This Isn’t About Healing Anymore
It’s about who you’re willing to become.
Initiate, initiate. Fire, fire, fire.
2026 feels like a year of initiation. I keep hearing it, seeing it, sensing it in conversations, in the collective energy, in my own life. Especially now, as spring unfolds in the northern hemisphere and Aries season ignites that unmistakable spark of beginning again.
But here’s the question I can’t stop asking, do we actually know what initiation means?
Do you know what it feels like? And more importantly… how is it different from transformation?
Because this isn’t a year of transformation.
2025 was transformation.
2025 was about shedding. Composting. Letting go. Changing skins.
It was the deep, often uncomfortable process of becoming aware of what no longer fits—and having the courage to release it.
Transformation is the act of changing.
It’s the unraveling, the rewiring, the healing. It’s where we learn to think differently, feel differently, choose differently. It’s where we begin the journey back to self.
For many of us, that path looks like healing old wounds, stepping out of disempowered patterns, or simply asking: “There has to be another way to live.”
Maybe it was therapy. Maybe it was changing your habits. Maybe it was a yoga training, a new routine, a commitment to your well-being.
Some of us move from the outside in; changing our bodies, our environments, our lifestyles.
Others moved from the inside out; shifting beliefs, identities, and emotional patterns.
Either way, transformation is a devotional path.
A path toward authenticity. Toward self-love. Toward self-worth.
And for most of us, it’s lifelong.
Here’s where something profound happens.
Transformation, when lived fully, becomes a doorway.
A threshold.
A preparation for initiation.
Because at a certain point, something in you stabilizes.
Your self-trust deepens.
Your resilience strengthens.
Your capacity to hold yourself - really hold yourself - expands.
And suddenly… you’re ready for something else.
Initiation is not about changing who you are.
It’s about stepping into who you’ve never been before.
It asks you to live from a place you haven’t yet embodied.
For some, that might mean living from the heart instead of the mind.
For others, it might mean orienting toward soul instead of personality.
Or moving closer to spirit or deeper into the grounded reality of matter, depending on what you’ve avoided or never fully experienced.
Initiation isn’t self-improvement.
It’s identity-level rebirth.
And yes, many of us first encounter initiation by handing our power to something or someone, outside of us.
A teacher. A guide. A ceremony.
Spaces where we say, “Show me. Take me there.”
And those experiences can be powerful. They can open doors we didn’t know existed. They can dissolve parts of us we thought were permanent.
Then there’s a deeper layer.
The most powerful initiation is self-initiation.
It’s the moment you consciously choose:
I am willing to become someone I have never been before.
It’s the willingness to “die before you die” - to release identities, attachments, and ways of being not because life forced you to… but because your soul is calling you forward.
Again and again.
As many times as it takes.
Until one day, something clicks.
And you realize:
I’m living from a completely different place now.
Your life may look different.
But more importantly - you feel different.
You see yourself through a new lens.
You see the world through a new lens.
Usually, it’s a lens with more capacity
to love,
to express,
to feel the full spectrum of life.
A lens that can hold both the chaos and the beauty.
The extraordinary and the deeply ordinary.
There’s so much more I could say about this. But for now, I want two things for you:
First, a clearer understanding of what initiation energy actually is.
And second, a challenge.
What would it look like for you to initiate yourself (this year) into something you’ve never been, done, seen, or experienced before?
This is the year to embody new ways of being.
To anchor your spirituality into real, tangible life.
To go after the things that genuinely terrify you.
To focus on what you are here to create.
Not someday.
Now.
And I also want to name something important.
Initiation isn’t just personal.
It’s collective.
We are going to witness the world move in ways we haven’t seen before. Systems shifting. Patterns breaking. New realities emerging.
That can feel overwhelming. Even paralyzing at times.
So take care of your nervous system.
Stay grounded in your body.
Come back to your breath, your practices, your presence.
Because this, too, is part of the initiation.
Not just yours; ours.
And whether it feels like fire, or uncertainty, or expansion
you are not outside of it.
You are in it.
You are being shaped by it.
And if you choose…
you are also someone who gets to meet it consciously.
Into the Bones,
Marianna