New Year…it was only 4 days ago and yet it feels like an age ago. Hard to believe that the holidays were less than 2 weeks ago. Such is life in the crazy, manic, information age. It is sometimes hard to stop and savor the delicious moments that occur in life!
New Year…also the time of new goals, dreaming big and, of course, resolutions (which are so often gone and forgotten by St Patrick’s Day)! I usually look forward to this time of year being a person who loves beginnings, fresh starts and exciting possibilities. However, this year I found myself having a very interesting reaction to a lot of the positive psychology and spirituality blogs which I have never had before.
Many of the articles are wonderful, positive and motivating. There is often a theme however that caught me this year. The need to dream big, the need to be astonishing, remarkable, powerful, set exponential growth goals (“grow your business by 500% in the next year!”), create a magnificent obsession. All good stuff and absolutely necessary as far as I am concerned. However, the problem was not so much what they were saying so much as the urgency and fodder for the ego that these kind of sentiments can create.
Because we live within the artificial construct of the Gregorian calendar, there can be immense pressure to draw a clean slate at 1st January and come up with a massive new life purpose and goals because we think we should…making this year the best year of our lives and all that. The pressure and panic that can ensue from this arbitrary transition can really give the impression that we have missed a trick if we don’t come up with some thing impressive for the New Year. Indeed, this kind of thinking often leads us to goals that we think we want or we think we should want. We may not be anywhere near the level of creativity, honesty and openness that we really need to be at to truly hear what our heart and spirit want for us. In reality, life is more organic than that.
So, once again, I come back to the rhythms of the year that Nature and Spirit follow and it all seems much more creative, more nurturing and more authentic. We are a few weeks after the Winter Solstice where the light just started its ascendence. This was the time to plant the seeds of what we want in the next cycle.
For me, that is exactly what this time of year is all about. Nurturing the seeds, tilling the soil, reflecting. We may not know exactly what we want, but we can plant the intention to discover and excavate those life-affirming desires as winter descends. January is a month to dream and reflect. To gather inside by the warmth of the fire and look forward to the upcoming journey through the year. It is a time to look inside primarily and allow this to inform what the external will look like. It is a time of peace and rest in nature, and so it can be with us as well. There is plenty of time in Spring and Summer to jump into action. Now is the time to imagine, to allow the seeds of creativity to germinate into grand visions of the future.
I often find myself revving up for action at this time of year, and the reality of the human world is that so does everybody else. However, for the sake of mine and our collective sanity, I really advocate doing only what is necessary and no more. Allow self-nurturing, self-care, imagination and dreaming this month. In metaphysical terms, doing this raises your vibration and your consciousness, making you far more aware of what you truly and deeply desire and giving access to ways of bringing those things about that your head and your ego alone would never come up with.
Yes, we can make the decisions to be remarkable, amazing and astonishing now. We can resolve to have the best year of our lives. Right now though is the time of intention – let those intentions come to you and let yourself daydream…allow it to be organic and you will be surprised with what you come up with…and how the Universe meets you to help in the creative process. With that in mind, here are 5 things that can help you in the process…
- Accept where you are with love and honesty – like every great endeavour, it is great to have a strong and wonderful idea of where you are heading, but you also need to have an accurate picture of where you are right now, without blame, without judgement. Come to a place of peace and acceptance of where you are and you create rich, fertile ground for your seeds of intention to grow in.
- Become aware of what you appreciate in your life – starting a practice of writing everything that you appreciate about each day, every day will have a profound impact on your life. Your general level of positivity and happiness will go up and you become aware of that which truly makes your heart sing…so you can create intentions that truly reflect what you want rather than what you think you should want. Also, this raises your vibration and the Law of Attraction means that you can not help but get more positivity in your life.
- Live the questions – The German poet Rainer Maria Rilke said, “Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves…Do not now seek the answers that can not be given you because you would not be able to live them and the point is to live everything. Live the questions now…” Sara Ban Breathnach in Simple Abundance reminds us that the answers always come but we need to know which questions are truly worth asking. What do you need as well as what do you want? What do you want to create? Why are these intentions important? This month, ask the questions and allow the answers to come to you organically as you dream and reflect.
- Place extreme self-care at the top of your priorities – this may be the month when the human world gets back into action, but Nature reminds us that this is still a time of peace and recovery. So, especially this month, take plenty of time to go about your life and make simple choices that support your self-care. This can be nice indulgences such as a hot bath in privacy or getting a massage, but can also mean choosing to get to bed early and giving journeys plenty of time so that you don’t have to rush.
- Inspire your dreaming – January gives us long, dark evenings indoors in which to engage in inspiring conversation, listen to music that uplifts and relaxes us, read books that stimulate our imagination and take us to far away places. Take this time to fuel and nurture your imagination and see what dreams and visions truly bring you to life.
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