Brand new. Fresh and sparkly. 365 more opportunities to live life to the fullest.
What does the New Year mean for you?
Is it a fresh beginning? Is it doing new things? Is it doing the same things bigger and better? Is it tossing out the old and welcoming in the new?
As I celebrated the end of 2022 singing, dancing, and laughing with friends and musicians at a lovely local house party, it dawned on me that this is the first year I did not want to have “resolutions”.
For me, a resolution is something brand new that I am determined to do. It is a sentence and a thought I tell myself. I’ve done it because, well, that’s what we do on New Year’s, right?
I’ve already made a commitment to myself. I’ve already promised myself I would love myself no matter what. I’ve already followed through on goals.
With the first day of this New Year 2023, I still feel like the same me. And I love this version of me. And there is nothing to change.
And now, it just continues. There is no ending and no new beginning. For me, it just flows unendingly.
Every day I commit to the practice of ME. My belief system is one where I determine what feels right for me. I determine what is my right next step. I determine what to eat. I determine with whom to engage. I determine every aspect of how to live my life to the fullest.
I’ve done that successfully in 2022. That will not end just because it is a new year.
You see, when you commit to yourself and only yourself, you include in that, your spiritual practice, your emotional practice, and your physical practice.
No book, and no holier-than-thou person or organization can tell you what is right for you.
And when you fill your cup first, your cup, indeed, runneth over for all to enjoy and you are that much more able to be of service to this world.
How do you know what is right for you? You go inward. You get quiet. You reach out and silently speak with whatever beautiful source you rely on to guide you. I call it intuition. I also call it my partnership with God and God guiding me and inspiring me so lovingly and gently to whatever my next step is.
Inward spiritual practice is everything. Only you can determine what is right for you. When you get quiet and seek answers, you get them.
Sometimes they come dressed as ideas. Sometimes you see signs around you. Sometimes you hear something that inspires you.
But the answers do come. And they come freely.
When we rely on others, and books, and organizations to tell us how to be and how to behave, and what is right and wrong, we disempower ourselves and give our individual right to choose over to something else that “thinks” they know what’s best for us. Life is not a one-size-fits-all manual.
As we are born worthy and creative beings, we get to create.
Friends, when you listen to your thoughts and/or guide them to what YOU actually genuinely would like, the results are beautiful.
When you follow through on inspired action, you are truly living your life to the fullest.
When you feel your emotions and decide if that emotion is serving you or not, you get to powerfully guide yourself to the life that you want. You get to create your own reality.
For me, it is a partnership with God. You may call it whatever you would like.
This past year, for me, was certainly one of growth and evolution. Realizing so much of my last years have been based on what I thought others thought of me, or what I “should” do to feel like I fit, or even what I had to do to be loved, was total and utter bullshit. I was stripping myself of my divine right to choose for myself what felt best for me. Because I wasn’t feeling. I was just doing.
I bought into it. It’s what we do. And in feeling so many emotions and learning how to manage those emotions, I realized I had been living someone else’s dream.
With a few tweaks, (and it truly was not hard), I, in quiet thought, designed a life I wanted. A life of contribution, of giving and sharing and helping, and of loving no matter what.
And you know what. I desired it. I thought it. I created it. And I am living it.
Designing your own life based on your deep, inner desires, is thrilling. It’s empowering. It’s so important to show up in this world of ours as who we were actually meant to be.
But if you don’t get quiet, and don’t silently listen and don’t silently witness, and you depend on others to tell you what is right for you, you will miss the answers and guidance being divinely given to you. You receive them, but you will not be listening and you’ll miss them. And then you are just missing out on a full, fabulous, and beautiful life.
So many times, we hide and become chameleons in order to fit. So many times, we negotiate with our mental committee and we dumb down and settle for much less than we deserve and could have and experience.
So many times, we live a life that is less than what we are meant to be living.
As you go forward in the next days and weeks and months, wake up each day really, truly, and deeply pondering if you are living your own life on your own terms, or you are trading it all in to fit in and for what others define as right for you.
My wish for you all is to find your inner calling and no matter what, design your life based on what YOU want. Create a life based on your deepest desires. Give yourself the gift of choice always in all things.
I wish for you genuine happiness, good health, and so much deep joy. I wish for you a life, living as the very best version of yourself.
In Courage,
In Love,
Happiest of New Years to you all!
Lisa XOXOXO 💕