I am a big believer in the idea that how you begin your year, is how you will live your year. As I recently learned from my acupuncturist, Dr. Feng, there is an ancient Chinese proverb that says the exact same thing. That is powerful medicine! Think about it: how you decide to step into these first few weeks of January says a lot about the energy you will walk with in the remaining eleven months.
To get into the spirit of how I want to begin a new year, I like to imagine myself wearing a new pair of shoes that fits who I want to be that year, and then see myself walk through the days of the calendar, month by month, wearing those shoes.
For 2011, I’ll be wearing red velvet, heeled, rounded toe, 1930s type beauties. After slipping these on, I had a radical thought for how to step into this coming year: “What if I made a conscious choice to choose love instead of fear, in every moment of every day? Literally input a new decision making tree into myself, so that when fear showed up, I could turn the channel, and find my way to a happy place vs a scary place … what would happen?”
Now I’m not talking about living without fear, because I think that it’s natural to feel fear in today’s world. I am talking about amping up awareness of fear so keenly that you could see it and smell it as soon as it arrives, and then using all of your self love and feminine super power muscles, make the choice to move through it to find the truth and to find love for yourself.
So I’ve put on my red velvets, and turned this question into a forty day self love practice called See Past the Fear into the Love. While I don’t know how this will all turn out, I do know that in the past five days, since I started this walk, I am happier, more peaceful, and feeling more loved than ever before.
Some of the benefits I’ve already experienced include:
- The ability to ignore the voices of “You better have a plan. What are your goals for 2011? What do you mean you don’t know yet?”
- The ability to enjoy the fact by January 31 I will have clarity on my stake for 2011. And I’m loving being in the not knowing phase, and discovering in the meantime—just journaling, reading, listening, and meditating.
- I am taking naps. When I feel tired, instead of pressuring myself to have it all figured out, I go to sleep. Usually I wake up with some really great insight.
- I have turned the constant churn of my mind off: the mind that is always generating a new idea or angle about how to solve, create, or find the answer to what to do. My mind is clear, and I am learning to listen with my body.
- I’ve created less work and more impact—enough said.
This is all one big experiment, and as I learn, I promise to share with you. For now, I will share with you three of the self love guidelines my practice of See Past the Fear into the Love has given me for starting out the year. I call them love starters, because they support you to start your 2011 from love not fear, and in today’s crazy world, we can all use the support!
- Revise Your Timeline to Have 2011 “Figured Out.”
Fear: “Rush, rush, and move into action! You must know what you are going to do, what you need to accomplish, and where you going in 2011—now!”
Love: “Give yourself the month of January to reveal what this year desires to give you, instead of you being the one to make it all happen. You will be delighted and surprised, promise.”
If Rome wasn’t built in a day, why the heck would you try to figure out your entire year in a week? The entire month of January, according to the Native American tradition, is called the dream time. Think about it: The northern hemisphere of the earth is frozen, and things are still. We humans would be well served to be still too. The value of the stillness of January is that in the silence, we can tune into our inner wisdom, and see possibilities for our year that we couldn’t if we were busy moving into full action. Give yourself full permission to take the pressure off of having to figure it out all of 2011 now (or ignoring it completely). Do like the groundhog does, and come out on February 2 with your grand 2011 statements and desires.
