What a year!

I will never forget 2013!

It was a year of huge transition, growth and learning for me.  Some years sweep by in a blurr, a flurry of activity, like when you are pregnant and anticipation is carrying you forward to an inevitable conclusion.

 

 

 

Some years crawl along like the slow, tortuous screeching sound on a blackboard, like the third year of weight loss when you’ve lost 55 pounds and know there’s more to go… but it’s just not happening.  Those are the years when a huge opportunity arises:  the opportunity to face yourself and refuse to do what you’ve always done before… which is give up.

But this year didn’t crawl or whirl.

It passed, moment by moment, with a full and robust consciousness to every decision and every word.

It had huge change, extreme joy, even a little heartbreak… but I was there for every moment.  I wasn’t hiding in a bag of chips, or a ice cream carton.  I was in life, fully immersed.

1.  This was the year I learned to speak my truth gently.

Some truths are harder to voice than others.  It was hard to admit my marriage was going nowhere.  It was even harder to acknowledge my own limits… at anything.  But this year taught me, when you do speak your truth, you live differently… and people listen.

2.  This was the year I let go of what “they” think.

My life has never looked like anyone else’s.  Despite my most fervent desires to fit in, I grew up with addict parents, never belonging anywhere, and there was always someone judging me for my home life, or my mixed ethnicity, or my size/looks.  I slowly developed my own destructive habits that further isolated me from a true connection to people and life.  Along the way, I made up the fantasy that being “normal” – which included being a “normal” weight – would get me happiness.  Then, I wouldn’t have to worry about what “they” thought about me.

The hinge in the door to happiness was “they.”  I thought “they” mattered.  I wanted “them” to like me.

It took me a while… probably way too long… to discover the facade of “normal” doesn’t mean anything, but the toxicity of judgment is truly vile.  “They” are filled with hatred, fear and judgment.

As my life took 180 degree turns this year, I’ve been truly blessed to know who judges me and who supports me.  The people who truly love me have filled my heart with sweetness and joy.

It’s an irony, not lost on me, that changing my worst childhood fears was all up to me, and not about “they.”

3.  This was the year I created a happy divorce.

For years, my dear husband and I had been growing in different directions.  We were one of those couples who were waiting for a chance to actually spend time together.  We promised a different sort of relationship to each other when the craziness of life waned, when he was finished working midnight shifts, when the war was over, when child rearing was complete… but waiting isn’t living.  And we realized waiting was pretending.  And avoiding.

Though we were never cruel to each other, we had grown to be distant, tolerant friends.  Any shared interests veered away from a dual path.  Our values diverged.  Finally, our connection thinned, then snapped.

We each wanted to live life very differently.  And rather than denigrate each other in any way, especially because of our long history together, we decided to go our separate ways.  We had seen way too many friends take out their individual unhappiness on each other and rip each other to shreds in the process.

Knowing we’ll always be friends and family means we aren’t being victims.  We’re each taking responsibility for our own futures.  We respect and want the best for each other.

4.  This was the year I became a true manifestor.

I’ve maintained a huge weight loss for 13 years but going farther, and actually healing my food addiction meant becoming powerful.  It meant growing close to my values and my soul purpose.  It meant growing up to the point of taking full and complete responsibility – for every bite – and for everything that occurs to me.

When I first began a path of personal growth, I was mystified by books like Abraham and Hicks’ “Ask and It Is Given.”  It sounded good to be a manifestor… and consciously create your desired experience of life… but I thought it was a thinking thing… and it is not!

But I know we don’t have to stay locked in old addictive patterns.

Healing happens.

And healing takes away old limitations.  With many of the healings I experienced (see my work as a Soul Awareness Healer), I felt a huge expansion of my personal energy field.  It was as if my range of my feelings and my experience of life was the width of my body and suddenly it shot out six feet in every direction.

Manifesting became a way of life this year.

I manifested the sale of my house in 21 days.  I manifested the perfect new place to live at just the right time.  In four days, I had my new home in order.

Circumstances are circumstances now.  My connection to my own spirit, which is infinite, diminishes circumstances to the “small” category.  I feel remarkably unaffected by strife and everyday drama.

Just like living by other people’s standards, if I let circumstances define me, I am a cripple. I lived that way for four decades.

Enough.

Life is wide and deep.  Full of energy and connection.  More fun.  More excitement, pleasure and joy than I ever imagined.

I don’t wonder what it all means.  I know.

I know because I create it.  I wake up every day and create my energy, so I know I’m intimately connected to what develops and manifests and grows in my life.

I’ll always remember this pivotal year.  But I also know I’ll be making more meaningful years too.

So, even if 2013 was the best year of your life, and it was the best year of my life, you still have to let go of it to create something new and immediate for your complete immersion.