Welcome to 2024!
It’s hard to say and believe that it’s really here. And I know it’s really cliché to say that at the beginning of the year with virtually every new year, but I believe for many of us, 2023 was so refining and defining.
It’s really a pinch myself moment.
Especially as we close out the holidays and say goodbye to family that we hosted and saying goodbye to family that lives far away. But also maybe for the first time being able to more thoroughly celebrate the holiday season; to celebrate our greater understanding of the “reason for the season” and largely just focus on the miracles that our family, and we collectively, have been able to witness.
I wanted to thank all of you, for the many questions that you asked about my son’s journey.
I’m including this video of him because I feel very called to share how far he’s come. Where a year ago he was almost a year old and we were concerned about the milestones he was “behind” on.
And he took his first steps in Maine while we were out there, visiting my wife’s family and her 99-year-old great grandmother. As I’ve shared with you. That same trip, we celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary.
But it also invited in the most tangible evidence of the miracle that is Luka; Who is our greatest triumph of 2023.
He went from walking and taking his first very wobbly steps to essentially becoming a daredevil, literally opening new doors of “awareness”, but really our house!
That is one of my favorite questions from the completing, remembering, and creating document that I shared with you three newsletters ago. Feel free to download it and print it and use it as a way to process and close out 2023 to take the first steps powerfully into 2024.
It’s one thing to know that the miracle is in all of us.
It’s another thing to see it, tangibly, visibly, and evidently right in front of our face.
This is why Luka is our miracle.
Because we spent nearly 2 years devoted to his development, his healing, and his optimal expression of nervous system function.
Because a lot of people from the outside would affirm to us how amazing they believe him to be, but when you’re a parent you want to know.
You want to see.
You want evidence.
You want to experience it once and for all.
I wanted that feeling for my son, obviously, but selfishly because I needed to know truly what many of you go through.
There are a lot of clichés.
Especially around parenting.
“They grow up so fast”
“Every baby has their own timeline”
But when your intuition is screaming at you, as a parent, especially your mom, it is really important for us as parents to invest all the time and energy and money into validating it.
It’s not a matter of if your intuition is trying to tell you something, it’s what your intuition is telling you. I believe that many of you are guided to our practice because of this intuition, and I believe that it is a duty of ours to help facilitate the validation of your gut sense more and more every day.
Luka is our greatest triumph because he showed me, the “expert”, just how truly miraculous we are. And that if my son can navigate what he has navigated, you better believe I know more than ever that you and your children can too.
This is my commitment.
To my family.
To my wife.
To my kids.
But especially to all of you.
The depths of our wild journey aren’t over, but they will never be as dark as they have been, and my commitment to you is that I share the amazing moments of light, celebration, and joy that are always on the other side of that deep investment we make for our children.
It is not a matter if you or your kids heal, it is a matter of when…
I just don’t play God, and neither do any of us in the office when miracles happen.
That reminds me of a foundational phrase in Future Generations culture.
1+1 equals infinity.
Now I use this analogy of birth as the greatest example. Where two cells come together, and nine months later, a being emerges made up of 26 billion cells, and no mom has to consciously control every aspect of that process.
Our existence alone is evidence of a miraculous biology and design.
But we’ve also used it to extrapolate toward ideas and to build our team. Where, if we have two entities that come together, it isn’t a linear one plus one equals two, it is this exponential miraculous possibility of inspiration that is rather infinite.
And that is what I want the theme to be for 2024.
It is why we are launching new workshops.
It is why we are bringing back old foundational workshops.
It is why we are planning more fun and community building events.
That’s why I have enlisted Dr. Ryan as the Chief Officer of Fun and we have elevated two amazing leaders as managers in our organization.
Because we know that the service that we are meant to bring to this community is far more miraculous than we have offered. And this is me fully understanding that we have stepped up in a big way, and in bigger ways than any practice in the world does, but there is always room for greater inspiration.
1+ 1 equals infinity.
Please pray and meditate on that in your own life.
It’s one of the most powerful beliefs I know. It has fueled virtually everything Future Generations has accomplished in service to our ever-growing community over the last 13 years. The more I reflect over the whole of my life, it has fueled everything I have ever done of significance.
And of course, it will fuel virtually everything we do in the future.
Welcome to January and 2024!
So many blessings to celebrate and so many more welcome into our world.
Love and appreciate you all,
S