20/03/2026
Silence, Shadows, and a New Beginning
Here in Bali, the New Year doesn’t start with fireworks.
It starts with silence. The Balinese celebrate Nyepi, a full day where the entire island simply pauses.
But before that stillness, there is an incredible build-up.
In the days leading up to Nyepi, there are ceremonies and rituals, ending with the Ogoh-Ogoh parades. Giant, colorful demon figures are carried through the streets—loud, vibrant, almost chaotic—and then burned at the end of the night. They represent negative forces, and the burning is a way of letting them go.
Then, the next day… everything changes.
💡 No lights.
👩💻 No work.
✈️ No travel.
💃 No entertainment.
🪷 Just quiet.
The idea, as it was explained to me, is beautifully simple:
If the island is completely still, the negative spirits won’t find anyone, and they’ll simply move on.
As I stood there watching the parade, I kept thinking, we all carry our own “demons,” don’t we?
💀 Self-doubt.
💀 Those critical thoughts about ourselves.
💀 The comparisons.
💀 The little voices that sneak in when we least expect them.
We don’t build statues of them, but they’re there. And often, we don’t release them. We carry them with us into the next day, the next decision, the next chapter.
I was reminded of Suchita Smith and her beautiful message about learning to sit with those thoughts, to understand them, and then gently let them go in her book "Little Body Huge Life.
Not by pushing them away, but by choosing to love ourselves anyway.
Nyepi made me realize something: Maybe we don’t need a whole island to shut down, but we do need moments of stillness.
Moments where we stop the noise and turn inward.
Moments to ask ourselves what we’re ready to release.
So here’s a little question I’m sitting with today:
✨ What would you let go of if you gave yourself the space to be completely still?
