Thanksgiving, specifically positioned where it is in the year and seasons, serves as one of the most powerful times for reflection, closing out the old year with personal and professional success.
As the vibrant colors of fall give way to the quiet of early winter, Thanksgiving arrives at a time of year that naturally calls for introspection and reflection. It’s a period when the yin energy – the calm, cooling, and reflective force in traditional Eastern philosophies – becomes predominant. In the midst of this seasonal shift, Thanksgiving is not just a holiday for gratitude and family gatherings; it's an opportune moment to embrace the deeper, often overlooked, essence of self-reflection and personal growth.
The Thanksgiving holiday weekend in particular is poised right at the perfect time. First, it's one of the few four-day holidays in the annual calendar, making it sort of a mini-retreat in itself. Next, it's close enough to year's end to meaningfully reflect on what you need to clean out and close up based on your year of growth -- and yet far out enough in time from the new year to really DO that proper cleanup, to be ready and renewed to step into the coming year.
The Natural Call for Retreat and Reflection
Historically, the end of the harvest season marked a time for communities to come together, celebrate their hard work, and prepare for the darker winter months ahead. Even in modern times, when the harvest itself is more metaphoric than literal, the shorter days and longer nights naturally draw the human psyche into a more contemplative state. As noted above, this is a time of yin energy, absorbing and nurturing rather than exerting and acting, symbolically linked to the night, the moon, and winter, times and aspects that are quieter, less illuminated, and more inward.
This inclination, as well as the fatigue that may arise from a year of work-life and life-life striving, often finds itself at odds with the traditional expectations of Thanksgiving, which even in the present day is associated with bustling family gatherings, heavy-duty shopping, and elaborate festivities. While acknowledging the joy of family gatherings on Thanksgiving Day and during the holidays, it is essential for your own high-performance, personally and professionally, to put a firm emphasis on honoring your soul's seasonal inner call for solitude and reflection. This wise boundary-keeping and supporting your desire for are crucial for the inner peace and reflection that can create a pause. The pause is essential to make the most of this time in processing your insights from the old year, and preparing for all you want to create in the new.
Creating Your Sanctuary: The Importance of 'A Room of One's Own'
Throughout the year, but especially at this seasonal time, it’s vital for you as a power-holder in your own life to maintain your own personal sanctuary for reflection. This space can be as private or set-apart as you need or desire. It can range from your own side of the table where no one can read what you're journaling, if that works for you, all the way to a private room that is your territory and yours alone. If you have a deeply trusted partner, they may be invited in, but that is entirely up to you. It is essential that it is that it is safe, serene, and disconnected from the usual hustle and bustle.
This personal sanctuary is your safe place to delve into deeper contemplation, without being observed, criticized, energy-corded or joked about by others. Its privacy allows even the most timid, wounded, trampled parts of yourself, or your deepest, most inward, barely-spoken yet intense wishes, to come out and be supported. Here you are free to be your true and wise self: journaling your thoughts, meditating, or simply sitting in silence. As a shamanic practitioner, I also encourage you to journey or start to journey as part of your solitary practice. This holiday is an especially fertile time for insights. Zen meditation, aka sitting zazen, is also an easy and powerful practice that can reconnect you with your deeper insights. (Need more guidance on either of those? I'll link a post when it's ready :) .)
Creating and retreating into a reflective space at this specific time of year, the meditative days between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve, allows you to reconnect with your inner self, free from the external influences and expectations that often sabotage and derail us on our inner paths. With it you can help retrieve and support your deepest soul path and ambitions, evaluate how you did in the year that's ending, and help prepare to bring the new year into being.
Honoring Your Reflective Space as Sacred
Treating your reflective solitude as sacred is critical in making your introspection times fruitful. This means respecting the time and space you’ve set aside for reflection as important, even non-negotiable. Inform your family or housemates, if you have them, about your need for this undisturbed time, emphasizing its significance in your life. Include your request that they respect the act of privacy itself -- that any time you spend, reflecting, journaling, even just sleeping and letting your body take its natural rest, is respected and spoken of respectfully in THEIR words and deeds as well. That means no kidding, no jokes. Wise words only.
To empower your sanctuary as your private place, you might include objects that inspire your tranquility and introspection. Candles, with their flickering firelight, are essential to human consciousness in our relationship with light and ancestral wisdom. Incense is a magnificent favorite of mine, a way to go on scent adventures, and its trails of smoke rising upward are always a timeless image of intentional energy while I journal. Imagery is essential, having within sight those images or items that have deep subliminal meaning in supporting you -- small figures, inspiring pictures, anything that evokes essence for you. Natural elements like stones or plants may be welcome as well. These items serve not just as decorations, but as symbols of your commitment to self-discovery and mental well-being.
Why Reflection Is More Powerful At This Time Of Year
Reflection now, across the Thanksgiving holiday, is a VERY powerful time for thoughts and insights. Thanksgiving is positioned uniquely before the onset of winter and the whirlwind of December holidays. With the year nearly complete, it naturally lends itself to a review of the past months and all you've done or not done. This provides a powerful foundation for preparing yourself for all you wish to create the year to come. Assess your path, acknowledge your growth, and realign with your aspirations now at Thanksgiving, you have enough time and spaciousness to begin to clear out old bad habits, test new ones, and get your ducks in a row, empowering you to meet the new year with clarity, purpose, and power.
So, as you celebrate Thanksgiving, remember that it’s not just a day for gratitude, feasting and family, but also one of the year's most powerful opportunities for personal reflection and growth. By honoring the natural inclination towards solitude and introspection during this season, you open yourself to deeper understanding and renewal that will deeply empower you in the year to come.
This Thanksgiving, embrace the yin energy of the season, and craft joy and meaning in the quiet, reflective moments as much as in the festive ones.
How will you welcome the wisdom of solitude and introspection today as you #healworklife?
Be well,
Katherine
