I’ll get to the new year stuff, but first, as many of you know, we are blessed with two young daughters. One of which tends towards the dramatic. If something is not going perfectly, I see the creep of anxiety as she veers into full catastrophic thinking. She’s been known to magnify the little things to their worst possible outcome. From the little stuff (This morning’s grocery shop featured an urgent ‘But what if we can’t find the coconut Mummy?!’ ) to the bigger stuff. She is concerned about active volcanos in Australia (we have none), and the crazy rains of this week have spun her into fearing floods at home. This past week I have started teaching both daughters about negative and positive thoughts. And they have been learning that what you focus on will naturally tend to expand. Think one positive thought, then draw in a second, and before you know it your mind will be swirling with positivity and your whole body will feel lighter and brighter. Happiness and ease is created. The reverse in this law of attraction will happen as one negative thought leads to the next and the next and into a potential whirlpool which really weighs you down. I am not recommending you deny or block emotions that need processing, feeling or expressing. But you get my drift. Positivity begets positivity and maybe Pollyanna was onto something.
So did you manage to take a break over Christmas? Did you take time to reflect on the past year and maybe set a goal or two the 2016? Did you return feeling somewhat refreshed and enthused about your new plans and your brand new improved life? And since then, having made it to January 8th, have you already slipped from that new exercise, food consumption or other new aspect of your life and fallen into a behaviour patterns which are the ‘old you’? Have you already caught yourself thinking old familiar negative thoughts that you wanted to leave behind? Any of this can leave us discouraged or despondent.
Oftentimes people goals include external things but did any of your goals include how you would like to feel? For me exercise makes me feel good. So does eating good and lighter foods. It’s going to bed a bit earlier, and not taking the iPad with me. So what do you need to keep yourself feeling good? What needs to change? Thinking back to knowledge gleaned from the last year, keep in mind Einstein’s thoughts on insanity. ‘If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got’.
So take some time to focus on how you want to start the year (or restart it if necessary!) and set a positive vibrant course for yourself. Focus on what nourishes you, whether you are the warm bubble bath or the bracing beach swim type. Be resolute in your commitment to creating the way you want to feel otherwise you will just end up with more of the same old stuff you didn’t really want anyway. Remember that what you focus on this moment will imprint on the next moment, and the next and the next until suddenly it’s December. So commit to yourself, be willing to let go of any fear of change and go for it to get the year you truly want and deserve. You have 258 days left!!
Blessings for 2016,
–Christina
PS At this time of year I love to include in my yoga classes, a meditation on new beginnings. I love it because it
allows people to move forward exactly from the space they are at now, rather than waiting for certain elements of life to need to combine before even getting started. It helps unblock you and get you started despite some random thing not being ready. So do come to yoga over the next week and I will include it in the class.