Goodbye and Hello: A New Year!

It is the first night of 2015! I really love January 1st. It just feels so clean. Like a brand new composition book! Few things excite me more than a brand new, black and white composition book. Throw in an excellent blue pen and I am a happy woman. I always go hiking on New Years Eve. I love hiking. It is the closest thing to a meditation practice that I have and it is how I set my resolutions for the upcoming year.

I will not bore you with my (long) list of resolutions this year because I am sure that it doesn’t differ a whole lot from yours or anyone else’s. It is full of things having to do with fitness and wellness routines, time management, meditation, and just so I wouldn’t bore myself to death, I threw in things like tightrope walking and trampoline jumping. Who doesn’t need more trampoline jumping in their lives? (Just sayin’)

I am so grateful for every experience in my life that has brought me to where I am today. Even and maybe especially the painful ones. Ok, maybe not especially. That may be a crock of shit. Maybe I just said that because that’s what people say. On second thought, I really could have gone without a whole hell of a lot of the pain that I have experienced in my life. Any time we were dealing with a difficult situation, my dad always told my sisters and me that it would “build character and make us stronger”. When he died..I told God that I was strong enough and this needed to stop. So, I am mostly grateful for all of the experiences in my life that have brought me to where I am today.

Back to my hike. It was on this hike, I decided that this was the year to just let go of all my shit. You know what shit I am talking about. It’s just the shit you have carried around with you your whole life. It’s that shitty voice that comes and goes inside your head that just pops up whenever the f@ck it feels like and tells you mean things about yourself. The great Amy Poehler calls this voice the demon. We all have one, some just have a nicer demon than others. So, it was decided. I was going to stop letting my past be all up in my present’s grill. Good resolution. Easier said than done.

It is very hard for me to “let go” and in fact, I’m not even sure what that truly means. It is laughable to me when somebody lends the advice, “Ya know what, you just gotta let go.” Ohhh..Is that what I have to do!? Oh..Ok! Why didn’t you say so before!? I know I have to let fucking go. You wanna tell me how that is actually supposed to happen? Am I supposed to burn some sage or go heal my chakras? Maybe I should schedule a colonic?

The only answer I have been able to come up with is to be present and try your best to live in a state of gratitude. If we can be present in each moment we are living or at least the majority of them, there leaves little space for focusing on past feelings or regrets that simply don’t serve you anymore. So, the goal has become to “accept what is, let go of what was and have faith in what will be.”

Whether it is letting go of a life long friendship that doesn’t serve you, letting go of a spouse you shared your life with, letting go of your father who passed away way too early, or just feelings that make you feel kind of shitty about yourself. The answer is to forgive and be grateful those experiences happened and also to honor those past relationships because they created beauty in your life for the exact right amount of time that they were meant. The answer is to focus on all of the love you have in your life, right now in this present moment. I have so many blessing for which to be grateful and so very much joy in my life that deserves to hold its space in my world. We all do.

So, open that brand new composition book of life and write your own amazing story!
Happy New Year!