Dear Reader,

I've practiced having a word of the year since 2019 but I don't choose it, it chooses me and for 2025 it was resilience.

When this word first dropped in - I resisted.

I had always equated resilience with hardship, almost as a warning that the year ahead would be difficult—especially since 2024 had already been challenging for me. Yet instead of being defined by struggle, this year unfolded as something deeply profound.

Not just because of the visible milestones or “epic” moments, which there truly have been many. But because I can feel cycles completing: 30-year cycles, 14-year cycles, and even 7–9 year chapters coming to fruition in really positive ways.

I truly believe, what's helped me cross several "finish lines" this year was my willingness to reimagine resilience.

It meant questioning my assumptions and tuning into the virtues and teachings that kept emerging.

This year there were 2: unconditional love and certainty beyond logic.

Love, especially the unconditional kind felt vague for me. Probably because I haven't seen a lot of it. And I definitely didn't know how to give it to myself.

Recently, I came across a meme on Instagram that beautifully gives both visual form and language to an experience many of us have, but don’t always know how to identify or articulate.

Side note: I find this to be the case with a lot of personal growth ideas and so much of what do I with my clients is helping them identify and name their experiences.

Unconditional love looked like allowing myself to let go of self-protection and feel things I wasn't able to allow myself to do for most of my life. It's allowed me to experience strength as both strong and soft.

One teaching that helped me experience resilience in a new way is Certainty Beyond Logic from Kabbalah.

When I first opened myself to the world of designing your life, manifesting, and co-creating, I experienced many magical moments, but they didn’t always last. The journey was full of peaks and valleys.

When I was a diabetes educator, I used to tell my patients that blood sugar swings—from very high to very low—can be more harmful than consistently high levels. I now see the same principle applies to our nervous system. When our sense of safety and happiness depends on riding emotional highs and lows, it becomes destabilizing.

When I felt triggered or things didn’t work out, I learned to view these moments as lessons, showing where my inner vessel had leaks and couldn’t yet hold what I was trying to call into my life. It encouraged me to receive everything as if it were meant for me.

It's given me a steadiness and trust in all things work out even if it's really hard to see the possibilities, especially when so much is uncertain. I've never felt so rooted.

As we approach the end of the year and the Winter Solstice, I encourage you to really digest your own year in a thoughtful way.

In Chinese astrology, this is a Snake year, a year of shedding. In numerology, it’s a 9 year, about endings and integration. And whether or not those systems speak to you, it's important to release what was so there is room for what's to come.

No matter what kind of year you had, I promise you there are important takeaways and glimmer moments that are important to recognize and reflect upon.

When we don't it's like eating empty calories, you never feel full and you're always hungry. Not because you aren't doing enough, but because you haven't really digested your own nutrients.

If you’d like some guidance, you can use my workbook with the accompanying audio guide. It’s a powerful way to pause, look back with honesty, and step forward with intention.

MY YEAR -END REFLECTION GUIDE

I was recently at a holiday gathering at the Hivery, a co-working space where I used to mentor, and someone approached me saying they had used many reflection and planning guides before, but none had ever impacted them like mine.

She said it was because of how I presented reflection as a personal journey and not just about measuring accomplishments.

Here's what someone else had to say:

"The workbook is a series of guided questions that are really powerful in connecting you with a greater space of purpose and intention, and the audio pairing is such a lovely and thoughtful way to make the experience feel like Sweta is right there with you the whole time, guiding and supporting you through planning out the next year (while also holding space for yourself to move through the rest of the year with compassion.)

I hope you give yourself the gift of self-reflection this holiday season.

Get Your Reflection Guide Here

Here's to slowing down and connecting,