Hello everyone!
I love this time of year largely because of spring cleaning. Opening the windows and letting the fresh air in always makes me feel like it’s time to begin anew. Spring also means that we are about a quarter of the way through the year already, so it’s time to take stock:
Have I been following through on my New Year’s intention?
Have I been living up to what I said I was going to do?
Am I living the life I want to lead?
This year, my intention was to put into action everything I learned from 2020. So far, I’ve been giving it a good effort. But old habits, old patterns, have snuck in again as they often do. I spent this past weekend at a meditation retreat led by my mentor where the focus was on acceptance. And what came to me most clearly as I contemplated intentions, acceptance, and taking stock, is the important difference between acceptance and complacency.
We can accept ourselves for where we are at, but we don’t have to be complacent. We don’t have to say “I’m OK with it”. We can say “I accept it” AND ALSO “I want to do better”. And the most important thing about doing better, is knowing what that looks like. It’s taking time, like I did this weekend, to take hard look about what’s working, what’s not, and make concrete plans to correct course.
So that’s what I want to invite you to do. Take time today, this week, or next weekend- sometime before the end of the month- to sit down and really assess:
What’s working in your life?
What is lighting you up?
What is filling you with joy?
And what’s not?
What is dragging you down?
What is stopping you from living your best life?
What do you know you are doing that is out of alignment with your true self?
Once you know the answers to those questions you have all you need to be able to start making plans to help realize your best life.
So often we forget that change is a choice. We stay so long at the cross roads that we forget that cross roads by nature provide us with multiple different directions that we can go. The only one who is in control of your life is you. YOU are the only one who can make the change. Only you can choose a different way of being.
Now there may be constraints. There might be financial considerations, or familial responsibilities, or other variables that have to play a role. Making a choice to change doesn’t mean that you just get to do whatever you want. And in fact, that’s one of the other most important pieces of this- being realistic. What can you actually make happen?
Take my perfect day for instance. I sat down this weekend and listed out how much time I want to spend on things every day- i.e. four hours of working with clients, an hour for exercise, time with Charlie, etc. And do you know how many hours it added up to? 33! That’s not going to work.
So while it’s important to have the dream, it’s also important to honestly asses what’s possible at this point in your life.
As you know, I run a morning meditation group every weekday at 9:30am. Today we started a five week focus on getting really clear on what living a life truly aligned with our authentic self looks like. What would it be like if you answered those earlier questions: “Almost everything in my life is working; my whole life lights me up and fills me with joy! I’ve let go of all things holding me back and wake up each morning grateful to be living the life I’ve always dreamed of!”
My hope is that by the end of the five weeks, everyone who chooses to go on this exploration with me has a vision of what this looks like for themselves – not necessarily that we’ve all achieved this way of being because that’s a lot to ask of five weeks! But that everyone has greater clarity on who they are and what they want. You do not have to come to every session (though that would be ideal) and you do not have to stay for the group meditation (though group meditations are the best!). If you want to join, just go to this page and click on the zoom link for the Five Week Focus on Alignment every morning at 9:30am EST. Every day we will discuss the topic from 9:30-9:45 before beginning the group Heart Based Meditation. (I know I’m sending this blast out after the first session, so many of you will miss the first day- don’t worry about it- just come tomorrow! The goal is for every day to have some nugget to help carry you forward that is standalone, so feel free to drop in whenever).
Regardless of whether you join the morning group, I encourage you to take stock, create the dream, and then make it workable. You’re a quarter of the way through the 2021. Just because you set an intention for the year and now realize you haven’t really done much about it yet does not mean this time was wasted. It means you now have more information to better inform you as you move forward. How well we do something is not the parameter by which we want to judge it. How we take the information gained from the experience and use it to do better next time is the measuring stick. So get curious, get honest with yourself, and adjust your sails.
Love & Light,
Sarah
