The Jesus Year
is said to be an extraordinary year of reflection and transformation. Skeptical at first, I stumbled upon bible study articles and 'I love Jesus' blogs describing the concept.
I pause on my gut instinct to write it off as nothing more than an idea popularized by a Christian Faith defined by strong notes of capital “R” religiosity. I’m not as susceptible to dogma as I was a year ago.
Jesus was a cool guy. I have Faith. Let’s dig deeper.
I’m interested in how we culturally define and speak to the significance of the moments that give rise to our coming of age. So naturally the idea of a Jesus Year was something that piqued my interest.
The 33rd year—the Jesus year— is said to be a year where careful attention is paid to what is being shed, put down, sacrificed, and made available for change. It notes a time one comes into significant wisdom that alters the course of their life, where the path reveals itself.
I suppose it’s a year of profound spiritual growth.
What originally peaked my interest were my friends experiencing good fortune who didn’t skip a beat when asked how the year was goin, and gave credit where credit seemed to be be undeniably due, on the year marking the day the holy saint became a sinner, or became sin...whichever is the proper interpretation, for that you’re going to have to ask the Christians.
Friends who are NOT religious, who swiftly proclaimed, ‘hell yeah 33 is going so well, full of miracles, WATCH OUT the goodness pops off in your Jesus year!’
Ironic because it was not popping off for Jesus.
6 days after I entered mine, it wasn’t popping off for me either. Quite the opposite. I thought huh, maybe some of us experience this year like those freed by the suffering Jesus took on for the sake of others while some of us experience the other side—we suffer like he did on the cross.
But I guess that’s the point, it always comes down to a matter of perspective.
Still, some small part of me felt like yeah, the Jesus Year better pop off (a challenge). I’m ready for the lessons (an invitation). Let 33 be my holiest year yet (a prayer).
I’d be lying to deny there was some deeper certainty that regardless of the mythical meaning we assign to what might be otherwise meaningless, the makings of robust change was upon me.
It was a ‘something’s gotta give’ moment. And you bet your bottom dollar I was gunna make the most of it.
Change takes time, individuation isn’t promised and emotional maturity and personality development do not follow our biological developmental. They are things we have to choose to invest in.
The choices we make to evolve and the work of growing up is hard earned.
And this is what became clear as I held out hope my Jesus Year would be one of unparalleled transformation.
That what we mean when we reference “our healing journey” can otherwise be understood as growing up. But first we have to wake up.
And if you are in inner journey girlie like me you will know this, for those who are at the beginning you have been warned, waking up is
fucking. uncomfortable.
But growing up is what allows us to show up more effectively, more compassionately, and more collaboratively. We wake up to the fact most of our helplessness is learned and then us deciding and committing to grow up no matter what is what gets us out of our learned helplessness, for good.
That choice is what puts us in charge of building a meaningful life, which can be measured by how much we are able to downgrade merely living by the whims of our compulsions.
So no I’m not saying my Jesus Year was about applying mob mentality and punishing the part of me that needed to grow up by crucifying her. It was much more about hanging some beliefs up for good. All the bullshit I no longer need, the stuff I’ve outgrown.
🙌🏻
Our biology adapts to ensure our survival when we experience an unexpected, highly acute trauma, that is emotionally isolating in nature and too overwhelming to process at the moment it occurs. Caught off guard, parts of us stay frozen developmentally and we develop asynchronistically from there. Parts of us grow up while other parts of us stay young. We accumulate these acute traumas over time and healing is really just tending to these cycles in need of completion within each of us.
We are especially vulnerable if we are of the more sensitive, more intense, perceptive, persistent, energetic, empathetic ilk, the minds that land in the very last 10th percentile of the neurodivergent bell curve, that also navigate life with a slew of over excitabilities. For the folks who are the likes of us, “we require less stimuli to produce a response, as well as a stronger and more lasting reaction. Another way of looking at it is of being spirited.”(pg. 9. Living with Intensity). More to come on them in a future newsletter…
In my coaching work with clients, I help folks get unstuck from persistent inner turmoil, disengage from external push pull dynamics, learn how to identify and get their needs met, and how to address the survival stories long held by their psyche, so those parts can get unstuck, and catch up by growing up. This is how we develop and evolve our personality, learn to embody our integrity and step into a fuller potential.
In 2024 the people I worked with blew me away. They made leaps and bounds in their growth and efforts to transform ⤵︎
I saw clients shift from withdrawn, collapsed body language, plagued by unending loneliness, afraid they’d be that way forever to sustaining expanded, openheartedness in their physicality and state of mind.
I saw them shift out of isolating relationship dynamics into nourishing ones. I saw them take up meaningful partnerships and learn to trust.
They shifted from feeling stuck in imposter syndrome to booking residencies, sharing and selling their work and lining up consistent performance gigs.
My clients left jobs they hated, built their confidence and began to express themselves, returned to artistic practices they hadn’t touched in years.
I saw them take risks! to start businesses they never thought would succeed only to find out once they made the announcement people were ready, waiting in the wings to work with them.
I saw people mend relationships they thought were broken for good, get brave and vulnerable to claim the relationships they actually wanted, and reclaim disowned parts of themselves.
I saw them establish boundaries to interrupt enmeshed and codependent dynamics, stop people pleasing, learn the power of the positive no, and step into their power by choosing to take radical responsibility for themselves and their experience.
I saw them do this ⤦
I saw clients break generations of habits and beliefs passed down that smother dreams, choke out creativity and deny complexity, trading those ways for new ones that embrace the human spirit to make, to feel and to love.
I saw them amazed by what they were capable of, inspired by the way they began to experience life working for them when they finally chose to face the fear. Relieved at the ease waiting for them on the other side of their discomfort.
Here are some of the things they reflected on…
“Before starting the coaching with Zoe, I felt like I had a pretty good picture of my challenges in interacting with the world and with myself. However, I still felt purposeless and helpless to tackle some of my biggest blockages. This is when I understood that my progress through purely cognitive work had come to a halt.
For as long as I can remember, I had been torn between an existential urge to alert others about and to solve key “global catastrophes”, while feeling the also very existential threat of deviating from the collective narratives. When I realized this “in-between” existence was keeping me frozen in passivity, I understood that somatic work had the potential to unlock new dimensions of my human experience.
Zoe has offered understanding and mirroring while navigating my visual interpretations of the world with me and at my pace. They graciously and patiently held the space for me, allowing me to start “melting” into safety and to progressively build more trust in myself.
I would simply describe the coaching work with Zoe in two words: deeply regenerative”
—A.N. 1:1 Client
…all the while I trudged along a parallel path.
✶✸✹
33 started me off collapsed under the weight of severe loss, facing the darkest parts of my shadow with no option to turn away. I faced imposter syndrome, stories of self worthlessness, an ancient pattern of self abandonment that kept me reaching outside myself for answers in hopes that someone would save me from my own shit, and sat with the the reality that no one could or would but me.
In the darkest hour the quickest way through is to choose to trust and surrender.
Perhaps the most important thing I learned was to no longer fear the darkness.
That it, alongside suffering and adversity, is necessary for growth. It’s not just an annoying feature of our earthly existence.
It’s the portal 🕳 for self evolution.
Those of us attached to comfort above all else, choosing to stay within the boundaries of what is known, continuing on in the same never ending loops that seem to be the “themes of our lives,” never taking a chance to stay in what is challenging, to take a chance on staying with someone to work it out, are actively turning away from opportunities to grow.
Those who succumb to stories of victimhood, who tend to choose comfort over discomfort, and who resist compromise and sacrifice will recycle their experiences over and over again and stay exactly where they are. As they are.
But that is not my path. And it is not my purpose or my place to try to get those who choose that way to see otherwise.
This is not the path of the person who wishes to close the gap between the highest version of themselves they aspire to be, and who they feel they currently are.
I found that the darkest hour is the ultimate teacher and to get the most of the learnings all you need to trust is that the discomfort will. not. kill you.
It is here to teach you.
It is in service of your highest calling, you waking up to your soul’s wisdom, knowing and understanding that what challenges you most is your north star ✧ if you let it, you can be guided by what it shows you, if you choose to accept and learn from it, decide to be different, and take charge of, or rather, take responsibility for yourself.
art by Geenss Archenti
Turns out the Jesus Year was the most transformational to date. HERE’S THE MORE POTENT PIECES OF WHAT THE HOLY YEAR OF JESUS taught me.
Everyone is not meant for me and I am not meant for everyone.
I became more resilient as I accept this without needing to withdraw into some hyper independent state in which I deny I need people and they need me.
Disappointing others doesn’t end relationships but the fear of it will.
You will become less limited by your fear of rejection by consciously choosing to disappoint others. If you try to do the impossible and please everyone, you will end up disappointing others and betraying yourself.
I said no to what seemed to be partially available to me but not fully ready to show up for what I am ready to offer. I learned it is safe to disappoint people.
Understanding is NOT a prerequisite for offering or receiving love, care and kindness.
I chalked that kind of unconditional positive regard up to cult-like behavior at first and maybe it’s got a flavor of that but holy shit is it an UNLOCK to practice feeling that feeling…of holding people in a state of unconditional positive regard (within the safety and privacy of your own mind). In this case, the baby should not be thrown out with the bathwater.
For god sakes, stop taking it all so personally and seriously. I MEAN IT. Figure this one out and practice it above all else, it will save you so much unnecessary headache.
Hold space for your grief and stop being a damn drag in your own life. Use your grief to process rather than dig your heels in deeper to commit to your story that your life is all suffering, you’re a terrible person and letting everyone down. It’s just not true unless you let it be true. If that’s your main shtick, it gets boring real quick. For you and everyone else.
The point is to make choices to keep on playing the game. I promise you, other people wanna play with you.
To truly know yourself you have to consistently choose authentic self expression no matter what it looks like, and no matter the feedback.
Choose this over any attempts to fit into a box built in the image of someone else’s ideal. Trusting your worth is a pre req to receive the love you are waiting for. Call it in.
My inner critic is an incessant asshole, I am not special in this regard, almost everyone has one and my shitty patterns aren’t going anywhere.
But I can pretty much divest from them completely opting for alternatives and in doing so my mind becomes a place of refuge as opposed to a relentless torture chamber. Your life will vastly improve as a byproduct of that work. Make fun of your inner critic. Laughter is the best medicine.
The wisdom of the feminine is an unstoppable force for good even in its destructiveness and deserves our highest reverence.
Her time isn’t coming, it is upon us.
“Show me how good it can get” is a damn good challenge to the universe.
The universe will conspire in your favor if you let it. By letting go of your idea of what you think its gunna look like, even better DOES show up.
No amount of riches in your wallet can replace the riches offered by true friendship and the riches offered to your spirit by making things.
Turns out being in service of beauty is one the highest callings on the spiritual path.
And lastly…
If you can find what lights you up and shine so bright as to illuminate the path for others you will be ASTOUNDED by what you can offer from that place.
Here are some snippets of the thing I birthed I’m most proud of this year…the fruits of my labor from the last 5 that came thru with great effort over the last 3 months, the dreams, longings, and visions that materialized once I finally gave myself permission to claim the role of artist.
{MOTHER} a devotion to the feminine
Dec 16th 2024 | Brooklyn, NY
[Here’s what’s for certain]
I’m bringing new offerings to you, including group coaching opportunities, creative workshops, IN PERSON events for those of you hanging out on the west coast, and a retreat later in the year for those looking to go deeper and get weirder in the sacred container that is extended immersive experience.
I’ll be announcing new offerings as we move into the later parts of winter, so keep an eye out!
[& for now]
We are in some powerful and potent times with some powerful and potent people emerging to hold the field. Your intention and contribution matters. So does your voice and your daily actions.
Remember your efforts are offerings for all those who come after you, for those who annoy and disturb you. Even if you aren’t around to see your labor bear fruit, do it for the ones who will be, for the ones you aren’t yet awake, trusting that if you plant seeds and tend to them they will grow. You have no idea how far your influence reaches, until you do.
And for what you can’t know, trust that the smallest kindness touching another soul who needs it is enough. The smallest gesture might make all the difference.
Don’t forget you are never alone, bear witness to the goodness you create for the world. It is worth celebrating.