How To Succeed In The Year Of The Sheep

SHIFTING INTO THE POWER AND VULNERABILITY OF "WE"

Happy 2015 and Happy Chinese New Year to you as well!

While I cannot claim to be an expert in Chinese traditions, I am always interested and excited to learn about the meaning of the Chinese new year.  Luckily, my amazing assistant is also a Feng Shui specialist and a Chinese astrologer. She's helped me to understand just how powerful of a year is in store for us if we allow ourselves to dissolve beyond the walls of individuality that we've cherished into a consciousness  of collective harmony. (Click HERE if you are curious about Feng Shui or Astrology.)

This year, the Year of the Sheep, serves as one of our teachers, bathing us in the essence of gentleness, peace and calm.  The sheep energy calls us into the grace of harmony that exists among the collective whole and invites us to consider how we might evolve beyond our individual truth into the power and potential of togetherness. 

Sheep travel in a herd.  Aside from the lone "black sheep", we tend to see sheep huddled together, working collectively to graze, move, live, etc.  Therefore, the sheep energy allows us to nurture one another and to tend to our home, family and community in a way we haven’t experienced in years.  The past three years we lived in horse, snake and dragon energy.  All of these signs are very individualistic, and were powerful, charged and growth oriented, catapulting us forward into the truth and expression of who we uniquely are.  They were rooted in the masculine, yang life force energy. 

This year, in contrast, brings with it a reminder that we need one other.  What good is our individual power and expression if we cannot balance it with our need for vulnerability, tenderness and quiet intimacy?  The sheep represents the profound, transformational power of the feminine, yin life force energy.  It is a time to practice being receptive, to nurture and be nurtured, to be inclusive and trust the greater power of the whole. 

This sounds quite kumbaya, doesn't it?  All of us getting along, loving one another... it's like a Woodstock hippie revival or something.  Well, let me tell it to you straight:  I'm a transformational coach.  EVERY single client and workshop participant that I've ever had was afraid of intimacy on some level.  ALL of us are.  Most people in our society shy away from the power of vulnerability, seeing it as something that needs to be protected, something that makes them susceptible to hurt or danger of some kind.  The sheep is here to guide us into the power of surrender and trust, teaching us that vulnerability is simply a way of being open to deeper connection. 

When was the last time you allowed your heart to break open and ask for support in front of someone else?  When was the last time you allowed your voice to quiver as you shared how you really feel with your closest loved ones or friends?  Have you allowed yourself to melt into the arms of another, not because you are wounded, but because you embody the capacity to receive the purity of their love?  What would it be like to dissolve the walls of facade that you've so carefully built around your precious self?  What would it be like to nurture the deepest parts of yourself in community with others?  What if you allowed your community into your personal experience so deeply that it allowed you all to deepen a bond that was previously superficial?  THIS is the power of the sheep.

Recently, I had an experience with my husband that allowed us to experience a deeper intimacy than we've possibly ever felt together before.  In the midst of a minor argument, where each of us was defending our positions, I allowed myself to be completely vulnerable and to share a substantial fear that I was facing in my life.  In naming my fear and my experience without blame or judgement, I opened to the depths of my vulnerability and asked my husband, who may have been surprised by my outburst of tears, simply to hold me.  In that moment, I chose to take the path of the sheep.  I could have stayed closed off and defended, even in my vulnerability, feeling too stupid or foolish to ask to be held.  I chose instead to drop into the power of "WE"; to lean on him and feel his partnership.  He rose to the occasion so gracefully and held me in such a quiet power.  A new, deeper trust emerged. 

We are being called to dissolve.  It is time to dissolve beyond the power of our individual truth and evolve into a new paradigm that is carried and supported by a larger whole.  We are being called to TRUST.  Trust, trust, trust.  Trust in our partners, trust in our friends, trust in our loved ones, trust in our community, trust in humanity once again.  The sheep invites us to fall back into the arms of the other and to watch in amazement as they actually catch us.  What a stunningly magnificent balance to the part of us who knows how to handle it, who knows how to make it happen and rise to the occasion.  In addition to our strength, we now get to experience our softness and our openness.  In doing so, our softness and openness becomes our new strength. 

So what does it look like for YOU to embrace the power of the sheep this year?  How might you lean on your loved ones more to ask for help?  What does it look like to open yourself to a new level of receiving - receiving love, kindness, abundance, blessings?  How can you open your heart into vulnerability just a little more? 

As we open to consider and trust the needs of the whole, we ironically nourish ourselves.  Our interconnectedness will be our source of power, so it is a good time for partnering up with your cheerleaders - those people who hold you up and believe in you.  If you are someone who likes to control everything and do everything yourself, or if you are a perfectionist, this year will serve as a huge growing edge and opportunity for you.  It's your chance to learn to let go a little bit more, to allow others to participate and to surrender into being instead of doing. 

I invite you to realize just how much actually has your back.  Feel into your back right now as you allow yourself to rest on all that holds you and supports you in this life.  All those people, the earth's gravity, the power of the Divine.  It's all here holding you so you can relax back into it.  Allow yourself to rest on the intervonnectivity that binds us together, the unified whole, a humanity based on love and light. 

Here's to your open heart, your nourished self and the joy of feeling your abundant community.  May you receive and receive and receive. 

Shine On!
Rony

PS - I want to hear from you!  How are you going to soften and open a bit more this year?  What will be powerful for you in that?  Please comment below and I'll respond!  Happy new year!

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