There are lots of different ways that we can become disheartened, distant, and disconnected with parts of our identities. Intergenerational trauma, social injustice, immigration, emigration, and migration, marriage, chosen family, and family obligations, feuds, and betrayals, low expectations, illness, concentrated power, media, cultural mores, and violence are just some of the many, many processes in human life that disrupt and block us from our wholeness. We may necessarily be putting parts of ourselves aside for our own protection, survival, peace of mind, self-love, growth, and liberation, and we may over time find ourselves ready to bring cut-off parts back into our sense of ourselves in new and changed configurations that we couldn't have imagined before. What part of your identity are you welcoming home to yourself this year?
[image description: A heart with a Hebrew חַי (chai/hay/hai) necklace looks out at the viewer. Text reads, "I forget now and then that I'm Jewish."]