Ingredients for a Serene 2014
I’ll admit that 2013 wasn’t my favorite year, but I do think that in retrospect I’ll look back and see it was the one where I grew the most. It’s certainly ending a whole lot better than it started. I think the themes for this year could be “Painful Things that Led to Better Things,” Or “Laying the Foundation.”
I ended a relationship with someone I really didn’t want to leave behind, but it was becoming too detrimental to my sanity and peace of mind. I learned I had the courage to love myself enough to walk away from a situation that wasn’t giving me what I wanted and needed. I also learned that I can be quite content and peaceful in standing alone, because I can keep the focus on me for the time being. I also have complete faith that my Higher Power, which I call God, is going to deliver the right person to me. So I don’t need to worry or go out “hunting.” I just need to have patience.
I also had a situation of struggle at work that turned into something great … a new position with a lot of promise, working for someone I respect and like a whole lot. That was nothing other than the answer to a whole lot of prayers.
This was also the year that I found I liked sparkling water, distance running, and meditation. I can’t wait to see what I pick up next year!
I really believe that everything we encounter on the path happens for a reason – God has our best intentions in mind. If I let go and keep faith in the process, I’ll feel calm, serene, peaceful. My life will go more smoothly. But if I fight and struggle with it, everything will seem challenging and difficult.
That said, what am I aiming for in the coming year?
1. A mindset of abundance: I do feel that what we believe is what we will attract. If I feel like I am always lacking, always needing or wanting something, then the lack will become my way of life. If I focus on a belief in abundance, then what I already have will attract more. Louise Hay’s book You Can Heal Your Life talks about this in excellent detail.
2. A change in routine: I’ve set a goal to try at least two new things a month that are outside of my routine. I’m fortunate to live in a big city that offers a lot of possibility. I’ll soon be making a list of things that interest me – classes, activities, outings, volunteering – and deciding what I want to pursue.
3. Learn something new: A new language? Learning to code? A different type of fitness certification? Herbology and natural medicine? All of those things were flowing through my mind last night as I was lying in bed.
4. Have fun! I stole this straight from Buddhist Boot Camp’s Facebook post today: “Make a list of 10 things you enjoy doing, and do them often! We constantly make To-Do Lists of the things we “have to do”, and then we wonder why there’s no joy left in our lives. Remember to always add “have fun” to your list.”
What’s on your list for 2014?
Confession: My Love-Hate Relationship with Facebook
For as much as a lot of folks complain about Facebook, I actually don’t mind it too much. For one, it keeps me connected to people I’m pretty sure I would’ve lost touch with years ago. I’m also pretty good at keeping it in perspective, that for the most part people are only sharing their “best moments” on there. So the folks who look like they have the great relationships or awesome vacations or super-nice whatever thingy aren’t also posting about the big fight they had the night before, or when they almost got fired at work, or when they found themselves in massive debt, or when they did things of which they weren’t so proud. In some ways, Facebook is a continuous TV commercial about life.
I’m not one of those folks who gets on Facebook to continually complain about Facebook, and that’s not what this is about. My opinion is that each of us is personally responsible for either keeping or rejecting the things in life that are useful and of service to us, or not so. Yeah, Facebook is going to show you ads you don’t want to see, send you requests for games you don’t want to play, and so on. It’s their business model. They are a business. It’s how they generate revenue. So, if this were too uncomfortable to me, I would delete my account and move on. And, confession time – I have been known to block people from my newsfeed who I find too dramatic or whiny or generally toxic, or even block them from seeing my own updates. Again, it’s not that I dislike those people. But I’m taking responsibility for setting boundaries and what comes into my space.
But I noticed something about myself on FB that could use some work. I live in a place that is much, much different from the place where I grew up. I’m in a big city where people make a lot of money, have high-pressure careers, have big fancy degrees, travel the world, drive fancy cars, live in expensive houses, etc. It’s a place that values Success, with a capital S. Don’t take this as me saying that people are “bad” for having those things. Not at all – they have all worked very hard for the things they have. But it’s a lot different from the place where I was raised, where things are simpler, perhaps more laid-back. It’s a different way of life. (But in my blood, I also know that I belong in the big city and am much happier here than I would be back where I came from.)
Opportunity maybe isn’t as easy to come by in the place where I grew up. The socioeconomics are different. I guess you could say that in some sense, I feel like where I live now is for those of us who “made it out.” But I know not everyone shares that sentiment, and I know that’s a judgmental thing to say. I was privileged to get an education and to travel on a successful career path that’s given me a decent income and the luxury of a lot of great experiences along the way. A lot of folks back where I came from haven’t lead that kind of life.
And here is where I’m not proud of myself. I notice myself looking at status updates, forming an opinion about other people’s lives, and pitying some of the folks “left behind.” Pity does not equate kindness. It means that I think I am somehow superior to these other people. Somehow, I have made myself “better” than the others. But how can I be “better” than my fellow human beings, when God created all of us equally? This is nothing more than my ego at work.
It’s true that I don’t see eye-to-eye with a lot of people from my home state – culturally, politically, spiritually. But in no way does it make any of us superior to the other. It’s something I need to remind myself, over and over again. Even the person who wishes me ill is not lower than me. I strive to believe that not just because I want to be “nice,” but because there is a sense of inner peace and harmony that stems from it. The less I allow my ego to be in charge, the more peaceful I feel – at all times.
And so, I’m striving to look at every single person as God’s own precious child – not for me to judge, condemn, or scorn, but for me to love as part of our collective human spirit.
Grateful for: Past experiences
Today’s gratitude installment: I am thankful for past experiences, or specifically in this case, relationships that are no longer a part of my life.
I am trying to make a conscious effort to no longer say that a relationship “didn’t work out.” True, we decided we didn’t want to be together anymore in the capacity that we once were. That usually means no longer having contact with each other. But just because we aren’t together anymore doesn’t necessarily mean that things didn’t work out. It means that in the natural progression of things, our lives moved on, and as such, our paths diverged.
But in those times when we were a part of each other’s lives, we had some great experiences. We laughed. We supported each other. We had some great moments and memories together.
In ending things, it helped me to decide what I want or didn’t want in the future. It’s given me an assessment of how well (or not well) I was able to relate to another person from an intimate perspective. I could compare it to my education: Even if I never again used the lessons I learned in school, I don’t feel it was necessarily a waste of time for me to learn them.
All of these experiences brought me to the place where I am now. As I work to make peace with my past, release my resentments, and move toward a place of maintaining serenity and spiritual contentment, the lens through which I look at my past has a huge influence on that. It’s impossible for me to move forward joyfully if I keep trying to drag past baggage along for the ride.
Today, I am grateful for the people of my past, no matter what pain or sadness it might have brought me at one time. I am choosing to release them with loving kindness.
Grateful for: Ownership, and Disownership
Here is just one way I can tell that I still have healing to do in this lifetime:
When I see someone doing something that just doesn’t seem “right” to me; when I see someone expecting another person to take responsibility for them; when someone acts toward me with what appears to be unkindness or selfish intent; when a painful memory from years past pops into my head …
And it bothers me.
The anger, resentment, irritability, whatever … that is a sign of healing left to be done. Whatever is pushing those buttons, chances are the buttons are actually woundedness from long ago. It’s not something that exists in the present, but I’ve still carried it with me.
Today I am expressing gratitude for ownership. I am able to own my thoughts, feelings, emotions, and overall spiritual well-being. I can own my happiness and take responsibility for it. I no longer view myself as a victim of life’s whims, because in every situation, I have a choice – whether it’s to walk away, keep on going, or just to simply choose a better outlook.
In that, I reclaim my power.
I also express gratitude for disownership. The thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and actions of another person don’t belong to me – even if that person says that I caused them. That’s because they, too, always have a choice. That’s not an excuse to act like a jerk and then feel like I have the right to get off scot-free. It is, however, a sanity saver when I catch myself feeling I need to behave or think in a certain way in order to gain someone’s approval or avoid their wrath. It’s also a concept that has helped me to offload mountains of guilt.
I hope that you’ll own this day, and all days, and seize it with all of your power – for kindness, joy, peace, and happiness.
“I Choose to be Free”
The title of this post is an affirmation I got today (Daily Affirm app, for those who are curious). After a few days of feeling a bit unsettled and tossed about, I felt like I was finally turning a corner and feeling like my normal self again. And it was a great reminder about how much of life comes down to choice.
Yesterday, a woman at my meditation group talked about learning the nuances of her emotions – optimistic, restless, anguished, irritated, and so on. I found that by learning the different shades of my emotions – and learning to feel them and correctly identify their source (sometimes, for me, they were not what they seemed) – I can make better choices for dealing with them. Sometimes that just means sitting through them and praying for help.
But what struck me most about this woman was saying is that how she learned to choose to stay to a more positive outlook – rather than sitting through an internal, self-created downpour and feeling like there was no way out of it. Instead of playing the role of victim, I can take responsibility for my outlook and therefore become empowered.
I was out with friends when we witnessed another woman first walk into a surprise birthday, and then receive a proposal from her boyfriend. I know that in the past I would’ve been straight-up jealous of this person. “Why can’t someone love me enough to do that for me? How come good things only happen to other people? Why aren’t I that lucky?” Me, me, me … poor, pitiful me.
Instead, I felt genuinely happy for her – I didn’t let jealousy eat away at my inner peace. But also, I realized I didn’t know a damn thing about that woman, her life, her pain, her joy, whatever. It was a celebratory moment. It wasn’t mine, but in a small way, I got to share in it.
I am choosing more to be grateful … to not fight the universe … to not fight and struggle with people and situations that are out of my control. I want to BE peace, and harmony, and loving-kindness.
That’s what I choose for me, and I am happy to make that choice.
Young Spirit, Old Soul 