From the Year of the Snake to the Year of the Horse: A Personal Reflection

Shedding Skin, Claiming Freedom

Closing the Year of the Snake and Stepping Into the Year of the Horse

As the Year of the Snake comes to a close, I find myself looking back not with nostalgia, but with reverence. This was not a year of visible milestones or tidy victories. It was a year of reckoning. Of survival. Of shedding layers that had grown too tight to breathe in.

At the beginning of this year, I was still deeply entangled with the demons of my past. I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to defeat them again—even temporarily. My emotions were volatile, my nervous system exhausted, my moods capable of shifting without warning. I felt held hostage by my own inner world.

I carried a heavy belief that by age forty-five I was supposed to be something else by now. Something successful. Something impressive. Something to be proud of.

Measured against that imagined standard, I felt like a failure.

I wasn’t well enough to work a full-time job. My mental health dictated my capacity day by day. I had internalized rigid ideas about what life was supposed to look like, and by those rules, I was not doing exceptionally well. I didn’t believe I could turn things around.

I was chasing a version of myself I thought I needed to return to—an impossible version. One that, in truth, had already sent me into a nervous breakdown and a deep depression that nearly swallowed me whole. And eventually, I had to ask myself a question I could no longer avoid:

Why was I trying to return to a life that buried me alive?

That question cracked something open. I realized it wasn’t me that needed changing—it was my perspective.

The Work of the Snake

The Snake does its work quietly, beneath the surface. And this year, there was no escaping it.

Certain emotional patterns became undeniable. Every setback devastated me. Every step backward felt catastrophic, like being dragged miles away from a future I was fighting to reach. Hopelessness would arrive quickly and without mercy. But instead of numbing or running, I stayed long enough to look honestly at myself.

Through shadow work and inner child exploration, I faced truths I had spent years avoiding: self-blame, shame, perfectionism, fear of being “too much,” and the reality that I had been living in survival mode for far too long. This year forced me to stop lying—to myself most of all.

My body joined the conversation in ways I could no longer ignore.

It craved rest—real, unapologetic rest. Rest has always felt lazy to me, something to be earned or justified. I wanted it, but I also punished myself for needing it. Burnout, mental illness, exhaustion, and deep fatigue kept knocking, and I kept trying to power through.

Because I’m better than that… right?

There were days I felt too tired to teach my fitness classes. And yet, those same classes were the only places I felt even remotely useful—proof that I could still help, still contribute, still matter. My body taught me something essential this year: that sometimes movement in a room full of people is better medicine than isolating at home, frozen by despair. It also taught me that challenge and gentleness are not opposites—they are partners.

That lesson reshaped my relationship with my body.

I also began loosening my grip on how others see me. I wore less makeup. I stopped worrying about perfect hair. I went to therapy and the grocery store in house clothes. I wore my glasses instead of forcing my eyes to perform. I allowed myself to be seen unpolished—something I never would have permitted before.

I shed my skin.

And I shed my mask.

Relationships, Grace, and Letting Others In

My relationship with my boyfriend deepened as I allowed him to see the parts of me I once hid. I let him love me even when it felt unfamiliar and terrifying. I stopped pretending I was easier than I am.

I extended more grace to my family for the ways they have hurt me—harm that still leaves scars. I don’t deny what happened. But I’ve found a way to live alongside it, to slowly rebuild trust through time and faith.

Friendships have been harder. Distance has thinned some of my closest adult relationships, particularly those rooted in Florida. I can feel a few of them quietly fading, and that loss still aches.

Professionally, I fought to be taken seriously. I worked to build something meaningful—something I could be proud of, something that might one day sustain me both spiritually and financially. I know it will require courage, vulnerability, and persistence.

One of the hardest but most necessary realizations of this year was this:

I have to let the right people help me—even when it bruises my pride.

Sometimes, survival requires community.

Mourning and Becoming Honest

I’m still carrying grief. I had to mourn the trauma endured by younger versions of myself. I had to face what I buried, avoided, and outran for years. But I also reminded myself of my resilience—and the remarkable human I became because I survived.

My dreams and timelines are still ambitious, sometimes unrealistic. I still believe I can wake up and run a marathon without training. But I’m learning. I’m learning to crawl before I walk. To walk before I run. To accept that bad things happen—and that we get to decide whether they define us or strengthen us.

I’m learning to release what I cannot change.

I’m trying to make peace with the past.

I’m more honest now about who I am.

And perhaps most importantly, I’ve accepted something quietly radical: life doesn’t have to look any particular way in order to be joyful.

Honoring the Timing

Although many of us begin reflecting as the calendar year ends, the Year of the Snake does not officially conclude until February 16, with the Lunar New Year—and the Year of the Horse—beginning on February 17.

That distinction matters to me.

The lunar calendar allows for transition rather than abrupt reinvention. What I’m feeling now isn’t pressure to suddenly become someone new—it’s a natural readiness to move forward with more clarity, intention, and energy than before.

And fittingly, just one day into the Year of the Horse—on February 18—I’ll be announcing something new that I’m genuinely excited about. It’s a new endeavor and another way for me to serve a different community through fitness.

More soon.

The Horse Arrives

The Horse symbolizes vitality, momentum, and freedom—and that is what I’ve been planting all along. I can feel my energy returning as I honor my body’s need for rest. What excites me, even quietly, is the flicker of hope that never fully went out. The flame is growing steadily now.

At times, I feel alive again—not just surviving.

Horses don’t run to escape.

They run because they’re free.

I want to embrace that freedom—to be myself, to pursue happiness, to stop apologizing for who I am and who I am not. In the coming year, I choose openness and honesty, especially with myself, as I continue learning who I truly am.

I’m done staying silent about injustice.

I’m done playing small.

I will take up the space I need—even if it makes others uncomfortable.

The Snake hides.

The Horse is visible.

Now that I’ve shed my skin and my masks, I don’t want to disappear again.

At the same time, I know myself. Like a wild horse tasting freedom, I’m prone to running too fast and too far. This next year asks me to pace myself—to move forward with intention rather than urgency, to choose sustainability over self-abandonment.

At the end of this coming year, I don’t want proof or applause.

I want to feel authentic.

I want to feel happy.

And for the first time in a long time, that feels possible.

A Reflection for You—and for Me

As we stand at this threshold—between shedding and motion, between what has been and what is becoming—I invite you, and myself, to reflect:

• What skin are you ready to shed before this cycle truly ends?

• What expectations no longer get to dictate how your life should look?

• Where might momentum feel more supportive than pressure?

• Who might you need to let help you, even if it challenges your pride?

• What would it look like to move forward not from survival, but from freedom?

• And when this next year comes to a close, how do you want to feel—not what do you want to prove?

May we carry the wisdom of the Snake forward with us.

May we move with the vitality of the Horse—without abandoning ourselves.

And may this next year be less about becoming someone else, and more about fully inhabiting who we already are.