Both/And: December's Call to Wholeness

THE PULSE

This is what matters this week.

You are whole. Which means you contain multitudes.

Light and shadow. Expansion and contraction. The capacity to celebrate and the need to withdraw. The desire to give and the requirement to receive.

December amplifies all of it.

But we've been taught to fear the dark. To fill it with artificial light. To run from it like it's death itself.

It's time for a different understanding.

Darkness isn't death. It's not emptiness. It's not something to escape.

Darkness is the womb. The seed pod. The cosmic space where stars are born. Every act of creation begins in darkness. Every gestation happens in shadow. Every transformation requires descent into the unseen before anything new can emerge.

This is what your body already knows—that darkness is restoration. Involution before evolution. Something you can sink into and welcome, like flannel sheets under a down comforter on a cold winter night.

Luxuriate in it. Let it hold you.

The longest night of the year—the winter solstice—happens right alongside the celebration of light returning. Ancient cultures honored this darkest point as sacred. And every major spiritual tradition understands the same truth: light is born from darkness.

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Diwali, the solstice itself, or none of the above—the pattern is the same. Light emerging at the darkest point. Hope arriving in shadow. Something sacred happening in the depths that can't happen in brightness.

Darkness isn't the absence of the divine. It's full of it.

And so are you.

You contain both—the capacity to shine and the wisdom that only comes in shadow. The energy to create and the necessity of rest. The love that gives and the boundaries that preserve.

The exhaustion you feel in December isn't because you're doing it wrong. It's because you're trying to be only one thing when your design requires you to be both.

You want to create magic with your children—AND you need time alone. You want to be with family—AND you need space from their judgments. You want to celebrate—AND you need to descend.

Stop making yourself choose.

The Lavish woman doesn't pick sides. She moves fluidly between both, taking what she needs from each, trusting that she can ascend into light and descend into darkness at will.

Because that's what wholeness actually means: the capacity to be fully present in both without abandoning yourself in either.

THE DEEP TAKE

Where we go deeper—science, story, truth.

For years, I fought December's duality.

I thought I had to be all light—creating perfect memories, showing up for everyone, pretending the season didn't also carry grief, exhaustion, old wounds.

Or I'd swing the other direction and want to withdraw completely—skip the gatherings, refuse the traditions, hide from the demands.

But neither extreme worked. Because neither was true.

The real truth? I needed both.

I wanted to watch my children's faces light up on Christmas morning—AND I needed hours of silence before I could show up for it. I wanted to be with family—AND I needed boundaries around what I was available for. I wanted to celebrate—AND I needed to honor what the darkness was revealing.

The shift came when I stopped treating these as opposing forces and started recognizing them as the rhythm of my design.

Your body already knows this. It moves through cycles—waking and sleeping, activity and rest, expansion and contraction. Your nervous system oscillates between sympathetic (action) and parasympathetic (restoration). Your hormones ebb and flow with your cycle.

You were never meant to be one thing all the time.

And December—with its collision of brightness and shadow, celebration and introspection, outward energy and inward pull—is asking you to remember this.

The wisdom you're seeking isn't in choosing light over dark or dark over light. It's in trusting your capacity to move between both.

To give generously—and receive without guilt. To show up for others—and disappear when you need to. To celebrate the light—and cozy into the dark when your body says it's time.

This is what I mean when I say: stop being afraid of the darkness.

I'm not asking you to abandon joy. I'm inviting you to let the darkness feel good too.

Because here's what happens when you sink into it instead of running from it:

You see what needs to be released. You hear what your body has been trying to tell you. You access the wisdom that only emerges in stillness.

And what's there, waiting to be witnessed? Often it's what we've been pushing down all year—the regret, the grief, the resentment. The fear and uncertainty we've kept moving too fast to feel. The things that keep us from the presence we actually want.

For most of the year, we can outrun this through busyness, through achievement, through the bright yang energy of doing. But winter removes that escape route. The darkness increases, and suddenly, what's been waiting surfaces.

It’s meant to happen this way.

In nature, winter darkness isn't dormancy—it's active transformation. Seeds require cold stratification to germinate. The forest floor composts last season's growth into the nutrients that will feed what emerges in spring. The material must break down before new growth is possible.

Your nervous system works this way, too. You cannot process difficult emotions or integrate what needs healing while you're in the bright, busy, doing state of sympathetic activation. Your parasympathetic nervous system—where true healing and emotional witnessing happen—requires darkness and stillness to come fully online.

Winter's extended darkness isn't taking something from you. It's giving you the conditions you need to compost what no longer serves, to witness what's been waiting, to let old patterns break down so you can emerge transformed.

And then—when you're ready, when you're resourced—you can rise back into the light without it costing you everything.

This year, I'm not traveling for Christmas. My body said no, clear as anything. And instead of overriding that knowing in the name of obligation, I listened.

My family is fine. Nothing broke. The world kept turning.

Here's the wisdom I want you to get: when you honor both—the light and the dark, the giving and the receiving, the expansion and the descent—you stop abandoning yourself.

You stop getting sick every January. You stop resenting the season you're supposed to love. You stop performing joy you don't feel or hiding in shadows that feel like shame.

You allow your wholeness. Just as it is. Just as you are.

And wholeness? That's where your real power lives.

IN REAL LIFE

What it actually looks like.

Being both/and in December isn't about balance. It's about fluidity—the ability to move between light and dark as your system requires.

Here's how:

→ Give yourself permission to need both

You can love creating memories with your children AND need two hours alone afterward. You can show up for family AND set a boundary around when you leave. You can celebrate AND grieve in the same breath.

Stop making yourself choose. You're designed for both.

→ Learn your body's signal for "it's time to descend"

Your body will tell you when it needs to withdraw—learn to recognize the first whispers and honor them.  If tight chest, shallow breath, irritability, exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix begins to show up, you’ve run past neutral.

When you feel it, create space immediately. Even 15 minutes of silence can recalibrate your system before you're completely depleted. Devote yourself to learning the easy way this time.

→ Make the darkness feel good

Stop treating descent like punishment. Make it pleasurable.

Light a fire. Wrap yourself in cashmere. Turn off every light and sit in the dark with tea.

Let your nervous system register: darkness is safe. Stillness is nourishing. I can sink here and nothing bad will happen. I can welcome the goodness that is here for me in this place. 

→ Celebrate without abandoning yourself

Before you say yes to the gathering, the tradition, the obligation—ask:
Do I have the capacity for this right now?
What would I need before and after to stay resourced?

If the answer is "nothing could make this feel good," that's your signal to decline.

But if you genuinely want to show up, create the conditions that let you enjoy it instead of endure it.

→ Trust your capacity to move between both

You don't have to stay in the light until you collapse.
You don't have to hide in the dark until the season passes.

You can ascend into celebration when it feels true—and descend into stillness when your body asks for it.

This is what wholeness looks like: fluid movement between both, taking what you need from each.

→ Let December expand you

When you stop choosing sides—when you embrace both the light and the shadow, the giving and the receiving—something opens.

You stop fighting the season. You stop resenting the demands or hiding from the joy.

You become spacious enough to hold all of it without fracturing.

This is what it looks like to hold your own sovereignty in the depths of Winter.

FROM THE WELL

What’s supporting the rhythm.

The Both/And Practice

Every evening this week, take five minutes to acknowledge both:

Light a candle (the light). Sit in silence (the dark).

Name one thing you gave today—and one thing you received.
Name one moment of joy—and one moment that asked for grief.
Name what expanded you—and what invited you deeper.

You're not choosing. You're witnessing both.

The Solstice Integration

On December 21st—the longest night—practice moving between both at will:

Sit in complete darkness for 10 minutes. Let your eyes adjust.
Let your body remember: this is safe.

Then light one candle and watch the way light changes everything—not by eliminating the dark, but by existing within it.

Write: What did the darkness show me? What does the light illuminate?

Both are true. Both are you.

December Morning Pages for Whole-System Clarity

Three pages. Longhand. Every morning.

This is where both voices get to speak—the one that wants to celebrate and the one that needs to withdraw. The one that loves your family and the one that needs boundaries. The one that wants to give and the one that's learning to receive.

Stop censoring either. Let both be true.

This practice will transform the way you can show up for yourself and the ones you love, I promise.

THE LAST WORD

You are not too much and not enough at the same time.

Like this season, you are a beautiful paradox. And you're whole, already. Which means you contain all of it—light and shadow, expansion and contraction, the capacity to give and the wisdom to receive.

December isn't asking you to choose. It's inviting you into the fullness of your Divine design.

To celebrate AND rest. To show up AND withdraw. To be with others AND be with yourself.

To ascend into the light when it calls you—and descend into the dark when your body or your spirit asks for it.

To be transformed by your own renewing.

Not so that you can emerge the same as you were, but so that you can expand into your own becoming, free of the decaying matter that holds you captive in your own life.

You were never meant to be just one thing, to experience one thing, to make one choice.

You are both/and. Always.

And when you stop fighting that—when you let both be true, when you move fluidly between light and dark without making either wrong—

That's when you become unstoppable.

The wisdom is already inside you.
You ARE that wisdom.
Trust yourself.

That's the shift. That's the medicine.

Until next week…

Be well. Be fierce. Be lavish.