I’m walking through Granada’s Christmas streets feeling profoundly alone. Tourists everywhere. Lights strung across every building. People shopping, laughing, performing the festivity that December demands. I watch them and feel nothing but distance.

This should feel familiar—I’ve lived in this city for five years. But something has shifted. Just last week, I was sitting by a fire in the mountains of Portugal, surrounded by music and ceremony and friends who felt like family. When the time came to leave, most of them were staying for another ten days. I could have stayed.

But I chose to come back.

Not because I wanted to. Because I was afraid. Afraid of disappointing people who expect content from me. Afraid of not having enough money to get me through the holiday season. Afraid that December—when I usually run my Heart Start program and send newsletters about heart-centered living—wouldn’t work without me frantically producing.

So I left the fire. I left the music. I left the embodied presence I’d been teaching people to find. And three days ago, I came back to… this. Christmas lights and tourist crowds and the exhausting performance of festivity.

Walking alone through these streets, I finally understand what the baby in the manger was actually about.

A Time To Be Still, Know, and Remember: My Last Article Until Spring Returns

For six years now, I’ve run Heart Start every December. It’s a program designed to help people release the year consciously, reconnect with their core values, and step into the new year with clarity and vision. I’ve poured enormous energy into it. I’ve crafted worksheets, made videos, and guided meditations. I’ve written newsletters explaining why this work matters.

And every year, a small handful of people actually do it. And every year, it doesn’t really pay my bills.

This year, walking alone through Granada’s Christmas streets, I finally asked myself: Why am I doing this?

The honest answer wasn’t pretty. I was running a program about presence while being completely absent from my own life. I was teaching people to come home to themselves while I was homeless in my own heart. I was creating content about nourishment while starving.

The irony would be funny if it weren’t so costly. And the cost keeps showing up: I’m back in Granada for three days and already I feel the familiar weight of obligation settling on my shoulders. The newsletters that need writing. The programs that need launching. The appearance of having it all together that needs maintaining.

But something broke in Portugal. Sitting by that fire, playing music with people I love, cooking meals together, participating in ceremonies that felt ancient and true—I remembered what it feels like to simply be still. Just being. Not the teacher. Not the guide. Not the content creator. Just… Gabriel. Human. Present. Alive.

And now I’m supposed to come back and teach other people how to find that?

What It Costs to Be Small

Scripture says: “Be still and know.”

I’ve always told people that to know is to remember, and to remember is to come back to yourself. But this year, I realized I hadn’t been still. I’d been performing stillness. Teaching it. Creating content about it while never actually stopping.

The aloneness I feel during Christmas—it’s both grief and relief.

Grief because I remember what once was: my parents alive, my siblings gathered, being surrounded by people who loved me. That version of Christmas is gone, and every December I feel that loss.

But relief because I also see what’s happening around me now: people operating on autopilot, spending money they don’t have on gifts nobody needs, performing joy while feeling exhausted. I remember being caught in that same pattern when I was younger—the appearances, the obligations, the sense that if I stopped performing festivity, something terrible would happen.

The relief comes from realizing: I don’t have to do that anymore.

But then the harder question arises: If I’m not performing Christmas, and I’m not performing my role as spiritual teacher, what am I?

Why Christianity Gives Us Permission to Be Nothing

For years, I couldn’t answer that question. Then I started paying attention to what makes Christianity different.

Think about how most religions imagine the divine: Zeus throwing thunderbolts from Mount Olympus. Thor wielding his hammer. The gods of Egypt with their animal heads and cosmic power. Even in more philosophical traditions, the ultimate reality is described as infinite, unchanging, beyond human comprehension—something vast and distant and invulnerable.

Then comes Christmas.

God doesn’t arrive as a warrior king or a cosmic force. He arrives as a baby who can’t speak, can’t walk, can’t feed himself. Completely vulnerable. Utterly dependent and needy. So small that he needs to be held.

This isn’t God pretending to be weak while secretly remaining powerful. This is God actually choosing to be human, weak. Actually becoming the thing that needs protection instead of the thing that protects. Actually entering into the most vulnerable state a human can experience.

That choice changes everything.

It means divinity isn’t found in strength, but in the courage to be small. It means real power isn’t about dominating, but about trusting enough to need. It means the most sacred thing you can do isn’t to perform invulnerability—it’s to let yourself be held.

For years, I missed this. I thought following Christ meant becoming more—more capable, more wise, more able to help others. But the manger says something different. It says: become less. Become small enough to need. Become vulnerable enough to receive.

So the answer to “what am I?” becomes clear: Just a small, vulnerable presence that can’t produce anything, can’t perform anything, can only be—and trust that being is enough.

The Content That Never Stops

We live in the age of infinite content. AI generates videos while we sleep. Social media never stops. Every platform demands we stay visible, keep producing, maintain relevance.

And here I am, a content creator, choosing to stop creating content during the season of endless consumption.

This isn’t virtue. It’s survival.

I watch people scroll through their phones during family dinners, consuming content about presence while being absent. I see spiritual teachers (including myself) posting about stillness while never actually stopping. I notice how we’ve replaced human connection with human-like content.

The baby in the manger couldn’t speak. Couldn’t write newsletters. Couldn’t optimize his reach or build his platform for the algorithm. He could only be—small, vulnerable, dependent, present.

What if that’s not a limitation? What if that’s the point?

What I’m Actually Doing

So I’m taking my cue from the baby in the manger.

This Sunday, December 21st, marks the winter solstice—the longest night, the moment when darkness reaches its fullness before light begins to return. I’m hosting one final global HeartStream meditation to honor this turning.

And then I’m stopping.

No more newsletters until spring. No more Heart Start program this year. No more content about presence while avoiding actual presence.

I’m going to work on my book, build the new Heart Mastery HQ website, and continue supporting my Sacred Heart Meditation Circle and Heart Mastery Circle communities—the people who are already present on this journey with me.

But mostly, I’m going to be still. Play music. Nurture my roots the way trees do in winter—invisible work that looks like nothing is happening but is actually everything.

This isn’t a strategy. It’s not “self-care” or “setting boundaries.” It’s finally understanding what the baby in the manger was actually showing us: that sometimes the most divine thing you can do is stop performing and simply exist. Just be.

If birds do it, if bears do it, then maybe the animal in me and the spiritual longing for solitude and quietness deserve to be honored too.

The Invitation I’m Not Making

I’m not going to tell you to find the Christ presence within. I’m not going to give you three steps to a more meaningful Christmas. I’m not going to invite you to join anything or buy anything or do anything.

Instead, I’m going to tell you what it actually costs to go home to yourself.

It costs leaving community when you don’t want to, because fear tells you that you must. It costs coming back to obligations that don’t serve you or anyone else. It costs walking through streets full of performance while feeling profoundly alone. It costs admitting that the program you created to help others has become the very thing preventing you from living what you teach.

And then, if you’re lucky, it costs one more thing: the courage to stop.

Not forever. Not dramatically. Just… stop. Be still. Remember that to know is to remember, and to remember is to come back to yourself.

The baby in the manger didn’t arrive with a message. He himself was the message. He arrived as silence itself—small, helpless, unable to produce or perform or prove anything. Just presence.

What if that’s the only invitation Christmas ever offered? Not to do more, but to finally stop doing and simply be?

What Hibernation Looks Like

Trees in winter look dead. No leaves, no visible growth, nothing to show for their existence. But beneath the surface, their roots are growing deeper, drawing nutrients from the earth, preparing for spring’s emergence.

That’s what my winter will look like:

Playing music that nobody hears. Reading books that don’t become content. Sitting in silence that produces nothing. Working on projects that won’t launch for months. Tending relationships that already exist rather than building new ones.

To anyone watching from outside, it will look like I’m doing nothing. And maybe that’s the point.

In a world where AI produces content 24/7, where productivity is virtue and visibility is survival, the most radical act might be choosing to disappear for a season. Not in despair or defeat, but in trust that some growth only happens in the dark.

The Last Thing I’ll Say Until Spring

If you’re reading this and feeling disappointed that I won’t be sending newsletters, or frustrated that Heart Start isn’t happening this year, or confused about what this means—I understand. I’ve spent several years conditioning you to expect content from me.

But maybe the most valuable thing I can offer you right now isn’t another guided process or spiritual framework. Maybe it’s permission.

Permission to disappoint people’s expectations. Permission to choose nourishment over performance. Permission to be alone without fixing it. Permission to stop producing and simply be.

The world will tell you that stopping is laziness, that rest is weakness, that if you’re not constantly growing and improving and optimizing, you’re falling behind. The world has made Christmas into a season of maximum consumption and minimal presence.

But the baby in the manger offers a different truth: Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is be small enough that you can’t do anything at all except receive love.

So this is my last article until spring. Not because I have nothing to say, but because I finally understand what it means to slow down, to be still and know, and to remember.

I’m going home to myself. I hope you do too.

Wishing you a fantastic holiday season! May the vulnerable spirit of the Christ child awaken within the manger of your feeling heart.

From my heart to yours,

—Gabriel

P.S. Join me for one final gathering before the silence—a global HeartStream meditation this Sunday, December 21st, at the winter solstice. After that, I’ll be in hibernation, doing the invisible work that looks like nothing but is actually everything.

While I won’t be sending newsletters or running programs this winter, I will continue holding space for my Sacred Heart Meditation Circle and Heart Mastery Circle communities. If you’re feeling called to journey through this winter season with others who are also choosing depth over performance, these circles remain open. Sometimes the most important growth happens not in grand programs, but in consistent, quiet practice with people who care.