A change is underway. I'm ready for it. Whatever it may turn out to be. So to prepare myself and to move forward in that change, my mantra for the year is:
Let go. Be Present.
That's pretty contradictory to what I would have thought I needed to do to prepare for change 10 years ago. But for the past few years I've slowly been learning not to live in the future, in what's next or what I wanted to be next. The future will come, it may unfold just as I hope and it may not. I have everything in the here and now I need, it is exactly where I'm supposed to be, and I can find complete contentment in this moment, just as it is. That's my grounding as the world around me swirls and spins and changes. My life is like an open hand: the only thing I need is what is resting in it right now; not what may fall into it later, or what may fall out of it.
On New Year's Eve, I went to Harmony Yoga to participate in "The Forgiveness Series" created by Sri Baba Hari Dass. It's a very simple vinyasa (a series of yoga postures linked by breath) accompanied by mantra, repeated 28 times focusing on the removal of 28 different negative attitudes. It fit just right with the "Let Go" piece of my 2013 mantra. And cleaning out all that negativity left behind a lot of space. Space is a beautiful thing: it allows for breathe, movement, stillness, and peacefulness. But I also felt inspired to contemplate what I want more of in the new year. It's much more productive in the long term to focus on what we do want, on the positive rather than the negative. Whatever we focus our thoughts on, that's where our energy goes. So I decided to create a list of antonyms for the 28 negative things we focused on removing, a list of positive things that I want to focus on generating in my life. Here's both lists.
So, as the sun set on 2012, I focused on removing a lot of negative attitudes. And with the dawning of 2012, I focus on attaining a lot of positive energy. And in the spirit of compassion and non-violence to myself, in the spirit of Letting Go and Being Present, this list represents not what I will beat myself up for not achieving, but what I will come back to and ground myself with. I'm not perfect now, and (probably) never will be, but I'll do the best I can do.
