As the end of year draws near and we are encouraged to make plans for the next year, I feel a familiar pang of resistance and guilt around this. This isn’t new and I have reflected on it several times before.

I think I feel this discomfort for two reasons: one, it doesn’t feel quite right energetically. Two, I do not feel that planning for the whole year is something that works for me.

Winter, energetically, is not the right time to make plans and goals for the New Year. Winter time feels, to me, like a time to retreat inwards, instead of springing forward.

Planning, as in writing goals and set targets feels too much like a masculine way of thinking. I prefer a more feminine energetic approach, by first sinking into what I’d like to feel and dream about and tuning into my vision for myself and the coming year, before I can start to pen it down.

I’d like to introduce you to the idea of using the cycle of birth to run your life and business.

Whether it’s something you want more of in your life, or a new business project of goal you want to apply, the principle is the same.

The Birth cycle contains 4 distinct phases: Conception, Pregnancy, Birth, and the postpartum.

Conception is the dreaming phase. It is the time during which you call upon the spirit about what you’d like to do, achieve or change in your life. It is the seed. In energetic terms, it is like winter, the energy where we are right now. It is going inwards, tuning in, and resting. It is visioning and imagining what might be.

Pregnancy is growing the dream and giving it form. It also happens in stages, like the 3 trimesters of pregnancy. The form is tiny at first, and the shape in undefined, then it fleshes out and grows. In energetic terms it is similar to spring, with new growth and energies rising up. You can use the model of the 3 trimesters are 3×3 monthly stages of the growth of your project in different stages.

Labour and birth are the final stages of the growing process, when the idea/project is completed and gets released into the world. Energetically is it like summer, when the energies are high, and when nature’s bounty is plentiful and we are reaping the rewards of our planting.

Postpartum is the rest after the pregnancy, labour and birth, when one replenishes one’s energy after all this growth, energy spending and effort. Energetically it is like Autumn, when the leaves fall from the tree and energy starts going inwards once more, before a new dreaming state and before the cycle can start again. It is also a time to reflect on the process and learn from it.

If you’d like to start with your dreaming now, my friend Dina shares some ideas in this blog post.

I will share more over the next few weeks, as I reflect on the 2021 and staff to dream about 2022, including some of the techniques I use to dream and vision what might be.