Shining My Light

The odometer is about to click over from 2016 to 2017. Typically this is a time when many of us reflect on the year that is passing and look ahead to the year that is coming.

Over the years, I’ve had a variety of rituals and routines for New Year’s. It used to mean that I would take a look at what about myself and/or my life needed a fix and make a plan to fix that thing. A resolution. Or when I realized that resolutions don’t work, an intention.

After that, there where years where I answered an extensive series of questions about the previous year and the coming year. While interesting, and sometimes enlightening, it made for a busy minded January 1 with a little bit of self induced pressure to finish all the questions and come up with a plan for the coming year. There were aspects of it I enjoyed it but it also felt like a rather long homework assignment which I could never quite finish.

The last few years, I have chosen a word. A touchstone or theme for the coming year. Something to inform how I was living my life. Something with which to align my pursuits throughout the year. This New Year’s ritual felt the most exciting to me. And it made for a great New Year’s blog post.

One year my word was “dare” because I wanted to step out of my comfort zone more often. Back when I believed comfort zones actually existed. More on that in the future.

One year it was “challenge.”  This was my way of rebooting my hard drive, resetting pursuits and disciplines that had slipped out of my life. A different challenge for each month of the year.  It was fun for me with a side order of pressure.

I can’t remember the word I picked at the beginning of 2016. Buried in a journal, it slipped away with the rest of the thoughts I had last January.

AND, it was an amazing year anyway. Go figure. In fact, it stands out as life changing.

I became a transformative coach and in the process experienced my own inner transformations as I deepened my understanding of how we humans really operate. Through insight, I experienced the power of my inner wisdom and creativity in a way I had not seen or done before.

Stepping on the Supercoach Academy train (the transformative program I was in), took me to places, large and small, that I could not have predicted with a goal, resolution, intention, or word. That step was a starting point and I really had no idea where that train would lead me. With a leap of faith, and taking one step after another, I ended up in new and rather beautiful territory.

And part of this new territory includes a big awareness. There is nothing about me that needs fixing. I am not just saying this. I know this at a deep level. And my well being is not dependent on achieving anything on the outside. It is always within me. And though I may lose sight of this, as humans tend to do, eventually I remember it again.

As this year draws to a close, I feel a lightness that I didn’t feel before. A willingness to flow down the river of life and see where it takes me. More like an explorer. Because if  there’s nothing to fix, I don’t need to be a mechanic.

I’m ready to shine my lights (interests, desires, I don’t knows), show up on a path and know that all I need to do is take the next step. Life tends to meander rather than follow a straight course.  And as I move along, I will know where to go. Or not to go.

This feels like enough. And sooooo….

here’s my plan for the New Year.

Remove a canvas from the stack. The stack labeled 2017.  It’s blank. Yup, nothing on it. And there is an unlimited supply.

Pick up a light or two. Flashlight, laser, blacklight.  There is an infinite supply.   Shine it off in a direction. A direction I may already have in mind and/or an unknown.  Shining my light informs my inner wisdom and the universe that I am tuned in. From this vantage point, and if I keep showing up,  I will eventually see something.

Something will be illuminated. Serendipitously and creatively from my internal and/or external world. And I will take a step. And another and another and another. My blank life canvas(s) will begin to contain some form. And I may get to something big. Or small. Or yet another stepping stone.  Or a dead end where I decide to toss the canvas and find another path.

With nothing to fix, but instead, infinite options of internals and externals to create, I sense simplicity.

Metaphorical canvases and metaphorical lights. That’s it?

Perhaps a candle or two and a glass of wine.

Wanna play?