tools together. You need a pen and paper or a dedicated journal, a pillar candle and matches. Brew a relaxing herbal tea. Close the door behind you and turn off your phone so you won’t be disturbed.
To begin your release ritual take a few deep belly breaths to settle and ground yourself. Once you feel solid and grounded light the candle to mark the start of your ceremony and to open the energies. Spend as long as you need to quietly disconnect from outside cares. Take your awareness to the centre of your chest, the Zero Point of Peace and Power, the connection link to your Highest Self. Focus inward and allow yourself this time and space away from the obligations of your life.
Once you feel calm and centred consider the following questions in relation to your experience of this past year and record your thoughts and insights in your journal or paper.
Acknowledge Your Successes
- List your illuminating insights and great and expansive understandings that occurred.
- What dreams came true for you? It’s important to record any dreams that actually manifested. Dreams, and how dearly you held them, are easy to forget once they come to fruition. Include both large and small dreams as small dreams often evolve into big dreams later, and their fulfillment can often be overlooked.
- Include your achievements, both the very small glories and the big ones. Describe what you learnt. What are you now aware of that you weren’t previously?
Consider Your Growth
- In what ways have you changed? What brought about the change in you?
- What are you now aware of about yourself that you didn’t know before?
- What no longer serves you that you have now outgrown?
- Were you asked to step up in the past year? Was it in a specific area of your life? Have you finally achieved something you have never managed before? Acknowledge your awesomeness and include everything that swells you with pride.
- Have you surprised yourself by achieving something you never dreamed you were capable of?
Release Your Frustrations
- What really jarred with you over the year? Was there anything that caused ongoing disharmony? What can you no longer tolerate at all and can’t wait to ditch? What is it that MUST GO?
- Need to rant? The floor is yours – get it off your chest. Cry if it helps you release, relief will flow into the space it creates. Just Let. It. Go.
Express Your Gratitude
- What gifts have you received this year? How have you grown? What insights do you now have? How has your life moved forward? Include everything, even the smallest gift. Include everything that has made your life better.
Once you have finished writing you are ready to release the current with a huge sigh of relief. You can now face the year ahead with a clean fresh page. You can now open yourself to new opportunities and awareness. You’re ready to identify dreams, clarify goals and make resolutions.
After doing the Year End Releasing Ceremony the first step you need to take will become really clear to you. Take it with purpose.
As Lao Tzu said, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”.
Closing Your Release Ritual
To finish your ritual put your notes aside. Begin by breathing deeply into your belly. Sense golden light flooding into you from above, filling your whole body with its sparkling glow. Breathe in this beautiful vibrant light for a few more breaths.
Taking your focus to your exhale, allow every frustration, disappointment and disharmony of the past year that you’ve been holding in the cells of your body to be carried out on your breath. Repeat this three times or until you feel the negativity shift out of your body. Feel your shoulders drop as the weight you have carried is released. Feel yourself becoming lighter and freer.
Once more breathe deep into your belly, drawing in the Indigo Light of Vision and Perception with your breath. Sense if flow right through you, energising your body and clarifying your mind.
Again, focusing your attention on your exhale, slowly release your breath along with the difficult energy of the past year. Allow it to gently leave your body knowing that it leaves within you all the positive energy, experience and awareness you have gained from the experiences and challenges it offered. Know that the insight and knowledge you gained provide a strength to carry you into the New Year.
Sit with the loving positive energy as long as you need, and when you are ready slowly open your eyes and prepare to welcome in the coming year with joy and anticipation in your new cleansed state.
Disclaimer
All information and opinions presented here are for information purposes only. They are not intended as a substitute for professional advice offered during a consultation with your health care provider. Do not use this article to diagnose a health condition. Speak to your doctor if you think your condition may be serious or before discontinuing any prescribed medication. Please consult with your health care provider before following any of the treatment suggested on this site, particularly if you have an ongoing health issue.