Embracing fire in freeze mode

I feel an immense energy around this new year 2026.

A year of drive, of courage and fire. A year of movement. I’m tired of being frozen. The ice is melting off. Or at least I’m learning how to thaw.

I think I’ve lived a lot of my life with a frozen nervous system. I’ve been in freeze mode for years. It’s dictated a lot of my choices, and a lot of my circumstances. It’s probably contributed to my heightened perfectionism, too. I want to feel more free, I want my internal world of expression to match how I exist externally.

I pulled a Tarot card earlier this week. She is dancing with the bees, and singing with the trees. She is blossoming like a flower. Soon, she will bloom.

The card’s keyword was expression. Element: Fire. Life speaks to you through a card, sometimes.

When this card appears to you, it is time to show yourself. The days of dimming your light are over. Own your spotlight and do not fear being seen.

As you allow your light to shine brighter and brighter, life will become lighter and lighter.

Do you ever wonder, if you feel stuck or unable to move, if life feels difficult, that perhaps it is because you are holding back from being everything you long to be? You’re not lost, simply tired of the loop you’ve become stuck in. Or, tired of the light you’re dimming.

Fire. I will embrace it. I will allow my nervous system to thaw. To breathe. To find warmth within me. I want to learn how to communicate with my nervous system. To be gracious with her. To empower her. What an intricate system I’ve built with her! I have so much to learn from her.

Like roots and branches in a tree, my nervous system—the brain, the spinal cord, and nerves—hold me together.

This year, I want to pay attention to what is carrying me. I want a strong nervous system. Work with her to make sure she is warm and knows she is safe. Remind her she is bold, she is brave, she is worthy. Because I know with a healthy nervous system comes abundance. A free spirit. Fearlessness.

I recently watched Hamnet in theaters. I’ve been thinking about it since, it really made a mark on me. To sit in a theater with strangers, to feel so deeply together, to cry together. And to be so boldly and carefully guided to that sacred place by Chloé Zhao and the cast—a place that feels dark, but once there, is incredibly beautiful—gives me courage to go there, too. It reminded me that when you sit in the uncomfortable places of your heart, it will reveal to you so much beauty. It is worth going where you fear going internally. And that ending…the image of the hands reaching out to Hamlet moved me so that it felt like ancestors of the past reaching into who we are today, we’re connected, they’re saying. You, too, exist bravely.

I don’t know if this new year is one of big moves or big changes. I don’t know what I’ll end up doing. But I do know I am human, and being human carries the power to change. To be human is to carry courage, to go where you once thought unreachable, to move when you once felt frozen, to do what you hadn’t imagined before.

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