Starting the Year From a Deeper Place: What Kindergarten Didn’t Teach Us About Consciousness (yet)

I love this time of year. The winter solstice just passed, the light is slowly returning, and whether you mark the New Year on a calendar or in your bones, there is a feeling of possibility in the air.

Not because I want to catalog everything I did wrong last year and make grand resolutions. I’ve done that. It’s exhausting.

What I love about January is the sense of possibility. The feeling that something new can be added. Something inspired. Something that makes life feel a little easier and maybe a whole lot more interesting.

That is the kind of renewal I care about. Not fixing what is broken, but discovering how much more has been here all along.

For a long time, what was missing for me was a basic understanding of how the world actually works, beyond just thoughts and behaviors. I did not feel broken, exactly, just confused. People were complicated and environments affected me more than I expected. I could feel calm in one place and totally scrambled in another, without any obvious reason.

What eventually changed everything was learning about energy and awareness, not as something abstract or mystical, but as something practical and very human. I began to understand how we are constantly interacting with the world around us, with other people, and with our own internal state, often without realizing it. How we pick things up from each other. How our perception narrows or expands depending on what we are sensing. Why we get overwhelmed. Why thinking harder often makes things worse, and why noticing more often helps. Once I had that missing piece, life made a lot more sense, and yes, it got much easier. Turns out, I was learning and growing right alongside the science.

Not that long ago, the idea that mind and body were connected was considered cutting-edge. Now it is common sense. What is emerging now is an understanding that we are not just mind and body, but also awareness, perception, and consciousness moving through an energetic and relational world. Neuroscience, psychology, and physiology are increasingly pointing in this direction, showing how much our experience of health, clarity, and well-being depends on what we are sensing, noticing, and integrating, not just what we are thinking. But this information has not been made available to most people, and even for that minority it is theoretical, not usable. We learned a lot in kindergarten. How to share. How to take turns. How to use scissors. We did not learn how to share without absorbing everyone else’s feelings, or how to keep our own energy intact. Fortunately, that part is learnable now.

Sound like something you would want for yourself? I hope so. Because in mid-January, my dear friend and colleague Dr. Karen Janes and I are launching a new podcast called Life Made Easier. Karen is based in England, and despite being an ocean apart, we have spent decades asking the same questions from our own corners of the world. How do people actually live well when we were never taught how perception, nervous systems, and environments shape our experience? Why do so many capable people feel overwhelmed? And what changes when you understand yourself as an energetic person in an energetic world?

The podcast is playful, practical, and very grounded. It covers things people are always asking us about, things like, how do you become more energy sensitive without becoming overwhelmed? What exactly is the impact of our thoughts on our reality? And how do I use that information in real life?

If you are smiling or nodding right now, you are exactly who we made this for.

This year does not need to be about pushing harder or becoming someone new. It might simply be about learning a few things about yourself and the world at the level of perception. Not self-improvement. Self-awareness. That kind of understanding does not just make life more manageable, it changes everything downstream. Your choices. Your energy. Your sense of ease in the world.

I’ll send a separate email soon with more details about the podcast launch. For now, I just wanted to say Happy New Year, and let you know about something I’m really looking forward to sharing.

Here’s to the returning light, deepening our understanding, and enjoying the process along the way.

Happy New Year!