October: Celebrating

This month my intention is to celebrate.

Countless times I heard that "the first year of law school is so hard." About a month into my first semester of law school I understand that this is the case for two reasons: law school forces us to change our lifestyle and it forces us to catch and retain a ton of knowledge that's thrown at us all at once. Resisting these two inevitable changes would cause me to really suffer. Moreover, since my birthday is in the dead middle of midterms, I realized I must reframe how I approach this month if I am to stay sane, happy, and successful.

Normally, as a student I would think of October to only mean midterms. I would put pressure on myself and refrain from spotting the joy. In our society, we've been conditioned to produce all the time, so we tend to feel guilty when we are not producing any work. Like you, I feel guilty for resting, so even while resting, I am not truly relaxing. With quizzes and exams coming up, I feel tension starting to build already. This month, however, I feel excited to challenge myself to carry out my intention which is to celebrate! To celebrate the fun moments and the hard, dull moments. Celebrating usually comes easy to me when I find reasons to be grateful: "We can't be grateful for everything. But we can be grateful in every moment," said David Steindl-Rast in this powerful podcast episode.

"We can't be grateful for everything. But we can be grateful in every moment." – David Steindl-Rast.

This year I am generating the feelings I want to feel, so to generate celebration I intend on looking back and looking ahead, spotting grace and celebrating along the way! This month, I am celebrating all of the growth that I've experienced this year. A year ago around this time, I was re-studying for the LSAT and beating myself up for getting a low score multiple times. Right now, I am well into my first year of law school, things professors are teaching me are clicking, and, now that I moved out on my own, I can happily report that I am thriving being an adult in NYC. I am making healthy dinners, not letting things go bad in the fridge, and successfully keeping my room tidy. This month I will be particular about noting those small accomplishments and celebrating them. This month I celebrate the small wins, too.

This month I celebrate the small wins.

The big wins matter, of course, so as I complete my solar return on October 17, I celebrate having opened my heart like never before. I celebrate having allowed myself to receive. For people who love to give, receiving is an underdeveloped muscle. The past year and a half I have been actively training this muscle. My solar returns reminds me that I have been a good student and readied myself to receive love and welcome abundance into my life, despite the difficulties.

In October 2019, my heart was still tender from a small breakup the previous year. Ironically, though small and passing, this particular breakup left a big mark in me. After that breakup, I began to question the notion of love and my capacity to love – myself and others. I began a self-imposed journey to learn about the practice of self-love. I learned that self-love wasn't about feeling confident or worthy. It was taking actions that asserted my confidence and worthiness, like setting boundaries with myself and others, taking risks, being vulnerable, and sharing my feelings authentically. I turned 23 last year understanding more and more about these practices, and though tender and clumsy, I was beginning to see a possibility that one day, I will be able to gather the courage to, not fall in love, but choose love. I entered 23 tender but hopeful and open to receiving.

Receiving is a muscle that I am still exercising. But, when we commit, providence commits and last year, because I entered 23 willing to receive and allow things to flow in and out of my life, about a month after my birthday the universe responded: I received the gift of reconnection with the special person with whom I had lost connection the year prior. Rekindling with him was a surprise. I didn't think I'd understood myself enough to commit to a relationship. But I guess learning about ourselves can't be done on our own forever. Relationships are sites of self-development, too – sites where better versions of ourselves are called forth and where we are challenged to outgrow old versions of ourselves. Last year felt like after I turned 23, I'd graduated from some sort of self-love course without even realizing I was ready! This new relationship has been the playing ground for countless of personal breakthroughs, receiving the gift of love being the greatest of all.

My solar return reminds me to celebrate my growth. This year, I enter 24 feeling ready to celebrate my courage in practicing vulnerability incessantly, my confidence in my ability to love myself and others, and most importantly, my strength in showing up authentically when it feels awkward to do so. I enter 24 ready to replace all the negative self-talk that tells me all the reasons "I can't" with empowering thoughts about why "of course I can." This will happen often in the weeks to come, so there'll sure be tons to celebrate this October.