Turning 27 genuinely felt different, and I can’t say that about all birthdays. As weird as it sounds, I feel like I’ve been waiting to be 27 for a long time. I’ve always wanted to be 27 – like I just knew it would be the best year. At every age, I was drawn to people who were 27. There’s just something about it. I guess that’s intuition. Combined with hearing quite clearly for the last year, “It all changes on your 27th birthday.”

Not so subtle. 😉

While I don’t know exactly what will unravel this year, I do have an inkling about a few things… What I do know is that it’s felt like my life up until now was all preparation for what came after 27, and I physically felt the energetic shift. Specifically, ages 20-27 were the real “spiritual training” – a lifetime of lessons jam packed into that decade. 20-27 were meant to prep me for 27-30 — each their own collection of energy, like their own books on the shelf. That’s not to say the training, the lessons, and the growth don’t continue beyond this – but the hardest prep work was during that time. And it took me that entire period to understand why, and to understand that I was contracted in and wouldn’t get out of it any sooner. The karmic debt, the lessons of sitting in the discomfort, being forced to face that I can’t will my way out of anything – facing one of my deepest fears as an Enneagram 8 – being “controlled” by what feels like something or someone else – when really, it’s my Soul that chose the game. I’m still sitting with this, as I realize how much of my life is really moved by something much bigger than “me.”

Anyway, the last few months in particular ripped me open. Things broke down. I purged out a lot of energy from my life. I felt the rug get pulled beneath me. And unlike before, I just melted into it, knowing it was all prepping me for this. It all came very specifically after a clear conversation with my guides, where they told me it was time to really step into the next phase. So I said, “Release anything not in alignment with the mission, and send in the support I need.” And immediately after that, my whole reality rearranged. I mean, literally, immediately. It still sort of freaks me out how powerful our requests can be.

I felt like I was in limbo for quite some time. The past not feeling resonant, but the future still in the future, and in the meantime I was just floating in the ocean until it was time for the “future” to be my now…and there was nothing I could do but float.

And now, simply with time, the future got pulled into my now. And on my 27th birthday, I woke up feeling distinctly different. Lighter. More at peace. Clearer. And the things I was in my own way about, suddenly I just wasn’t in my own way anymore. It was like an invisible gate had been stopping me from moving forward, and then it got removed overnight.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want this year, and the word that comes to mind is “ALLOW.” Allowing myself to be all of me. Allowing myself to be messier. Allowing myself to be loved. Allowing myself to claim what I really want. Allowing in new people, new experiences, new energies. Allowing myself to outgrow things. Allowing myself to keep my standards high. Allowing whatever is meant to come in, in. And whatever is meant to go, to go.

I spent much of my life pushing, forcing, choosing, making it happen. Efforting. Or putting walls up, getting in my own way, pushing people out. That got really exhausting. The last year felt like a lot of taking stock and reevaluating. And this year, I really just want to allow myself to receive. To allow myself to receive the same amount of energy that I give. To bring things back into balance just by being.

And for the first time in awhile, I really feel like myself again.