Live Your Best Life!
How to make peace with 2011!
It is funny how the seeming worst of circumstances can gently (or not so gently) shake us out of our post-holiday malaise and general fog of overcelebration, and wake us up to what really is calling our attention.
This morning I found myself at the Accident and Emergency Department (ER for our North American friends) with a tight clamping pain across my chest that started the night before. Having spent the last 3 weeks going to the very same hospital to visit my father who has been very ill, this was the last place that I wanted to be. However, despite my resistance, even I know that chest pain needs to be checked out.
After bloodwork, an ECG and chest x-ray, it turns out that I have a inflammation of my lung coverings. Some pain killers, anti-inflammatories and some great herbs from the nice people at Neal’s Yard and I am sure that I will be as right as rain in a jiffy!
What does this have to do with letting go of the year?
Let’s face it. 2011 has been a challenging year for many. We know about the larger scale evens to what has been happening – the recession, the near fall of the Eurozone, riots, Occupy, the Arab Spring. However, almost everyone I know has faced significant challenges on a person front. I have heard more than 10 people say, “I will be glad to see the back of 2011″.
Right now it is very easy for us to get focused on the New Year and all that it promises. It is easy to get caught up in the thought of new starts and thinking ahead (yet we all know what happens to resolutions a few days after New Year). What we want to do is get away from what has been and draw a line under it.
It is though, no coincidence that so many people fall victim to coughs and colds, chesty congestion and other similar conditions.
Lungs, grief and blessing your mess!
In eastern medicine and in metaphysics, the lungs correspond to the emotion of grief and let’s face it, we have all experienced loss in one way or another this year. We may well be still feeling this, unable to let go of it and holding onto it with all our might. Or, we might not be that aware of it at all, feeling the pain deep down but glossing over it at the surface.
This year might have been a very hard year and all kinds of crazy things might have happened in our lives, but without being conscious of its impact on us and acknowledging this, all the promise of the new start at New Year is wasted. Aside from a psychological break, the bell striking in the New Year does not magically make the difficulties of the previous year disappear.
We are not quite at the New Year yet, and rather than wishing the hours away, now is a really wonderful time to reflect on the year that has just passed and use the benefit of hindsight. Finding hidden blessings or just getting things our of your system brings things to light…and allows us to let go of what we might otherwise hold onto. Doing this can bring a wonderful sense of peace and closure and allows you to enter into 2012 eyes and heart wide open!
Try this!
There is nothing quite a therapeutic or cathartic for reflection as getting things out on paper, so you will need pen and paper for this exercise. There are 3 parts to this exercise.
1. Look back over the year and write down different events this year that have been particularly difficult or painful.
- What actually happened? Write down the specific facts rather than any interpretations about what or why it happened?
- What did you feel then? What do you feel now?
- What did you learn? What would you do differently next time?
- What can you appreciate about this situation? i.e. what are the positives?
- Can you release the emotion attached to this situation now? If not now, when?
The final couple of questions can be difficult, but there are almost invariably blessings to the situation which we can often find with the benefit of hindsight.
2. Time to let go of the unfinished business! Write down anything that you would really like to let go of – any negatives, mistakes, regrets, disappoints etc – on small slips of paper. Write as many or as few as you would like. When you have done this, use the Elements to cleanse and clear these. Use fire by burning the slips of paper (doing so in a safe manner). Use water by tearing the strips up and either flushing them or freezing them (stick them in an ice tray with water and stick them in the freezer…it works!). Use earth either by burying them (the ashes of the paper you have burned) or throwing them in the trash. Whichever element you use, make a declaration for yourself that you choose to release the negative and keep only the good!
3. Make a list of all the things that you are grateful for, appreciative of or blessings from 2011. This may be big things or it might be very small things. Make the list as long as you can…at least 30-50 things…and if you can, get to 100!
If you just do one of these parts, you are setting yourself up for a really great start to 2012. Doing all three and you will enter the New Year not only with your energy sky high, but with your heart wide open and more momentum than you can shake a stick at!
Now you are ready to set some really powerful intentions for 2012!
Image credit Snapies ~ hiatus! via Creative Commons on Flickr
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