This year has been like a horse race already - at the beginning of the starting gate and we're off!! It's been an unbelievable month in many ways. I've been struggling with so many changes in my life that seem to be all happening at once. However, whether good or bad it all seems so necessary.
When this New Year started, I didn't set any specific goals like weight loss or eating healthy, I just decided that what I really want to work on the most is being present or in the moment at all times and to accept whatever that moment may bring. I resist change in all forms (most of the time). I get comfortable and decide even if it's not bettering me, that I know what it feels like. Anything different or unknown is too fearful. I'd rather be stuck in where I am than change my comfort zone. But deep down I know that change is not only inevitable but necessary.
This past year I've been juggling alot! Between handling my company's clients, freelancing for other companies when my clients were slow, teaching fitness classes for insurance, partnering in Pass It On, Baby!, being mom and wife, trying to engage with my family in friends in whatever spare time I may have had....it's exhausting!! Although I am used to going 180 miles per hour, my body and spirit have finally said enough! So, when the New Year started, of course the universe responded to my need. Although I was comfortable with the way things were, I knew deep down I couldn't continue giving 100% in 100 directions.
Sometimes when you can't understand why something bad (or that you thought was bad) was happening, you suddenly realize why you had to go through that. To allow this new opportunity to come through. It sounds so cliche but really it holds true - "When God closes a door, he opens a window." A client that threw me a curveball about possibly looking for a fulltime employee instead of using my business for their services - really upset me. We've become fairly close friends but in the meantime, this was all business. And we had agreed on our professional future through many personal and professional conversations. When things suddenly changed and not in a way I felt was open and honest, I wanted to lash out. I was angry. After allowing myself to feel the anger, I said what I needed to say. I lost my voice the very next day. Strange but true and definitely NO COINCIDENCE in my personal opinion. I had released but it was time to reflect. I began to realize that this was crazily a blessing in disguise. Although I had helped build my client's business' success to be what it was, and although this client had become a close friend...I realized that I didn't have to choose anymore. Because just a few weeks before one of the companies I had freelanced for was wanting me to come on full time. I didn't want to give up my client because I felt loyal. I had been trying to configure a way to do both. But luckily with the new situation, I didn't have to choose. It was being done for me. It hurt at the time but it was allowing me to easily move into the new direction. It was through awareness of the feelings, the moment, talking it out and reflecting on the bigger picture that I was finally able to see that. So what had once felt so painful and upsetting - turned into acceptance and peace.
All while this new career path was shaping, so too was my living arrangements. My family has been living with my mother-in-law for the last 5 years. Some of you know the story but to put it briefly - we moved here to help out when my husband's grandmother needed full time care in another city. My mother-in-law went to care for her. We took over the house but once we hit our own financial difficulties it was a blessing we were living there or we would have struggled even more. Mom-in-law and grandma moved back and it was 4 generations under one roof for awhile. But for the past few months, we'd been fighting the feeling like it was time to move on to our own place. MIL has struggled with a recent divorce, putting her mother in a nursing home, and battled finding passion in her life amongst her depression. So to make this choice, especially for my husband, it never felt right leaving her. Recently my husband and MIL had a blow up. We decided, finally, it's time to go. We need to separate so we can heal some things within our relationships. But until then we weren't ready. It took what felt at the time as negative to become the catalyst for change. As soon as my husband and I made the decision together, literally within a couple of days a friend was sending us a link to a house on her street that she thought we would love! And we did! Within 2 days, we were leasing a house that was exactly what we had hoped for! All because we were able to feel the shift inside of ourself, put the intention out there and release it. Like a boomerang, it came back to us exactly how we needed it to. And although, MIL and husband have made up, the path has begun for us to move on and luckily it's all positive for everyone.
I'm not sure where our society is going in the future. I look out and see so many negatives but can quickly change my thoughts to also see so many positives. This New Year has created an energy inside of me that is in search of peace in each moment, looking to accept all circumstances without passing judgement of whether it's positive or negative - because it's neither - it is what it is. It's leading us to a place where we can choose to fight that moment and what it has to offer or to accept and embrace. I am feeling that shift inside of myself. And for so many others out there too.
I hope that this New Year is bringing new opportunities in your life. Whether they are opportunities to reflect, to grow, to appreciate, to release, to change - we have a chance to shift our life in whatever direction we choose.
