Walking into the New Year Slowly
🔔 IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT! 🔔
Happy New Year, friend! I hope your holidays offered at least a few moments of rest, softness, and space to exhale, even if they were messy or full.
Before we begin, I want to share something new. I recorded a conversational video version of this blog and shared it on my brand new YouTube channel, The Manifesting Strategist with Randi Turkin. You’re welcome to simply read this here, but if you prefer to watch or listen, YouTube is where you’ll find a little extra. I’d love for you to be one of my first subscribers!
In the video, I expand on why I’m prioritizing PLAY as a core value in my business this year, how that decision is shaping the way I work with money and energy, and I close with an oracle card reading to support you in embodying a more grounded, aligned version of yourself.
Everything on the channel is free, and it’s meant to offer deeper reflection, integration, and practical inspiration beyond the written word.
From here on out, this is how I’ll be sharing my blogs, written here for those who love to read, and brought to life on YouTube for those who learn best through listening, watching, and feeling into the message.
And now… for this week’s blog…
Walking Slowly into the New Year
There’s an unspoken rule we all seem to follow…
That the moment the clock strikes midnight on January 1, we’re supposed to be ready.
Ready to set goals.
Ready to plan.
Ready to execute.
Ready to move.
But here’s the thing I keep coming back to…
While we run our lives according to this man-made concept of time, the human condition simply doesn’t operate that way.
January 1 may mark the start of a new calendar year, and in my world, the start of a new fiscal year, but that doesn’t mean our bodies, hearts, or nervous systems have caught up.
And for many of us, myself included, they haven’t.
As I’ve been reviewing my 2025 journal entries, I’ve noticed something important. I’m still processing what last year handed me.
2025 was the Year of the Snake according to Chinese astrology, a year associated with shedding, transformation, and rebirth. Looking back, that feels almost painfully accurate.
There were multiple deaths in my orbit, including the loss of my mom, and also my own quieter death and rebirth… the kind that happens internally, when who you were can no longer survive what you’ve lived through.
Grief doesn’t follow quarterly timelines.
Healing doesn’t wrap itself up neatly by December 31.
And yet, in January, especially in accounting and business, we’re asked to summarize. To close the books. To gain clarity. To make sense of what already happened, even when we’re still inside it.
I found myself asking…
How am I supposed to sum up my whole year on a personal level, while also helping my clients do the same, when I’m still integrating what that year meant?
The Wisdom of the Snake
One thing that feels deeply aligned is that 2025, the Year of the Snake, was also the year I truly discovered Kundalini yoga and breathwork.
Snakes shed their skin to survive.
They don’t cling to what no longer fits.
Breathwork and somatic healing asked the same of me… to release layers, to soften my grip, to let my body lead where my mind wanted answers too quickly.
For many of us, last year wasn’t about forward momentum.
It was about letting go, even when letting go was painful.
Enter the Fire Horse… but not yet
The Year of the Fire Horse doesn’t officially begin until February 17.
In Chinese astrology, there are twelve animals and five elements, which means this particular combination only happens once every sixty years. I won’t see another one like it in my lifetime.
The Fire Horse is powerful, courageous, dynamic, and bold. It’s associated with momentum, independence, and forward motion.
And I’m genuinely excited about it!
But I find it interesting, and comforting, that it doesn’t arrive until mid-February.
Because right now, in early January, I’m not ready to run.
I’m still walking slowly, and carefully. 😅
I came across this meme by The Good Quote at the end of December that felt deeply aligned… and also made me snort laugh after the shit show that was 2025.
What if January isn’t the beginning?
Lately, I’ve been wondering…
What if February 17 is the real start of the year?
From a financial perspective, it makes sense. By then, you have a fuller picture of how your business actually performed. The noise of the holidays has settled. The data is clearer.
From an emotional perspective, it feels kinder. There’s space to breathe after the intensity of December. Space to reflect instead of react.
And from a natural perspective, it aligns with what winter has been asking of us all along… inward reflection, slowness, rest.
Nature didn’t start calling us inward on January 1.
That invitation began at the winter solstice.
If you’re feeling behind, unmotivated, or resistant to the pressure of a “fresh start,” I want you to know something:
There’s nothing wrong with you.
You may simply be honoring a rhythm that hustle culture ignores.
As business owners, especially those of us who care deeply about what we build, we don’t just need strategy and structure. We need integration. We need nervous system safety. We need time to metabolize what we’ve lived.
Momentum will come.
Clarity will come.
The Fire Horse will come.
But forcing yourself to sprint before you’ve caught your breath doesn’t make you more successful. It just makes you more disconnected.
A reflection to sit with
As you move through these early weeks of the year, I invite you to pause and ask yourself:
If I didn’t have to treat January as the beginning, what would my body actually need right now?
You don’t need to answer it perfectly.
You don’t need to act on it immediately.
Just listen.
Sometimes the most aligned way forward…
is to walk in quietly, slowly, and with care.