Happy New Year!
People in my daily life heard me grouse in December that if I were truly Queen of the Universe, the end of the year would have it’s own month, separate from a month in which so many holidays are celebrated. I enjoy taking stock of the year past and getting excited about the new year and it’s hard to do that at the same time as (in my household) preparing for and celebrating Christmastime.
What is it about the new year-is that anything seems possible? New friendships in the wings, fabulous adventures awaiting on the horizon, and life’s events lining up to present themselves for healing, growing, and transformation? I love the beginning of a new year, when here in New England, sunlight begins it’s slow and then quickening return to more and more of our day. Perhaps it’s as simple as more sunlight-induced seretonin- ha!
I have written out my 2009 new affirmations and goals and will use them most days to form updated beliefs. And, as for the last few years, I have coined a phrase-a personal mantra of sorts-to capture my intended goal for my next year of living. I first began this new year ritual a few years ago with the mantra “just do it”. I choose this mantra to move me from my usual habit of lots of mental thinking into taking actions I did not think to death before doing. And voila’! I learned-from the undeniable truth of my own experience-to trust again more in life’s flow and to invest less in my fears based on my past.
My mantra for 2008- “it’s all good”- built upon the positive learning from my previous “just do it” year and taught me that how I receive life’s events truly does make a difference in my experience of life. As Albert Einstein said long ago, in choosing to receive life as benevolent or in choosing to receive life as something we defend ourselves against, we construct the reality we live in. I now know from my own experience just how true this is and have committed to dreaming more and fearing less.
This year, my personal mantra of “loving my adventure” is built upon my renewed faith in life’s positive magic. My 2009 mantra will remind me to breathe deeper into my belly, to exhale more in faith, to truly play more, and to sit less in the sidelines of judgement. By responding with “loving my adventure” when I feel my fears, I will remind myself to honor instead my wisdom, my power, and my infinity. And, to judge less things as bad when life uses them to challenge, humble, and transform me into loving bigger. Is this not part of the opportunity of meeting the undesired, the undeserved, and the disliked as a blessing and not a curse? To surrender and trust a knowing larger than my mind, our culture, and my limited ways of measuring our life’s events?
And so welcome 2009!-the year in which I intend to trust more, live bigger, and commit to being heard, seen, and felt more. It is an amazing time here on Mother Earth, full of promise and magic and we the people are more than able to meet our challenges, if we bring our faith, spirit, and willingness to meeting them with an open heart and hand, even if not always in agreement. What might be your mantra for 2009? Why not venture forth into your new year with your choice of a personal mantra, using the power of your word to transform your daily experience and life. Give yourself the chance and a promise to meet your life’s vastness, magic, and grace more in faith and less in fear.