Joy-full New Year!

All around the world people have been welcoming in the New Year. Multi-million dollar displays of fireworks were staged in major cities across the globe, people partied and celebrated and counted down to 12 midnight wherever they were, perhaps hoping for a kiss under the mistletoe, welcoming in 2012. 

It is a time of year when we may reflect on the year just gone, the good times and bad, the challenges, the struggles, the highs and the lows, and perhaps hope that this year will be different, will be better, will be the year that it all goes my way….the year when we lose weight, get promoted, meet Mr or Mrs Right, travel or any one of a myriad of hopes and dreams that people aspire to. New Year’s resolutions are made with the conviction that this year will be different …..only to find a few weeks later that perhaps it won’t be so different after all. And so the cycle repeats itself….year after year, often without us making any real change, repeating the same old habits and behaviours.

We can begin to feel that change isn’t really possible, that we are just one of those people who will always be fat, who will always smoke or drink, who will always be passed over, who will always be single, who is the way they are because …..well we’ve been made that way and that’s just the way it is and there’s nothing we can do about it.  We give up and resign ourselves to living the type of life we have always lived…..stuck in a treadmill of existence that goes round and round and round……year after year….. instead of truly living and being free to make truly healthy choices on a consistent basis.

So why do we find it so difficult to change the behaviours we know are no longer serving us??  Part of the problem is that we are not as free as we like to think we are. We carry with us the consequences of all the choices we have made and all our experiences that lead to the behaviours we have today. We have the momentum of the past in the present and in order to make changes in the present we have to deal with the past. We have to deal with the hurts and wounds that are part and parcel of growing up and being human – for not dealing with them, just keeps us stuck on that treadmill. However, it is important to not get stuck in ‘woe is me’ for the deeper truth is that each person is Love in essence because we are made from and with Love. Knowing that we are Love can give us the space to look at the yucky parts of our lives and ourselves – to heal them and align with the deeper truth that we are Love. 

In this way we can be truly empowered to make choices based on what is loving, healing, caring and gentle rather than that which is harming, self-destructive, hard or disharmonioius. The latter choices are coming from the false beliefs and perceptions we hold about ourselves, from the yucky stuff, the self-hatred and self-loathing instead of our true nature. 

Esoterically and energetically we can either make choices from Love or that which is not Love (eg emotions, ideals and beliefs). The reason that New Year’s resolutions fail comes down to 2 main areas – 1) we have not addressed the past, we have not healed the hurts and 2) we do not make choices from and with the energy of Love. The latter is very important for if we continue to make choices from that which is NOT love there will never be any true change or healing.  It is like using poison to treat poison – ie. using that which is not love to heal or fix that which is not love and surprise, surprise – it doesn’t work. All too often we use food, relationships and jobs to fill an emptiness we hold inside but do not want to feel and so we keep the cycle of filling ourselves up with food, new projects, holidays, relationships etc to keep it at bay. 

 Instead, we can reconnect with our innermost, our inner heart and know that we are love and that by making self-loving, self-nurturing and caring choices we can build that Love in the body also.  This isn’t some overnight transformation but a conscious choice to say NO to that which is not loving (eg alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, gluten, dairy, sugar, late nights, checking out with TV/computer,  abusive or toxic relationships, emotional ways of being – anger, frustration, jealousy etc etc) and to say YES to that which is loving, caring, gentle and nurturing.

It is by addressing the past and making conscious self-loving choices that I have been able to heal my own self-destructive ways and to lead a life now that is in complete contrast to where I was before. I was even in bed asleep well before midnight on New Year’s Eve – something the old me would not have believed possible! It has been an unfolding that just keeps getting deeper the more self-loving I become. My diet is ever changing as I feel the effects of eating different foods in my body and having once been a choc-aholic I have now not eaten chocolate for over 3 years – and that still amazes me! I don’t even have to resist it for the desire for it just isn’t there. However, I am still unfolding, healing, building love and will continue to do so – such that some foods that I was eating yesterday, I may no longer be eating tomorrow or next week depending on how they feel in my body. Of course being self-loving doesn’t just apply to food but to all areas of life.

So I know from my own experience that it is possible to make changes, to heal and to live a life that is more vital and joy-full on a consistent basis by first and foremost making choices that are self-loving, caring and being gentle with one’s self in all ways. By listening to the wisdom within, by feeling what feels true, feels gentle, feels loving. To say NO to that which is not loving, which is coming from an emotion, an ideal or belief or driven from the mind. 

It is recognised that 2012 is a significant year with some predicting the end of the world, that armageddon will be upon us. But what if instead of the end of the world it just represented the end of an era and the start of a new era? What if it is the start of a new era when people will awaken to their true nature, to know that they are Love, that they are in fact Gloriously Amazing but have been living and choosing to be so much lesser? A new era where it is easier than ever before to re-connect with the Love that we are and make truly self-loving choices, rather than choices based on filling our emptiness. Of course if that is true then it is also possible that for those who resist being the Love that they are the consequences may not be so pleasant – as Love brings up all that is not love for healing as a consequence of energetic laws. 

So perhaps as well as a Joy-full New Year to you all, it is also a Joy-full, Love-full New Era – one where we can make true changes by truly choosing to Be Love, to be still, before thinking, moving, acting, speaking, eating, walking and of course making love. En-Joy Being You, Being the Love that you are in 2012. 

Feel free to share your experiences of making changes or New Year’s resolutions or anything else you feel to share as we enter 2012.