How to Honor the Rite of Passage of the New Year

shelley-bullardShelly Bullard is one of best bloggers I ‘discovered’ in 2012 through MindBodyGreen. Here’s what she has to say about the new year:

The New Year. A fresh start. A new beginning.

For me, the marking of the New Year is filled with hope, with potential, and with anticipatory excitement. It is a time of reflection–honoring what has been, what is currently happening, and what is yet to come.

Consciously honoring rites of passages such as the New Year allows us to think about our lives in a way we often don’t do. It’s easy to get caught in the grind–moving through life on autopilot. We have our routines and schedules–we trudge along week by week by week.

But the New Year is a break in the pattern. It is an ending and a beginning. It is an opportunity to stop, reflect, and start again.

In this article I am going to guide you towards honoring your New Year. Here are some simple thoughts and questions to help you reflect on what happened in 2012, to align you with what you are grateful for in this very moment, and to set you up to move in the direction you want in 2013.

Full story at: Soul Full: How to Honor the Rite of Passage of the New Year.

I’m no @popsdigital but even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and again. A chilly New Year’s Eve walk along the breakwater yielded this gem featuring the Algoma lighthouse…

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Click the image to enlarge…

75 Affirmations to Jump-Start Your New Year

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Get more here: 75 Affirmations to Jump-Start Your New Year | FinerMinds.

5 Questions To Ask Yourself About Your New Year’s Resolutions

The Happiness Project

Full story at:  5 Questions To Ask Yourself About Your New Year’s Resolutions..

Creating A New You For The New Year!

Terri Cole writes:

It is an annual occurrence. We run on autopilot from Thanksgiving through Christmas, and then around December 26, we start to think about new habits we want to create and bad habits we want to ditch. We evaluate what hasn’t been serving our purpose and what we need to change in order to be more fulfilled. For some reason, we have a difficult time implementing new strategies in the present moment. It’s as if we must wait for a momentous occasion that clearly marks new beginnings.

Does the split second between December 31 and January 1 possess some kind of transformational magic? Do we really need a specific calendar date to create our best lives?

Nope. We really don’t.

The biggest challenge is realizing the potential for renewal you have in every moment. If you focus on staying present instead of mulling over the past or anxiously awaiting the future, you can harness the power of your intention and make what seems impossible, possible. Obsessing about what you did and did not do in the past and fearfully projecting into the future is your fear mind limiting your potential.

Once you release the fear, you can stay rooted in the here and now and develop present moment awareness. You can begin to truly discover what you want more and less of in your life based on who you are NOW rather than on how you have behaved in the past.

Recognize you are a work in progress, which is a process that thankfully never ends. Realize that at any moment you can declare a Do Over—to create that magic split second of New Year’s transformation—any day of the week.

You can decide right now that negative experiences from your past will not predict your future. Now is not then, and no matter how familiar it may feel, this present moment has never happened before. Instead of fearing what may happen, harness the mind-blowing power of your intention to create what you want to happen.

Whether it’s now because New Years is right around the corner, or at any other time throughout the year, here is a great exercise to get you on the path to sustainable change.

Full story at: Creating A New You For The New Year!.

Making New Year’s Resolutions? Ask Yourself 6 Questions.

The Happiness Project
Image by elycefeliz via Flickr

I just stumbled upon Gretche Rubin’s ‘Happiness Project’ the other day. She has some good thoughts on forming resolutions…

Forty-four percent of Americans make New Year’s resolutions, and I know I always do. I’m more inclined to make resolutions than ever, in fact, because if my happiness project has convinced me of anything, it has convinced me that resolutions—made right—can make a huge difference in boosting happiness.

So how do you resolve well? This is trickier than it sounds. Here are some tips for making your resolutions as effective as possible.

Source: The Happiness Project: Making New Year’s Resolutions? Ask Yourself 6 Questions.

Go to the source if you want her 6 questions…

Why This Is A GREAT Time Of Year To Kick The B/S To The Curb!

Britney Spears

As we step into the New Year, let’s step into it with a clean slate. That is to say, the stories we’ve been telling ourselves about why we can’t have what we truly want – let’s kick those to the curb.

Let’s take a moment, pause, think and feel our way towards our greatest good and the greatest good for all. What if it were true that your biggest fear was actually total BS? What if it were true that the things that you think are your greatest weaknesses are actually what makes you strong? What if it were true that from this moment forward life would never have to be the same again?

What if it were as simple as simply changing your mind about what you want and what you know you deserve? What if we made it our intention to Love ourselves as much as we Love the thing we Love most in life? And then, what if we went about sharing that Love with others and found that where we thought we would die, be destroyed or that life would come to an end – we actually came to life?

My friend, I’m here to remind you – what was, is GONE and what will be is up to YOU! We get the privilege to decide our way in and out of circumstances! No dark night of the soul lasts forever; but what can last forever is if you get stuck in the story of being in the dark night.

So let us take a moment and think about what would bring us so much joy to create in 2012. Not just for ourselves, but also for others. How can we add value and Love to other people’s lives? What are our gifts? Are we expressing them? Or are we letting them lay dormant? Are we truly walking our Faith and our beliefs or are we letting fear get the best of us? Let’s look over who is in our lives and why? Is there anyone in our life who is there with a hook? Are all of our relationships clean? Are we entering into each relationship with integrity, truth and with the intention to serve? Or are we emotional vampires? Or do we have emotional vampires in our lives that we are allowing to drain our energy?

This is the time to make that change. Sure, we can make the change at any time, but with the symbolic power of the New Year and the collective focus on being brand new, the power of this time of year is huge.

So what changes would you like to make in 2012? And – is there anyone in your life you would like to let go of? And is there anyone in your life that you would like to spend more time with? Are you making the best of life or are you letting fear get the best of you? And what new decision would you like to make now?

Source: Why This Is A GREAT Time Of Year To Kick The B/S To The Curb!

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. Why? Mostly because it remains unencumbered by gift-giving or expectations of anything besides a good meal and a good time with family. We don’t have to travel anywhere or do anything except be thankful and be together!

This year, I’m most thankful for the people who will be sitting around my table [CJ and all me boyos] and the beautiful view I have when I step out my back door… [click on the photos to enlarge]

Business-wise, I’m grateful that for 8 days out of this year, this was the view from my hotel window! Every day in Germany is a gift from God…

It has been a great year for e1evation, llc and I’m grateful for all the people that have helped make it so: Bill and Sara, Sue, David, Dana, Heather, and Green Bay Greg, to name a few. As it says in Proverbs 27:17 “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another” — you all have made me ‘sharper’. I’m grateful for Facebook and the power that it has to reunite old friends — some of whom even become clients like Shawn and Tara — and make new friends — like the two Swedish girls from Viktor Rydberg Gymnasium that have made the Esther’s Hope ministry their senior project. The power of social media continues to amaze me, but at the end of the day, it’s really all about ‘people power’ and the ability of technology to support it…

From Panos

In parting, here’s some obligatory multimedia for the day…

Have a great day tomorrow, however you decide to spend it. I’m checking out for the holiday — see you on the flipside!

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Thanksgiving show and tell…

My #6 son needed a picture of the turkey we raised for Thanksgiving dinner for show and tell today. I don’t know his teacher’s email address, so I’m posting it here so that she can find it…

Happy Thanksgiving to Mac’s class!

P.S. Hi, Sydney!

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