The beginning of a new year is, for many, the cue to take charge of our lives! Resolutions – whether singularly or in clusters – take shape in an effort for our lives to change their shape whether in body, mind or spirit. And yet, despite our declared commitment, often desperate hopes and all of our best efforts, these resolutions often dissolve into yet another piece of evidence to justify our own self-loathing. The line of enquiry usually goes something like, ‘What’s wrong with me?!” or ‘What’s wrong with the world?!’ or ‘Why can’t I do anything right?!” Familiar? Yes. Useful? No!
This year, give yourself a break. Rather than seek to mold, shape, pound and pummel your life into shape (like taking the proverbial bull by the horns and slamming it, head first, into the guard rails!) try something different. Try relaxing. Try letting go. Try opening yourself to how life can be lived when you trust the genius of how you’re living now, not to determine that it’s good/bad, right/wrong but to discover what it offers and presents for your own evolution; to discover the genius that underlies all behaviors as the invitation that is being offered for you to live differently.
Consider replacing resolutions, struggle, will power and determination with inviting, allowing, discovering and emerging. Consider allowing your mind, your heart, your wisdom and your knowledge to open and expand. You don’t have to choose anything. You just have to let things wash over you and see what comes up. Surprisingly for many and familiarly for some, the power of this process transforms lives.
The Holiday Season if often quickly followed by the blunt reality of our lives. Rather than collapsing into the ‘usual’ interpretations of ‘depression’, let yourself consider a very different view. Ray Landry knows what he’s talking about. He’s been to hell and back, and is willing to share not only his story with you but his change of heart/mind/soul.
Tired of regretting how you engage with your children? Make time to listen to Amy McNaughton speak to a very different way to parent… parenting for potential. The command-and-control style of parenting has a long legacy of pain and lost possibility. Parenting for potential is an invitation for you to consider that parenting is never about our children – it’s always about us.
Time to let go of your all-grown-up children? Marie Smith can help you discover that it’s not about them – it’s about you! When you choose yourself and begin to carve out a life that is meaningful for you and to you, their lives change, too – and for the better.
This time, don’t start your New Year with the desire to move away from all the things you don’t like! Give yourself a chance to stop… listen… and discover all that you can grow into. Take a chance on doing it differently this year and discover where you end up. It may not be about knowing the destination. It may be about being willing to allow what you need to emerge, trusting that you are innately an expression of the godforce in a physical universe. Then, when you wake up tomorrow, ask yourself: ’How does the godforce that I AM choose to live today?”
Happy New Year!
