A new year is upon us. This is a time of death and birth, when we acknowledge the completion of the old year and welcome in the new. In the process, we often unconsciously re-enact our birth history. We naturally tend at this time to evaluate our accomplishments, experiences and our lives over the last year. We are encouraged to meditate and consider what we may want for the new year. What are your goals for the next year? What are your “New Years’ Resolutions”?
While reviewing our lives and orienting to what we want to change or create can be useful, so often we set new goals or resolutions based on our dissatisfaction, rather than what we deeply, truly desire in our hearts. I have heard that what we are doing at the moment the new year begins affects what we will be doing all year.
So many ring in the new year by celebrating to oblivion. For those of us born in the 50’s or later, birth was too likely to have been a similarly oblivious experience, where the drugs administered to our mothers with the best of intentions, rendered both mother and baby too unconscious to be able to easily follow our natural instincts for bonding and attachment. Our new beginnings, as well as our relationships, may continue to carry this druggy, unconscious fogginess throughout life. New Years is no exception.
Even if we are able to celebrate without the effects of birth anesthesia, how we choose and follow through with our plans for the new year can echo our early experience.
Creating Your Vision
I am reminded here, a method for creating what you want in your life, which I studied and taught back in the 80s. Founder of this work, Robert Fritz, was inspired by his experience as a musician to apply the creative process from the arts to creating in life. He described the manifestation of a vision in three stages: germination, assimilation, and completion.
Germination refers to the often inspired, exciting moment when we conceive of what we want and set that goal. 
The fiery passion of this stage is not unlike the passion your parents may have felt when acting to enable your conception (or the fire works at New Years…). For some people, this stage of conceiving the vision of what they desire is easy and natural, although they may be challenged by following through and actually manifesting their vision. How often have you set a New Years’ Resolution, which is the same as the one the year before? I’m going to lose 20 pounds. I choose to be in work I love. I will have twice the income I have had last year… What gets in the way of these visions actually coming to be?
Some people have trouble even getting this far. Creating a vision is just beyond them. They have no hope or lack ability to clarify what they truly desire. This block to conception may relate to how conception happened back then. Most conceptions are not planned. They are often the result of inebriated, drugged or sometimes violent, forced, or at least not entirely conscious sexual activity. This can set the tone for how people make new beginnings. They may avoid re-visiting the pain of conception by having no visions. Or they may try to conceive of what they want but find themselves feeling foggy, sleepy, fearful, or simply unclear. Therapeutic work to process this early experience can support us in being able to differentiate between then and now, enabling us to be clear in present time, coming into our hearts and choosing what we would love to experience in our lives.
Once we are able to create and choose a vision, the next step is to assimilate it. Fritz compared this phase to the time of gestation when the little one is not visible, but is growing and developing organically. This can be a challenging time to stay in touch with our vision and keep nourishing it. How consciously did our parents parent us when we were in the womb? How welcomed, nurtured and safe did we feel as little ones? This usually relates to how safe and nurtured our mother perceived herself to be. These prenatal experiences can affect how we embrace, nurture and welcome in our creations. Enhancing awareness of this time can facilitate our ability to hold and nurture the little one within us, as well as our visions and goals.
This brings us to the third phase of creating. How do we receive our vision as it completes and comes into manifestation? Are we able to recognize, appreciate and integrate our experiences? How we were received and welcomed at birth, or even earlier when the pregnancy was discovered, can affect how we embrace what we encounter in our lives. Again, birth anesthesia may render us unconscious when our vision comes to be. Have you ever achieved a long sought after goal, only to feel let down, exhausted, or negating of your accomplishment?
My own birth experience offers a powerful example of how birth history may resonate with later completions. The week I was completing my Masters’ thesis, I received a shocking phone call from my mother informing me that my brother had been killed in a car racing accident! Of course, my completion was delayed because of the funeral and need to grieve, but I got through it. Five years later, I was completing my PhD. The day I was to send in my final documents for approval by my committee, I was carefully reviewing my dissertation one more time before printing it out and taking it to the courier for one-day delivery. A knock on my door interrupted me. My housemate insisted I come out of my room and watch the news. This was September 11th, 2001. The twin towers had just been hit and we had no idea yet of how many people had been injured or killed. Not only was my PhD completion delayed, but the shock affecting an entire country (and beyond) was resonating with my experience five years earlier. I began to be afraid of completing anything. The deaths accompanying my completions seemed to be multiplying! As with my Masters, I did eventually get my documents to my committee and completed my PhD, but I wasn’t as much in the mood to celebrate as I had expected.
Needing answers, and having just completed doctoral studies in Pre- and Perinatal Psychology, I asked my parents if someone had died when I was born. I had heard that my father’s mother had passed around that time, but it took awhile for my parents to get clear about exactly when it had happened. Just as I had suspected, she died shortly after I was born. My birth became unconsciously associated for me with death and loss, which was translated into my completions in life. Enhancing my awareness of the events of my birth and having good therapeutic support to be with and integrate the emotions from that time, has enabled me to more fully receive and celebrate my accomplishments.
I hope this awareness can also support you. May this year offer you amazing opportunities to fulfill your potential more fully. May your awareness grow and deepen. May the little one within you sense safety and love. May you be happy. May you be peaceful. May you be liberated.
Happy New Year! I’d love to know what you choose to create and if I can support you with it in any way.
Thank you thank you thank you for this x❤️
You are so welcome!