Bring your Twinkle Back
The world is opening up. Like a soft pink sky glimpsed after a storm, we are beginning to enter the time called “after”— and yet a lot of days it’s hard to know just how to be in this new-old world. Lately I’ve had more dinners, parties, and adventures than I’ve had in the whole last year put together. It’s wonderful— to be able to eat chocolate mousse inside my favorite restaurant and spend a week at the beach with a houseful of friends— but it’s also strange. Many of the things I’ve missed are possible again, and yet it’s not quite the same… because I’m not the same.
The things I yearned for have returned— but something is still missing. And in my clearest moments I know exactly what it is: the twinkle has yet to come back.
You innately know what I mean when I say “twinkle”— the word describes itself. Twinkle is the way light plays on sunlit waters. It’s life’s possibilities, and the way we can delight in them. It is our ability to both love this existence, and not take it too seriously. To believe wholeheartedly in the magic and remember that the universe has a profound sense of humor. When we have a twinkle, we always know how to laugh at the joke because we trust the benevolence behind every cloud.
We’re all born with a twinkle, you can see it in every baby’s eyes. But life’s hardships have a way of dimming that light. There’s nothing wrong with losing your twinkle every once in a while… it’s a natural part of being alive. The task is to learn how to cultivate our twinkle again after each storm has passed. To figure out exactly what we need to feel that safe joy again and give ourselves those things that will help the light come back into our eyes.
If you’re ready to bring your twinkle back, check out my new lighthearted video, where I talk about exactly what this twinkle is (from a Chinese medicine perspective, the twinkle is not only a diagnostic tool but a direct indicator of spiritual health), plus some easy steps to invite that glimmer back into your life.
Because the beautiful part about the twinkle is that, just like the sun rising over the eastern sea each morning, it always comes back. That’s the thing about life. The benevolence and magic, possibility and joy are always trying to find their way home to you— even when you feel you’ve lost the ability to find them on your own. The Earth never stops loving you, your guides never stop sending you signs, your wider self never stops holding you in its wide light.
And that’s the secret, I think, behind every true twinkle in someone’s eyes.
The deepest twinkle doesn’t come from never having experienced hardship or loss, it lives most strongly in the eyes of those who have seen all the light go out of life… and then held on long enough to welcome it back.
The twinkle is a sign, not of inexperience, but of the wisdom of believing in innocence again, the journey of regaining one’s trust in the goodness of life.
To have a twinkle is to be in on the ultimate secret— that life itself is a process of losing, and regaining, one’s light (and that it’s possible to be amused by this wild ride!).
The twinkle is the wink that says… this is life. And you, dear one, will not only live through this but will glow on the other side.
On a recent weekend away, exploring a new part of the country, I went on an early morning walk in the woods. I came across a fantastic rope swing in a mighty oak tree. Apart from the occasional dog walker there was nobody else around to watch me so I swung on it for several minutes laughing like a child as I sailed through the leaves. In the end I didn’t care who saw me as it was such fun and a great sense of freedom and play.
i’m twinkling when i’m dancing and singing for my two dogs who are always nonchalant when I do that 😀
Spending time in the flowers + watching the bees do their dance!
Oh Asia…you are such a twinkly star of joy and you touch my heart every time I receive a message from you. As a person renowned for my twinkle it has been a helluva a year…so much loss in my life from dear friends and pets passing over the rainbow bridge, to personal injuries, not to mention national and global worries that I have just had the twinkle knocked clean across the proverbial park. I’m kind of not all here, hence my taking your course and getting back to the garden (literally). Thank you for reminding me to play, and be silly….I’m seriously feeling a bit of twinkle just thinking about it!✨
I really feel you on this having been a helluva year Rebecca. I think we all deserve a gold star just for getting through it! Trauma is, by definition, a dissociation. And it’s been quite a traumatic year! I’m glad we get to bring our twinkles back together in the course. Whether or not you feel it, the light within you just radiates. It’s obvious from this message! Now we get to find that twinkle again for ourselves. Much love XO Asia
Oh my! So timely, I was just, literally just, writing in my journal this afternoon about getting the twinkle back – though I didn’t use the word twinkle… and then I saw your email. That brings the twinkle back for me, the ‘synchronicities’, the connection between like-minded folk, also known as tribes in my cosmology, the way life supports my path even when I think it doesn’t (or have forgotten that it does), the way wisdom shows up exactly as I ask for it…. all twinkle food for me! Because it is also hard evidence of the magic that animates my/the world. Thanks Asia, one again you nailed it for me.
These synchronicities really bring me a twinkle as well! Thank you so much for sharing this here with us Sarah. I really love the term “twinkle food”!!! That’s life’s true nourishment, isn’t it?? Sending you much love and twinkle lights
I really needed to hear this- thank you very much.
Thanks for being here Idara! And thank you for your light XO
I experienced a bit of this while waiting for my car to be repaired. The automotive shop has a waiting room I could have sat in, but instead I decided to take myself for a walk on roads I’d never been. I connected to so many roadside flowers and became aware of a perfectly cooling breeze in trees, and light changes in sky…it felt like magic. I thought about the life spark difference between that and sitting in a waiting room and decided to always make that choice.
What a moment of magic! Thanks for sharing with us Erin 🙂
Thank you for these wonderful timely videos!
The twinkle comes back often when I sit or lie under green leafy trees and just gaze up in the the light playing through the leaves. Also, wild dancing with no particular rhythm works. Loud raucous singing especially when no else can hear it brings on the twinkle.
Beautiful. Thank you for sharing your light here with us Susan!