January arrived with a SLAM.

I wasn’t expecting that.

I stepped into 2026 feeling lighter and full of hope. There was a sense of possibility and the feeling that a shift was finally going to happen.

And then my body decided to have other plans. A horrible cold flattened me, my back flared up, and immediately the month felt strangely intense and heavier than I was expecting.

At first I thought it was just exhaustion, as though I needed to be better with self-care and balance. Life has been busy in all the good ways. I’ve taken on a new business consultancy role that now takes up half my week alongside everything I hold with Ground & Rise®. It’s been expansive and meaningful, and also very real in how it’s forced me to look honestly at time, energy, and what I can truly hold.

But when I reflected on what had given me that sense of hope, and sat with the Tarot, something deeper began to make sense.

2025 carried the energy of The Hermit. A nine year (2+0+2+5). A year of going inward.

Hermit years aren’t about big leaps forward. They’re about listening more closely, simplifying, and meeting yourself again beneath the noise of everything you thought you should be doing or becoming. They invite those deeper questions about what actually lights you up now, what feels true, and who you’re becoming beneath the roles and expectations.

Looking back, so much of last year was exactly that for me. Slowing down, refining, trusting intuition more deeply, and letting Ground & Rise® grow in a way that started by letting go and saying, “this isn’t working”. It was scary and prickly and I was metaphorically alone in the dark holding the Hermit’s lantern as I reached in to find my inner liminal, luminous guide.

And then we stepped into 2026. A ten year (2+0+2+6). The Wheel of Fortune.

Where the Hermit is inward, the Wheel is about movement, momentum and new chapters, that sense that life is beginning to flow again.

I think I walked into January expecting expansion to feel light and easy, like turning a page and suddenly being in a whole new chapter where the ground met my steps with ease.

But no. January felt hard.

And then I realised there was something else happening underneath it all.

This is the year I’m selling my family home of 20 years and downsizing.

I’ve known it was coming for a while. I’ve planned for it, prepared emotionally for it, talked myself through it with all the sensible adult parts of me. But as soon as January arrived it suddenly became real.

This is actually happening.

My kids have grown up, I’ve chosen a more soulful life over a high-earning career, and it’s time to move into a smaller place.

The sadness has been there alongside the anticipation, not overwhelming, just present, memories surfacing as I open into something new.

It helped me see something about the Wheel of Fortune that we don’t always talk about.

We often imagine the Wheel as lucky, everything finally flowing with ease, doors opening and life moving in our favour, but there’s another side to it that feels far more embodied, which is the moment when change stops being something we’re preparing for and becomes something we’re actually living.

The Wheel of Fortune isn’t just the hopeful build-up, it’s the THIS IS HAPPENING moment, when life shifts in real time and the ground beneath us actually moves.

And I think that’s why January felt like it arrived with a slam because the conversation with estate agents began and the reality of moving is here.

The Hermit energy of last year had been getting me ready internally, helping me slow down, reflect, simplify, question what was no longer working and listen more deeply to what wanted to emerge, but preparation doesn’t always make the lived experience of change feel easy.

The Wheel is about movement in daily life, about chapters closing and opening for real rather than just being thought about.

And with that movement comes excitement and possibility, but also grief and the emotional weight of letting go of what has mattered.

It’s brought me back again and again to the same reflective questions about what truly matters right now, where I want to place my energy, and what feels nourishing rather than overwhelming.

And every time I sit with those questions, the answer that keeps rising is connection.

Not more pushing or planning, but creating spaces where we can pause, pull cards, reflect honestly and listen to what’s unfolding beneath the surface of busy lives.

Tarot continues to be one of the most powerful tools I know for this kind of reflection, not as prediction, but as a way of bringing inner experience into awareness so we can meet change with more presence and compassion.

I think January felt so hard because I expected Wheel of Fortune energy to feel light and liberating, when in reality it felt like the full weight of change landing all at once in my body and life.

The Hermit prepared me for the shift.
The Wheel of Fortune made the shift real.

So this year doesn’t feel like rushing into momentum, but allowing change to unfold at the pace it needs to, grounded by the inner work that has already happened and met honestly when it feels emotional as well as exciting.

Sometimes growth doesn’t arrive as a rush of happiness or clarity, but as a deeper breath, a clearer sense of what matters, and the courage to keep moving even when parts of the journey feel tender.

And I’m learning that this too is the Wheel of Fortune at work.