Opening to Spring: Lessons in New Beginnings
Earlier this month, as winter dwindled into its final weeks and the spring equinox neared, a group of nine explorers gathered for Starlight Leadership’s inaugural Spring Skiing Inspiration Retreat. Over the course of five days, we enjoyed the serene and exhilarating experience of backcountry skiing in the Colorado high country, bonded together deeply as a group, pushed our growth edges mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically, and enacted a wilderness rite of passage ritual grounded in the theme of inspiration and new beginnings.
In the wake of this tremendous experience, I am left feeling humbled, amazed, inspired, fulfilled, proud, and deeply grateful. The synchronistic and symbiotic threads brought together by the participants, the land, the snow, and the Mystery wove together into a far more beautiful, powerful, and profound tapestry than I could have imagined. The magic that came together on this retreat did not feel like something I created. It felt like something I shepherded, channeled, and followed into existence. It was something that happened through me. My role was to listen, beckon, nudge, and get out of the way.
Each member of the group came to the retreat with the intention of opening, in some way, to some form of new beginning that was calling to us in our lives. As we leaned into this process, some common themes emerged, and we learned some overarching lessons. New beginnings call to all of us, all the time – perhaps especially in this moment of spring. But to open ourselves completely to the potential that life is calling through us in these moments does not simply happen by default.
Learning to open to new beginnings is a craft, one that takes intention, courage, and skill. By practicing and eventually mastering this craft, we greatly improve our capacity to learn, grow, and transform. The more capable we are of being reborn, the more flexible and adaptable we become. The more we constantly evolve, open, and change in a responsive manner, the closer we get to becoming the integrated, whole, powerful, and wise version of ourselves that is being called forth to meet the greatest challenges of our time and fulfill our soul’s deepest purpose in this lifetime.
What is the new beginning, the germinating seed, the fresh bud of new growth that is wanting to emerge through you as winter turns into spring this year? As you lean into your own process of opening to this new beginning, here are seven lessons we learned from our time in the mountains that might support you on your journey:
Fear is your ally
You won’t find your YES until you fully embody your NO
Let go and grieve what no longer serves
Reclaim the parts of yourself you have banished or denied
Support is abundant all around you. Let yourself be guided
Own your desire and let go of attachment
Remember to PLAY and have fun!
Lesson #1: Fear is your ally
Opening to a new beginning – much like backcountry skiing in avalanche terrain – involves facing the unknown and exposing ourselves to risk. For most people, this brings up fear. Fear, I believe, is one of the most commonly misunderstood emotions. It is often seen as an obstacle, a problem, something to be avoided or overcome. I beg to differ: The problem is not fear itself, but how we relate to our fear.
Many of us are conditioned to react against fear – to avoid, run from, fight, or deny it. We do whatever it takes to numb ourselves from feeling it and facing it. As a result, when we get scared, we become paralyzed. Because of our (usually unconscious) unwillingness to feel our fear, we either run away and hide from circumstances or experiences that might provoke it, or we armor up, convincing ourselves we are invincible, impermeable, unstoppable, and definitely not scared. With the former strategy, we keep ourselves stuck in the status quo, paralyzed, unable to learn, grow, and open to new beginnings. With the latter, we fail to learn or see whatever it is that the fear is wanting to wake us up to, which will similarly result in keeping us in the status quo, or worse – like in extreme cases, buried and killed in an avalanche.
When we learn to relate to fear as an ally, everything changes. Fear is no longer something to avoid, fight against, or be ashamed of – instead, we see it as a friend. Specifically, fear brings us the friendly wisdom that we need to pay attention or wake up to something. There is something we aren’t yet seeing that wants to be seen – perhaps within ourselves, in our relationships, the world around us, or underneath the surface of the snow. Something unknown wants to become known.
When we open ourselves to welcoming our fear and feeling it fully – allowing its energy to move through our bodies in the form of sensation, movement, and/or sound – we become available to receive its wisdom. Fear is not telling us to “turn around” or “power through” with our same old strategies or patterns. It beckons us to open, awaken, and – from a place of presence – to see what we have not yet seen.
Lesson #2: You won’t find your YES until you fully embody your NO
Fully opening to a new beginning requires us to be in touch with our Whole Body Yes around what newness we want to birth or create. Often, we block ourselves from the clarity, excitement, and creativity of our Yes by being unwilling to fully stand in our No.
This is where the wisdom of a different, also misunderstood emotion comes in: anger. When we open to fully feeling and embodying our anger, we avail ourselves of the anger’s wisdom that something wants to be stopped. There is something that is no longer serving me or my people. My anger supports me in stopping what no longer serves and creating a boundary to protect the sacred seed of my new beginning.
As you stand on the threshold of a new beginning, look around the current circumstances of your life, and open yourself to feeling your anger. Let the heat of your anger move through your system – get physically and energetically bigger, wider, stronger, and more grounded. Notice how this creates the space and the foundation for the anger to flow through you. Feel the power of your anger, play with the edge of how much you can hold it, welcome it, and accept it. Express it fully in a safe way (personally, I like to growl, roar, smash a pillow onto the floor or do a haka dance). Chopping wood was a great option at the hut!
After you have felt your anger completely, notice how it is directing you to your NO. What wants to be stopped? After you have found your NO, honor it and stand for it. By doing so, you create the protective space for your childlike creativity, genius, and wisdom to emerge. You create the container for the sacred light of life force energy to move through you and lead you to fully embodying your YES.
Lesson #3: Let go and grieve what no longer serves
While anger creates the boundary to protect a new beginning, a third emotion – sadness, or grief – helps us say goodbye to what is no longer serving, and let it go.
There can be no life without death, no spring without fall and winter, no sunrise without sunset and night. To have the energy to nourish and fuel a new beginning, we need to stop struggling so hard to keep alive that which is old, tired and ready to die. We must get clear on what is ready to be released – perhaps old parts of ourselves, old patterns of behavior or thinking, old relationships, stories, obstacles or attachments. Perhaps it’s a well-worn crutch or outdated ego survival strategy. Or it may be something we are clinging to from the past – some pain or resentment from our prior experience.
Perhaps all of these are simply various forms of the karma we carry – that which has been given to us to support our learning and awakening, and after we have completed that process, it is ours to burn through, purify, and make sacred as we sacrifice it back into the earth.
When we allow these old energies the grace of being laid to rest, we create the nourishment for rebirth to occur. That which we released turns to compost and fertilizes the soil where a new seed is beginning to grow. Its life force gets transmuted, recycled, and reborn by Mother Earth.
By allowing ourselves to grieve and let go, we create the space that invites in a new infancy of possibility. On the other side of our raw, tender, broken-hearted sorrow, we meet a new, generative, creative emergence. It comes to us with a gentle power and a slow, perhaps timid, but courageous readiness to be cultivated, guided, and followed. As we protect it, nurture it, and let it lead us, we rebirth ourselves and our lives into the new beginning that is waiting for us.
Lesson #4: Reclaim the parts of yourself you have banished or denied
A common ego survival strategy is to “X-out” the parts of ourselves that our personality judges as dangerous, bad, revolting, scary, unacceptable, negative, or shameful in any way. While this can support our ego in coping with the complex circumstances of our lives, it limits our creativity, our power, and the ability of the life force to move through us and guide us into new beginnings.
Imagine the collective life force as a painter, ourselves as the paint brush, and the canvas as the landscape of our lives. The more we open ourselves to trust and embody the full spectrum of human possibility, the broader the range of colors we make available in the painter’s palette and the more possibility we invite in for the universe’s full creativity, wisdom, and power to move through us onto the canvas. The more we constrict and cut off parts of ourselves, the smaller and less colorful we make our spectrum of possibility.
Often, we banish or deny our parts because we fear how they might express themselves when we are in a contracted state of threat. But when we X that part out, we also lose access to its gifts, the beautiful “high side” of the part that reveals itself when we open into a state of trust. I have yet to find a banished part of myself – even as I have pushed my edges into places of deep shame or revulsion – that has not ended up carrying some gift that I deeply crave in my life.
Can you love yourself enough to accept and welcome home the full spectrum of human possibility within you, even and especially the parts you most fear, push away, or deny? As you do this, you become bigger and more whole. You increase your capacity to embody your light, to move from love instead of threat, and fully channel your creative capacity. You make yourself more available for divine life force to lead you into creating the new beginnings that are calling to you.
Lesson #5: Support is abundant all around you. Let yourself be guided
One of the biggest lessons I learned on this recent retreat was how much I didn’t have to do it by myself – and in fact, how by trying to do it all myself I constricted the creative flow and energy of the group.
Perhaps the best decision I made on this retreat was to open myself completely to being supported by the group and my co-guide, Will Nunez. Handing the reins to Will to own the ski guiding portion of the retreat gave me a beautiful space to step back, relax, and focus on my zone of genius. Will found the good snow and took us there, leading to peak moments of joy and exhilaration that only the best powder snow skiing can provide.
The group supported me by helping me recenter, rest, and ground when I got stressed out. Collectively, they offered a level of wisdom, inspiration, and guidance to each other that far surpassed what I could have possibly offered myself. They brought a beautiful energy of creativity, play, humor, and spontaneity. As I yielded to, directed, and cultivated their energy, we were all swept away onto a blissful, spacious, and thrilling ride together on a snowy river of magic.
Of course, perhaps most of all, we were supported by the land, the snow, the sky, and all of Mother Nature around us. I never would have conceived of the idea for this trip if it weren’t for their inspiration, and it could not have been such a powerful and profound experience without them.
New beginnings become more magical and rich when we loosen our grip on the steering wheel and let ourselves be supported and guided. It’s OK to ask for help, and it’s OK to follow the flow emerging around you. You do not need to travel this journey alone.
Lesson #6: Own your desire and let go of attachment
Whether we are going out on a backcountry ski tour or launching a new creative idea, we do ourselves a favor by letting ourselves want what we want and trusting life to give it to us when and if we are ready for it and it is right for us. When we get attached, we get ourselves into trouble – we might end up skiing a slope that is unsafe to ski that day, or killing the magic of our creative expression by forcing it to conform to a certain expectation or requirement for external approval.
As you open to your new beginning, don’t be shy – get clear on what would be exquisite for you, feel all your creative energy around it, and ask for it with the fullness of your being! When you do this, you make yourself magnetic. AND – practice fully embodying your deep desire while also staying unattached. Make your bid, then let life show you what is available and what is meant for you next.
A beautiful way to hold this practice is to stay grounded in the deep, devotional knowing of how precious, amazing, and perfect the miracle of life is, and how lucky we are to experience it at all. When we feel and embody our deep appreciation for the gift of being alive – of being capable of creating anything, or backcountry skiing in any terrain – we can own our dreams and desires and still feel complete, regardless of when, how, or whether that desire is actually fulfilled.
Lesson #7: Remember to PLAY and have fun!
Creativity, new beginnings, and play go hand-in-hand. This is one I remind myself of all the time. I am pretty darn good at making things serious. ;)
The energy of spring is aligned with the life stage of childhood – so as you approach a new beginning, ask yourself: What would my playful inner child do in this emerging new playground of possibilities?
On the retreat, we were deeply nourished by uninhibited play and joy as we enjoyed ourselves and celebrated being alive. I grin as I recall the cries of “WHOOOOOO!” as skiers bounced through powder snow, the tear-jerking fits of laughter, jokes, and banter around the hut, and perhaps my favorite at all, the spontaneous après-ski singalong on the hut porch.
As we let our tired bodies and inspired voices rejoice in the pleasure of shared song and the warmth of the afternoon sun, my heart was filled and time seemed to melt away. Something relaxed deep in my being, and I let myself be held. As one song provoked a memory of recent loss in my life, I had a beautiful, cathartic cry.
Play doesn’t only mean positivity – it means open acceptance, trust, and lightheartedness, including with the hard stuff. It’s the trickster energy in all of us that reminds us that hey, life is short after all, and we are part of something much larger and more intelligent than ourselves. So, why not play full out, enjoy the ride, embrace the full spectrum of our experience, and see what we can create?
Blessings for your new beginnings…
I hope these lessons help you open just a little more fully to the new beginnings that life calls you into. I’ll be over here continuing to practice them myself.
I’d love to hear what you found helpful in this post, where you’re stuck, and where you’re feeling inspired!
With light,
Brooks
