Wish-Crafting Guidance for
✨ The 13 Magical Wishes of Yule ✨
wish-crafting
Before you begin working with wishes, take time to create intentional space for this process. This work asks for your attention. Set aside enough time that you are not rushing. Close other tabs. Silence notifications if you can.
Begin by grounding yourself and coming back into your body. Use whatever helps you do that: slow breathing, a few minutes of meditation, gentle stretching, a short walk, or simply sitting still and noticing your physical sensations. The goal is to create a clear channel to listen to your own inner knowing.
Looking Back: Completing the Year That Was
From this grounded place, turn your attention backward to one year ago, to Yule season 2024.
Picture yourself as you were then.
What does she not know yet?
What is she most worried about?
What is she quietly hoping will happen?
If you could send her one honest text message, what would it say?
Now open your journal and sketch a simple timeline of the year you just lived. Mark the major events, transitions, and turning points of 2025 as you remember them. This does not need to be detailed or exhaustive; you are looking for overall shape.
From this vantage point, reflect on the year as a whole:
In what spaces did you feel most alive this year?
Which relationships felt most supportive or easeful?
When did you feel genuinely content or peaceful, and why?
What did you invest in that truly nourished you?
Now turn toward the weight of the year.
What was the heaviest thing you carried?
Is there anything that still feels unfinished or unresolved?
Seeing the Pattern of Your Life
Return to your timeline.
Mark moments that fed or supported you with a star.
Mark moments that drained you with an X.
Then step back and look at the whole pattern.
What themes appear in what fed you?
What themes appear in what drained you?
What currently takes the most time or energy in your life?
What feels absent or undernourished?
What was this year really about?
What did it ask you to learn, face, or release?
As you reflect, sort what you see into three categories:
What is within your control
These are choices, behaviors, and conditions you can directly change through your own actions. This includes how you spend your time, how you care for your body, what you agree to, what you say yes or no to, and the systems you personally maintain
What is within your influence
These are situations where you cannot decide the outcome alone, but where your presence, communication, or participation has an effect. This often includes relationships, shared environments, collaborative work, and family dynamics where change is possible but not unilateral.
What is outside your responsibility
These are conditions you did not cause and cannot fix on your own. This includes other people’s choices, systemic forces, past events, health challenges, death of a loved one and outcomes that would require much more than your individual effort to change.
As we move forward, consider focusing your time, energy, efforts and wishes on things that are within your control and influence, and not things that fall outside of your control.
Give the Year a Name
Finally, try to distill all this down and give the year a title–a way you might remember this year in just a simple short statement..
“2025 — the year she…” (the year she learned crochet, the year she started that job, the year she got married/divorced, the year she found her voice, etc)
WRITE THIS DOWN!
When you’re finished, pause and acknowledge that this year is complete.
Completion does not always mean it was easy, fair, resolved or wrapped in a bow. At this point you just want to see it for what it was
Orienting Forward
Now shift your attention forward.
Imagine yourself one year from now, in winter 2026.
Where are you living?
How does your body feel?
What feels simpler or lighter?
What is clearly different?
Then extend your view even further.
Imagine waking up on your 80th birthday.
Where are you?
Who are you with?
How does your body feel?
How do you spend your days?
What are you proud of in your life?
After writing, circle the qualities that made this version of your life possible. Focus on qualities rather than outcomes. (For example: steadiness, trust, courage, discipline, softness, clarity.)
After sitting with these future images, shift your attention back to the present.
What are the one or two things that would need to happen for these versions of your life to become possible?
What would need to change or be established between now and next winter, or between now and your 80th birthday?
Wishes Begin to Take Form
Move through the sections below in order.
After each one, pause and take note of any wishes that arise.
Joy, Life Force, Creative Energy
Journaling Questions
WIshes that might naturally arise here
What brings me genuine pleasure or delight?
Where do I feel most alive, creative, or playful?
Am I doing enough of this to feel resourced?
WHat wants to be created through me or brought into form?
I wish to experience more pleasure.
I wish to create freely.
I wish to give time and energy to what feels meaningful to me.
I wish to live in closer alignment with what matters to me.
Energy, Limits, What You Keep Tolerating
Journaling Questions
Wishes that might naturally arise here
What am I still doing out of obligation or habit that drains me?
Where am I sacrificing my body, time, or energy?
What is the hidden benefit of staying exactly where I am?
If I stopped waiting to feel ready, what would/could change?
I wish to practice saying no when my energy is depleted.
I wish to protect my energy and honor my limits.
I wish to rest before I reach exhaustion.
I wish to stop sacrificing my body to meet expectations.
I wish to structure my days in a way that supports my wellbeing.
Home, Environment, Nervous System
Journaling Questions
Wishes that might naturally arise here
Does my living environment support the life I want?
How does it affect my nervous system?
Where does my body feel tense, rushed, or on alert at home?
What would help my body settle enough to move forward?
I wish to feel more at ease in my home.
I wish to create a living space that supports rest and restoration.
I wish to live in a way that feels more rooted and less precarious.
I wish to cultivate steadiness in my body and daily life.
Relationships and Reciprocity
Journaling Questions
Wishes that might naturally arise here
How do I want to feel in my closest relationships?
What feels misaligned or unsustainable?
What role do I play in maintaining those dynamics?
How could I shift how I show up, without controlling others?
I wish to tend relationships that feel mutual and sustaining.
I wish to show up as myself without shrinking.
I wish to experience relationships that are mutual and steady.
I wish to feel a sense of belonging without over-explaining who I am.
I wish to offer and receive support in equal measure.
Voice, Truth, Avoidance
Journaling Questions
Wishes that might naturally arise here
What am I avoiding that I know would change things?
What do I most want to say out loud?
Where do I want to feel freer or more confident in communication?
I wish to speak my truth.
I wish to express myself clearly and honestly.
I wish to show up more fully in my relationships and work.
Focus, Systems, Follow-Through
Journaling Questions
Wishes that might naturally arise here
If you could work on only one thing for the next six months, what would it be?
What structure or support would make that possible?
What are you willing to prioritize, even if other things wait?
I wish to give focused attention to what matters most.
I wish to create systems that support my commitments.
I wish to follow through on what I say I want.
Spirit, Justice, Right-Sized Participation
Journaling Questions
Wishes that might naturally arise here
Where do I feel the most grief, anger, or moral tension about the world?
What harm or injustice feels closest to my life or community?
Where do I have some capacity to respond?
If I did nothing here for another year, what would trouble me most?
I wish to contribute to my community in ways I can maintain.
I wish to stay informed and engaged without burning out.
I wish to align my daily choices with the values I hold about justice.
I wish to offer care where I am, rather than trying to carry everything.
I wish to trust the unfolding of my life.
I wish to feel supported by something greater than myself.
Shaping Your 13 Wishes
Now gather the wishes that surfaced throughout this process. You may have more than thirteen at first. That’s expected.
Read through everything you’ve written and begin to edit. Some wishes will overlap. Some will feel redundant or less alive on a second pass. Keep the ones that feel both true and relevant for the year ahead.
Your goal is not to make the “best” wishes, but to arrive at thirteen that you can stand behind.
A workable wish is:
Written in the present tense
Within your own agency, not dependent on someone else changing
Focused on a condition you can tend, rather than a guaranteed outcome
Clear enough to guide how you live, even if you don’t yet know exactly how it will unfold
Open enough to allow for uncertainty, growth, and surprise
You can use the following structure as a guide if needed:
I wish to actively tend / cultivate / practice
a quality or condition
in my own life.
If a wish feels vague or overly abstract, refine it by asking:
What would this look like in practice?
How do I participate in this, rather than waiting for it to happen?
What feels honest and doable right now?
Once you have your list of thirteen, stop.
Closing the Journey
At this point, you have done the essential work. You have looked honestly at where you’ve been, clarified the conditions of your present life, and allowed real desires to surface without forcing them into premature plans.
You do not need to perfect your wishes. You do not need to understand how they will unfold. A good wish is one that feels true in your body and workable in your life, even if the path forward is not yet clear.