This weekend, we march into the uncharted territory of a new year – one whose gifts, challenges, opportunities and blessings are yet unknown. The question is, will you show up for it?
It is a choice, you know. Everything is. Every day, you are offered the chance to choose growth, to choose to know yourself better, to choose to see another person more clearly – more compassionately. You can take action from a place of authenticity, speaking the truth as it resonates with you. It isn’t always easy, but it is always possible, and it’s a choice that renews itself constantly.
As far as getting to this space, mindfulness is far from magic, but it helps. It gives you a set of frameworks for finding that beat “in between stimulus and response,” for checking in with where you are, not where you were or where you think or fear or hope you might be later on. Your now is better with this perspective, and so will be all the “nows” to come in the year ahead.
Your “no-fail” mindfulness challenge this Friday is to prepare yourself to head into 2017 ready for whatever it may hold. Ready to be present on the journey that every single day offers. Willing to look at discomfort head-on and say “yes, I accept this challenge.” I will choose to pause here to catch my breath, and then I will choose to move forward to see what I can learn about myself, about others, about the internal experiences that make us more similar than different.
Get your rest today, for tomorrow night we let go of all that does not serve us. We awaken from the sleep of habit, routine, of unintentional action and unconscious inertia. Tomorrow, we make space for the new – that which will open us, push us, release us from the patterns of the past that have not helped us to grow.
Or, more accurately, you can, if you commit to making the choice to be present, and to be open to everything the adventure ahead has to show you. Your moments are gifts; whether you open them fully is up to you.
“Honor the space between no longer and not yet.” – Nancy Levin
Photo credit: Irina Blok
