Slipping into 2015

My Inbox is flooded with invitations to 'set my intentions' for 2015 --- pick a 'worthy' resolution and 'jump start my way' to a better me. For the most part, I can smile and delete these messages but it still creeps in sometimes---the  pressure.  

To fix things--on a timer---ready-set-go!

Capture it all--in scrapbook-Facebook-neon-colored-accomplishment jars for everyone to see and for goodness sake it is already January 8th---so isn't it pretty much too late! Might as well wait until next year. 

January really is a stupid month for January to happen in. Someone should do something about it. The calendar is a moron. We should start a petition.  All of those resolutions to be a better person, and those vows to turn down every sweet treat in favor of trainers and gym memberships – does this really have to happen in a month in which you have to get dressed for work at a time of day so dark that it could quite easily be mistaken for the middle of the  night?

So in the dark and cold,feeling a bit guilty over consuming perhaps a bit more holiday food and drink than we would like, fearful that another 365 days will pass and we will still be feeling like this we reach inside to pull out our best intentions to make a better "me".  And that place we reach to---for support and guidance?

It comes from the deepest, darkest part of us that finds us wanting, deficient and less-than---it comes from a place of scarcity.

I am not ______ enough. 

We are asked to dig our most intimate shame out of a dark hole and thrust it, by the throat, under a bright light---a cross between an interrogation and a pep talk.

What the hell have you been doing all year?

Look at yourself!  Are you kidding me?

You better shape up buddy!

You know....YOU KNOW that you need to fix this.

Resolutions are then born out of guilt, shame, fear and "not enough-ness"---from places that make you feel like you have to DO something more, achieve more, push more, and that is just SO not a good place to start anything new from.  

Nor is it a way to create a life that is in harmony with the natural physical or spiritual world.

So in January of 2014 I decided to do things very differently  I started to consider that in my perfect imperfection, I was exactly where I was supposed to be.  Instead of starting from a place of deficiency, I started from a place of wholeness.  

Think about when you were a child.  People asked you what you wanted to be.  And children, in their innocence, believe they can do or be anything.  

So in 2014, I spent most of January reflecting on the question:  Who Do I Want to Be?

I am a Reiki master.  I am an artist.  I am a student, a teacher and a writer. 

I am also a mother, a step-mother, an employee, a friend, a healer a patient and a partner.

Can I be all these things?  Does being some, cost the others? Can I call myself an artist or writer if I an not currently creating, or if I don't share my creations, gifts, talents--or if they are not accepted or well received by others?

Who Do I Want to Be?

It was an exciting time because for the first time, I felt like I had choices.  I felt like I could be anything, if not everything. 

And spending the ENTIRE month of January dreaming about who I wanted to be removed all the pressure to actually START doing....ANYTHING.  

It was such a gentle way to start the year!  No uncomfortable tight yoga pant dance to the gym.  No dumping my holiday treats in favor of chia/kale/flax smoothies.  

January was a gift.  It came wrapped in long baths, more sauna time at the gym, more coffee and chats with my Sista Perfectionista, and more time looking inside than outside at what anyone else said I should look like or do or be.

My hope was that during this time a mantra/theme/guiding light might emerge to illuminate what my soul needed.  Everything I had read about this sort of thing told me that if you listened, your spirit would whisper to you and reveal your true purpose.  All you had to do was open up and feel.

And my FIRST light arrived....FEEL.  

Over the next weeks four more guiding lights emerged--most after ordinary conversations with people, but often as a result of trying on the one that came before it.  

After FEEL came BRAVE---because for me, you have to be brave to feel things. 

Then TRUST.  In myself and others.  To be brave meant I would have to trust people with my tender spots.  

Then FLOW....because while I had initiated this process, the Universe had plans for me and I had to get used to listening and accepting and not fighting against what was to get to where someone said I should be.

And finally...in February, (while January is a ritualistic time to start new things--you should not ignore a guiding light when it reveals itself--no matter what month), came RECEIVE.  Receive help and love, comfort and grace, failures and problems and prickly lessons from the Universe because you can learn from everything.  

So these five became my guiding stars.

What I came back to when I felt lost. What I remembered when I feel stressed. What I based my choices and decisions on so as to stay true to living from my soul desires not my ego’s wants or needs.

It was a fabulous 2014 and my guiding words inspired me --- whispering encouragement as I walked along new paths in my life journey.

And here I am in January 2015.  And I am working full time and wondering if I should be listening again....to my soul's calling--fearing I will be swallowed up by the day to day business of life.

So I have developed a plan.

This is scary stuff guys!  Because my soul whispers CONNECT....and so I have decided to invite some people to come and share my January journey for 2015.

While I wish it was a simple as handing out a recipe ---Five Easy Steps to Finding Your Guiding Lights---each person has their own journey and their own work to do. I can tell you about how I learned to listen, we can try some meditation, good conversation, drawing, writing---but these are things that worked for me.  It might not be what you need to do.

So all I can really offer is a safe place to start your journey.  A place with no judgement or evaluation..but where conversation and reflection might take you by the hand and walk you along the path of what makes you, so imperfectly perfect just as you are.

And that is a good place to start.

For me, I am going to be BRAVE and TRUST and FEEL and encourage others try on this process themselves...if they want.... with me.

I am not expert.  I have no magic wand.  I am not even sure I have a starting point....and my Inner Perfectionista is losing her mind over the lack of stapled booklets, evaluation rubrics and lesson plans....but I am going to put it out there anyway. 

So if you want to come along in the virtual world--let me know and we can connect out here too!  

I will let you know how it goes and keep you posted.