In the saddle of the Fire Horse — between gallop and burnout

For me, the new year didn’t begin on January 1st. If you remember, I spoke about that at the time. That familiar feeling of a “new beginning” was missing. There was no symbolic click, no decisions, no lists, no resolutions. Everything felt the same — just colder, slower, and somehow heavier.

Somewhere between the end of January and the beginning of February, I felt a clear shift. Not in my head — but in my body. As if an engine that had been idling for months finally found its rhythm.

Only later did I realise: a new phase doesn’t actually begin on a date — it begins within us.

The body knew before I did

I began noticing small things that couldn’t be ignored. During exercise, I felt more warmth, faster activation, a stronger flow of energy through my body. My breathing changed. Movement became more fluid, less “heavy.”

By coincidence or not, I had been reading about energy medicine for some time, but this wasn’t an intellectual understanding. This was experience: a body responding, waking up, shifting from winter dormancy into something more active.

Interestingly, this didn’t align with the calendar, but with the transition of winter — and with the beginning of the Year of the Fire Horse according to the Chinese calendar.

The Fire Horse and why this year “burns”

The Year of the Fire Horse is not subtle. It is not the energy of quiet introspection. It is heat, movement, an inner pressure to change something. A symbol of speed, action, freedom, motion. A horse doesn’t stand still. A horse moves. And it moves with fire beneath its hooves.

I think that’s why many of us feel this year more intensely. If it seems to you that the world is behaving like a horse that has just downed five energy drinks — you’re not alone.

The body no longer wants stagnation. But it also doesn’t want chaos. And that’s where tension arises — felt by many as anxiety, restlessness, or an inner heat without a clear cause. Today, we no longer need a personal problem to feel anxious. It’s enough to open the news. Or a banking app. Or LinkedIn. Or… anything, honestly.

Fear is no longer an existential episode — it has become background noise. Fear of the future. Of inflation, wars, politics. Of whether our job will exist in five years. Of whether AI will replace us, improve us, or simply confuse us even more.

Our bodies know how to react to a mammoth in front of a cave — but they don’t know what to do with geopolitical instability in real time.

One day, after spending the entire day in nature, I sat down with pain in my lower back and thought:
“Either my energy is really changing — or I’ve just entered menopause.”

Then I laughed at myself. Because the truth is: the body is constantly changing, and we’ve been taught to immediately pathologise or rationalise every change. Sometimes it’s not about hormones, age, or psychology — but about a natural transition from one cycle to another.

Nature as regulation, not escape

For me, nature is not a romantic Instagram backdrop or a luxury wellness experience.
It is my doctor. Because a tree doesn’t know it’s the Year of the Fire Horse. A river doesn’t know about crisis or stress. And precisely because of that, being near them brings the body back from the future into the present. 

Not because we “have to calm down,” but because the body finally receives the signal: it’s safe.
What fascinates me about energy medicine is that it doesn’t require belief — only listening. What we observe around us in nature, we learn to recognise within ourselves. Energy doesn’t say “you must,” it says “notice.” Notice where you feel warmth, where you feel blockage, where the body asks for movement and where it asks for rest. In a time when the world is accelerating and threatening to overheat, this kind of attention is not a luxury. It’s basic hygiene — just like washing your hands.

This is also the time when the calendar offers us Valentine’s Day. A holiday we’ve reduced to gestures, gifts, and expectations. But perhaps this year the point is simpler — and more honest: what is our relationship with our own body, how much do we truly love ourselves? Perhaps this is where it all begins — in the way we treat ourselves every day, in the small things.

And it is precisely with this level of attention toward myself that I am learning to deal with the energy of this year. I don’t try to control it. I don’t try to “use” it.

I do three very simple things:

1. I move when my body asks for movement — without forcing goals. If I go into nature, I really go. No news. No “just checking something quickly.”
2. I go into nature when I feel too much fire — the earth and greenery bring the energy down.
3. I don’t make big decisions on days when my body is burning — because fire is a poor advisor. Conscious slowing down is not laziness. It’s a survival strategy.

In Conclusion: We don’t have to be faster

Perhaps the point of this year isn’t to be faster, more informed, or more resilient.
Perhaps the point is to learn how to stop while everything around us keeps moving.

The world will gallop on without us.
It’s up to us to decide whether we will burn out — or find a rhythm in which we can remain alive, present, and ourselves. And if we’re already riding the Fire Horse, perhaps it’s time to learn how to dismount — at least for a while.