150,000 Words

52 weeks, 52 newsletters, and an average of over 3000 words per newsletter means that I've written over 150,000 words this year, which is honestly mind-boggling. Though, it's not length but depth that has made committing to this newsletter such a transformative process for me.

When I moved to Pittsburgh at the beginning of this year, following nothing other than my own intuition, I knew that this would be one of the most important years of my life and I also knew that I'd been guided to Pittsburgh, not to settle down, but to evolve. To mature. To ripen. To fully embrace and embody the wisdom that I've been blessed to receive over the past 10 years and to be molded into someone who could share that wisdom in a consistent and impactful manner, without my personal bullshit getting in the way. To be healed enough that I no longer allowed my pain to interfere with my purpose.

And even though I don't have 150,000 readers, I can honestly say that I feel no less in my purpose because if what I've shared has positively affected the life of one person, then I've truly done enough, and every single word that I've written has been worth it. Fortunately, a handful of people have reached out to let me know that some of these words were meaningful to them and I'm incredibly grateful to receive that validation. Though, even if no one ever reached out to let me know that my writing helped them, there's someone I know without a doubt that my words did help and that is myself.

Its cathartic nature is what makes me so attracted to writing and it has been such an incredible tool of my self-healing journey. Many weeks I've sat here typing with tears in my eyes while recounting various painful moments in my life but in being able to process those moments and to give the emotions tied to them a home outside of my body has brought me a sense of lightness that I've never experienced before. I don't think any of us are aware of just how heavy the emotional burdens we carry are until we finally put them down and writing this newsletter presented me with the opportunity to lay all of my burdens from the past down. And even though this is technically an ending (it's really not), it's even more of a beginning because I now feel like I can move forward in life as who I truly am, who I fully am, without my expression being shrunken, sullied, or stifled by unresolved traumas of the past.

The biggest lesson I've learned this year is that 'not feeling like it' is not a good excuse if you want to accomplish anything great. I'm someone who very much celebrates resting and not constantly pursuing achievement for the sake of achievement. But if you feel a calling to do something in your heart and if this calling haunts you day in and day out, then you owe it to yourself to see this calling through because it is likely calling you for your highest good and for the highest good of those connected to you. So, for our own peace, and for the peace of the collective, we need to listen to the callings in our hearts, regardless of what our minds and bodies feel like doing, because these callings are trying to lead us onto the timeline that has our deepest fulfillment.

The Universe supports us all but I've found that it supports us even more when we submit to living in alignment with our purpose—even if that purpose is just being the most authentic versions of ourselves. And personally, I've never felt more supported by the Universe than I do right now. Publishing a newsletter each week has been such a major accomplishment for me but at the same time, it feels like a baby step—like the real journey is just beginning, but now I'm fully equipped to walk in my purpose confidently and invulnerable to anything that might try and deter me from this path.

Whether these are the first words of mine that you're reading or if you've read thousands of them, I just want to say, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for being here with me. Thank you for being interested in this work and for respecting it as work. Thank you for loving yourself enough to seek perspectives that might help you grow into the highest version of yourself. And most of all, thank you for seeing yourself in me. I know that I've spent the vast majority of this year talking about myself, but you and I are not so different, and my greatest hope is that by reading about me, you've learned a lot about you. I hope that you grew more into yourself and I hope that you discovered that no matter how painful your life has been at times, it is worth living. You are beautiful. You are important. You are worthy. Not only are you lovable, you are love, and it has been the honor of a lifetime to help guide you back to the Home within Self that is Love.

What's To Come

Okay, so I know that last week I said that the newsletters wouldn't be weekly anymore but it turns out that that was my ego talking and, unfortunately, I'm being intuitively led to continue publishing them on a weekly basis, lol. Though going forward, they're going to be less about me and more about us. Next year's newsletters won't be in-depth dives into my own history, trauma, and psyche but instead will be focused around the human condition in general and what we can learn about ourselves by studying the collective consciousness.

My aim is to make the newsletters shorter, more digestible, but also more impactful, and hopefully more entertaining. I'm going to share more of the cool, thought provoking content that I stumble across on the internet and use that as a basis for commentary around learning about ourselves and how we can grow. I've got some other things planned too but I'd rather show than tell those.

I'm going to take most of January 'off' to recuperate, do some site updates, and get clear on my vision for the next year. One of my major goals for next year is to get established on YouTube and to post there consistently. I also plan on getting back on Instagram so if we're connected there, I look forward to being in that space with you again. I also post on Threads, pretty much daily, so if you don't want to wait for the next newsletter in February to hear from me, then I'd be happy to connect with you over there.

Creating community is a struggle for me because I'm such a loner but it is still something that I deeply crave and this newsletter has created a solid foundation for a community to grow out of. One of the things I'm going to offer next year is an opportunity to regularly connect with me one on one, for anyone who's interested and I'd also like to start a group where us like-minded and like-hearted folks can meet regularly, discuss things that are meaningful to us, and get to know each other in a deeper way. In Sanskrit there's this word called 'sangha' which essentially is a community of those in service to truth. You all are my sangha and I'm really looking forward to growing our community in the coming year.

I love you, I hope that you have a happy new year, and I look forward to continuing to grow better together in 2025.

With love,

Micheal Sinclair 💜