Making Space for What’s Next
Practicing Release and Closure
Despite our best efforts and intentions when 2025 began, it feels like almost everyone I talk to right now is ready for this year to be over. Clients, friends, family, and myself included have all experienced moments of unexpected loss, disruption, or plans going sideways. Things have fallen apart dramatically. Other things have fallen away quietly. Goals we set with optimism a year ago hit roadblocks we did not see coming.
That is not just bad luck or poor planning. And it is not a personal failure.
If you follow numerology or Chinese astrology, or if you simply notice patterns in your own life, 2025 was always going to be a year like this. According to many of the astro and numerology voices floating around my social feeds, 2025 is both a “9” year and the year of the snake. In other words, a year designed for shedding. The final year in a nine year cycle is not about building or expanding. It is about releasing what has run its course so a new cycle can begin.
Looking back honestly, it tracks. Almost too well.
As some of us crawl toward the end of the year, there is often a strange mix of exhaustion and quiet hope. Even if you cannot articulate it, something in you may sense that a shift is coming. That this season, uncomfortable as it has been, might actually be clearing the way for what is next. That part heavy/part hopeful feeling comes from something deeper than surface reflection. It comes from what we haven’t fully closed.
The Part We Usually Skip at the End of the Year
This time of year is packed with traditions. Whether you celebrate Christmas, something else, or nothing at all, December tends to pull us into reflection and planning mode. As the parent of three kids, most of our traditions revolve around that jolly man in the red suit. Mike and I are still very much in the season of creating the magic for our kids, and we love it. Chaos and all.
In recent years, though, we have added a few traditions just for us. Ones that help us slow down and intentionally close the year before we plant seeds for the new year ahead.
Because here is the thing we often overlook. This season is not only about celebration or setting goals. It is also an invitation for completion.
Not the kind of completion that involves productivity or checking boxes. I mean the quieter kind. The places in your life where your energy is still tied to something outdated. An old identity you are still trying to live up to. A relationship that you have outgrown. A pattern that no longer fits. A truth you have not fully acknowledged.
We live in a culture that prizes constant forward motion, so pausing to close a chapter is not exactly encouraged. Instead, we carry unfinished things with us. Unspoken conversations. Lingering resentment. Old money stories. Expectations that no longer align with who we are becoming.
Those things do not disappear just because the calendar changes. They stay active in the background, subtly shaping our choices and draining our energy. That low level sense of being unsettled at the end of the year is often not because you are behind. It is because something is asking to be completed before you move on.
Why Releasing Comes Before New Beginnings
This year, the timing supports this in a powerful way. On December 20th, we welcome a New Moon in Sagittarius. It is also the final New Moon of 2025.
New Moons always invite fresh starts, but this one carries extra weight. Sagittarius energy is about truth, expansion, and meaning. It asks big questions and does not always whisper them gently.
Where do you want more in your life?
Where have you outgrown the version of yourself you are still living as?
And do you actually believe that expansion is possible for you?
Wanting more is easy. Believing it is available to you is a different thing entirely.
This is why release matters first. Setting intentions without clearing space often turns into pressure. You try to build something new while still holding onto beliefs, patterns, or identities that no longer fit. Releasing what is complete makes room. It allows new intentions to feel grounded instead of forced.
The seeds planted under this New Moon will carry into 2026. They grow best in soil that has been tended and cleared, not left cluttered.
Our Winter Solstice Ritual
For the last few years, Mike and I have made time to intentionally release the old and set intentions for the new.
Our favorite way to usher in the new year starts with reflecting on the past year. This weekend, in between celebrating his birthday and finishing up all the gift wrapping, we will carve out time to think about and write down all that we are ready to leave behind. Old habits. Expectations and intentions that no longer serve us. Versions of ourselves that no longer feel aligned.
I am a big fan of burning things to let them go, so we burn those lists in our fireplace with gratitude. Not from a place of anger, but acknowledgment for the lessons learned and space created.
After releasing what belongs to the past year, we turn toward the year ahead using the Celtic Ritual of 13 Wishes.
Each of us writes down 13 intentions for the year ahead. Wishes for ourselves, our family, our home, our careers, and our inner lives. These are not rigid goals. They are desires rooted in alignment.
We fold each slip of paper toward ourselves, because we are calling them in, and place them in a jar. Starting the day after the solstice, we pull one wish out each night for 12 nights and burn it without reading it. Those wishes are released to the universe, God, goddess, or whatever higher power you trust.
On the 13th night, one wish remains. That is the one we are responsible for nurturing and bringing to life. The others are no longer ours to control.
There is something grounding about this process. It reminds us that not everything is ours to carry or force. Some things are meant to unfold.
Why This Matters
This ritual is not about perfection or doing things “right.” It is about pausing long enough to notice what no longer fits and choosing to let it go intentionally.
2025 was not a failure. It was necessary. The endings, the roadblocks, and the disappointments were doing their job. They were clearing the way.
As we step into a new cycle, the invitation is simple. Complete what is ready to be completed. Release what no longer belongs. Plant new seeds from a place of honesty rather than pressure.
You do not need all the answers yet. You just need to make space.
FAQ: Winter Solstice Release
What is a Winter Solstice Release?
It is an intentional practice of reflecting on the year, releasing what no longer serves you, and creating space for what is next.
Do I need to believe in astrology or rituals for this to work?
No. The reflection matters more than the ritual itself.
What if I do not know what I want next?
That is okay. Releasing the pressure to know is often part of the work.
Can I do this after the solstice or into the New Year?
Yes. Timing supports intention, but intention matters more than timing.
A Quiet Invitation
As we leave 2025 behind and move toward the New Year, consider this less a reset and more a return to yourself.
You are not behind. You are not broken. You are completing a chapter.
And that is exactly how new ones begin.
Seasons of change can feel isolating, even when nothing is obviously “wrong.” If you’re navigating a transition and want a grounded, supportive space to sort through what’s shifting, I’d love to connect.
You can book a call to explore what support might look like for you.