It’s that time of year
The year is winding down, the holidays are here. We’re tempted to pack things up, close them down, look ahead to a new year. I love nothing more than a new calendar on the wall: 12 pages of possibility, an unlimited set of opportunities, oodles of adventures. Bring it, 2011!
But first let’s say goodbye to 2010 in a way that honors how we grew, the lessons we learned, the challenges we overcame.
Let’s recognize the gifts of the year.
It’s important to express gratitude in whatever form feels most true, so that we can really integrate what we have received with the women we are becoming. And each of us received many many phenomenal gifts over the last year. Things that changed us, or helped us change situations. Teachings that enabled us to stretch beyond where we thought we could grow. People who inspired us to be better, stronger, more alive. Lucky us. All of us.
I spent some time on a recent weekend morning reflecting on the gifts I received in 2010. It was a surprising exercise for me; I thought I’d been paying attention, but in inventorying what came my way over the months I was overwhelmed with gratitude and shocked by the abundance. I thought about the different areas of my life: my family, my friends, my children, my career, my body, my spiritual practice, my personal growth. And as I shone my little flashlight on each of these areas I recalled words, opportunities, extended arms, vitality and strength, generous offerings, new awareness, and gentle reminders.
What I felt as I completed the exercise was…complete. Like I’d looked each gift giver in the eye and said a heartfelt “thank you”. Like the transaction was properly closed.
I invite you to do the same. Create a map of what came your way in 2010. Divide up your life into pie wedges, or a series of circles around a central sphere. It doesn’t much matter what it looks like. Identify the categories that are most important to you. Start thinking about what happened in these areas. Why are you exercising regularly? What did your kids remind you about the importance of play? Who helped you with the self-discovery puzzle you’ve been working on? What new wisdom do you have about yourself as a powerful entrepreneur?
How have these gifts changed your life?
Appreciating what we are — deeply appreciating, in our hearts not our heads — is a way of closing the circle and marking the end of a particular phase in our lives. It also, curiously, opens us up to new gifts and greater abundance in the time ahead.
What are you appreciating? What did 2010 bring that makes you even more alive than ever? What does it feel like to rest in that space of “thank you”?
And what lies just ahead for you in 2011?
