Ebb & Flow Yoga

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My 2022 reflections and into a new year

Maeve Ferris

Last night on new year’s eve, just after dusk had blanketed the west coast, I sat down on the soft, bum trodden old sofa in an air bnb overlooking Liscannor Bay, Co. Clare, with a sweeping vista onwards to Lahinch. The Cliffs of Moher are just 10 minutes’ walk up hill from the house, along a winding narrow road, with a mohawk of grass tufting along the middle. I’m here with my lovely friend Claire. The house is spacious, comfortable and airy. Perhaps it’s this sense of comfort and openness or the wide expanse of country side and wild, rugged coastline that has given me the headspace to finally sit and pen a few words about 2022, my reflections on the year that was.

My memory is poor, so I pick up my phone and scroll back over Google Photos to see if I took lots of fun snaps. I scan back to 31st December 2021, but no photos other than a bunch of movie review screen shots. Next I swipe up repeatedly on Instagram, back to the same date – no post. Nothing to report, no profound insights, nothing! Or at least nothing I wanted to share with the world. I surmise that the movie reviews led to watching a film on new year’s eve. A vague recollection floats back to me through my usual brain fog, a movie called “Don’t Look Up”, not the most cheery or heart-warming choice really. Either way, I don’t remember the day or night or how I rang in the new year.

Okay maybe this is redeemable, how about January 1st? Did I post then? What did I get up to on New Year’s Day? On Instagram, I gave a very brief, somewhat generic overview of my year and reading between those sparse lines, I was not a great place. I was unhappy, the relationship I was in was rocky. My old dog Molly hadn’t made the hoped-for recovery post knee surgery and I wasn’t feeling great. Google Photos reminds me I went for a hike alone with my other two dogs – Leo & Bruce, that was something at least.

I scan by my year of posts, like little bookmarks in my life, signposts of what happened and where I was at. I chat with Claire over my shoulder as I scroll, “I feel like I did nothing! No holidays or trips like I used to. Did I do anything? Nothing noteworthy is cropping up to be honest”. She reminds me I bought a house, I reply “yeah, yeah I know that but what else did I do”? I scroll some more.

Intent on writing some kind of review on my year, I begin to piece a little list together of the high points on a scrap of paper

  • Seasonal Soul year one completed & year two already launched

  • enjoyed two spa days (thank you gift vouchers!)

  • a seaweed bath & dinner with friends in Ballybunion

  • London for a few days

  • I wrote a lot and found a new groove with long form memoir style writing

  • ran my first two wonderful retreats and got awesome feedback (btw – there’s another coming up on 11th March by the way, Root into Creativity Retreat in Ballygarry Estate & Spa)

  • gathered with friends under the barn roof by the campfire a few times, including to celebrate the winter solstice

  • hosted several Sea Sessions live music events on Banna Beach

  • another love and laughter filled year with Molly, Bruce & Leo

  • I learned to use a digital camera (a long time goal) and took a street photography class

I looked back over my list, I hadn’t added “I bought a house” to the list. As it seemed so obvious, it was front and centre, all consuming but I was looking for all the other stuff that I had done that might have slipped off my radar.

I felt like I hadn’t “done much” this year, hadn’t achieved a lot that was note or Instagram worthy.

I put my pen down and stared at the list of high and low points. On the cusp of a brand new year, it dawned on me that the magnitude of buying and renovating my first home on my own is so huge and a goal that took me five years of hard work and dogged determination to achieve, that writing it above “had a spa day” seems ludicrous. I also realised I am not giving myself enough credit nor valuing all that I have achieved by dismissively asking myself “but what else”? My life doesn’t fit neatly into a list of bullet points that offer no colour, context, meaning or sense of how I felt, of the true experiences and what I learned.

I have put down roots. I made some incredibly exciting and heartbreakingly tough life decisions like letting go of a relationship after over four years together. Said goodbye to the kindest of souls in May this year and no words can explain the heart-break and pain witnessed after that day when life for that family, whom I was entwined with would never be the same again. I was let down by others when I most needed their support, I felt that hurt so deeply it was like drowning in a well with them standing above looking down, watching me struggle. And there was all the other stuff we all deal with as humans - disconnection, sadness, disappointment and the disarrayed rainbow of emotions and experiences that are not captured on camera and certainly not in a social media grid. It feels disrespectful and belittling of their significance to assign them to a scribbled bullet pointed list.

2022 was a very tough year, but I am here on 31st December, feeling hopeful (ever the optimist right?). I have amazing friends. My dogs and I and those around me are healthy. I am the proud owner of a little patch of wild, tranquil land that wraps in me a safe, green embrace every day. Ebb & Flow and I are nearing our 6th year in business together. Up to September, the business I thought I knew so well felt unfamiliar, classes were much quieter than they had been pre-Covid. I hoped that once restrictions lifted, classes would fill up again like they used to, but there was no hoped-for stampede back to the mat. Where expectations and reality diverged, I found a hard pill to swallow. It’s been a slow and steady rebuild of my business, demanding a lot of hard work from me and it has been humbling.

The roller coaster of self-employment has been in full swing, careening from right to left, sometimes like a speeding car, sometimes limping by like the poor unlucky dog was that was struck by it and I have felt financial worries and self-doubt almost constantly. It was also the year I decided I didn’t want to work like I used to, to the brink of burn-out and exhaustion repeatedly, of pushing myself without understanding why I felt this punishing drive snapping at my ankles herding me onwards. I unpicked those stitches, peeled back the fabric and looked inside and with a deeper understanding of myself and a kinder more self-compassionate mindset, I began to work seasonally, to approach things differently. This still evolving and changing along with me.

One of the biggest accomplishments this year has been personal growth, I have learned so much more about myself and in the face of challenge, found a well of strength I didn’t know I had. I asked for help (not something I find easy to do) and I learned who I could trust and rely on, and who I could not, no matter how much I wanted and needed them to be there. Not easy lessons to learn but ones that are hard-earned and valuable. They also showed me what I needed to know.

The two words of intention I chose for 2022 were peace & success. Did they represent the year that was? In the end, yes, I am more at peace than when I began. That perhaps is where success really lives. My word for 2023 is connection. I’m looking forward to a year of exploring life through this lens.

I have some goals rolling around in my mind like tumbleweed, undefined and untethered right now but I like to think that this gives my dreams and vision space to breath, to form their own shape and come February I will begin my journey towards them. For the last few years, I viewed January not as a month of action but as a time of fallow. Fallow ground is soil left unplanted for a period, left to rest and regenerate to replenish nutrients to yield greater growth in time to come. I find it odd that just because advertising and media tell us we must take action and change, we follow suit though often now really knowing what we truly want or why. Without a clear direction and understanding our motivations, it’s little wonder most of us ditch our new year’s resolutions by the 21st January, after just 3 weeks.

In our busy lives there is no time for fallow, unless we choose to create it, so for me it’s not time to act yet, I’ll continue planning and dreaming. In February I begin my journey towards my goals when I’m clearer on where I’m going, why and how I hope to get there. And the days will be brighter and therefore, feel a little more hopeful.

I have found the process of reviewing my year to be cathartic and enlightening and really encourage you to give yourself the time and space to pause and reflect on the year that was and to move forward tentatively, with self-compassion rather than at a blind gallop. You get to choose your own direction and pace but sometimes that takes a little more time to figure out. If you’d like so support, guidance and light structure to help you, here are a few great resources you could try:

I hope you enjoy some of these resources and I would LOVE to have you join me for the workshop and / or retreat.

Thank you as always for reading and for your support and kindness. I wish you a wonderful 2023 ahead.

May you be happy,

May you be healthy,

May you be filled with peace

Athbhliain faoi mhaise dhuit (happy new year),

Maeve x