I love this time of year, fresh starts and new beginnings.  New year’s resolutions often sound cliché but isn’t it funny how a part of us buy into them, why else would January be the busiest time for gyms and trainers?  Well in all honesty, what better time to refocus and renew oneself but at the start of a brand new year?

The other week while parking at my building, I ran into a neighbour. While exchanging usual neighbourly pleastantries I noticed she was pulling a large sheet of Bristol board out of her car.  I don’t know what possessed me to ask, considering I don’t really know her all that well, but as luck/fate would have it, I did.  She shared that she was preparing to work on her annual project, her vision board for the new year.  I connected with her words immediately and felt a pang of guilt.

I had first read about a vision board in my reading of the Secret written by Rhonda Byrne a number of years ago.  It was a wonderful book which I would highly recommend for anyone who believes in the power of positive thinking and the law of attraction.  Though I believe in God, I certainly also believe that I have been given the power to change, create or configure my experiences in a very intentional way.  I do believe we create and attract the things we focus on. Ever notice when you feel blessed the blessings seem abundant but when “it rains it pours”? There is a basic and simple reality to the power of our own thoughts and perspectives.  As quoted in the book, “Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions” (Albert Einstein).

After reading about it, I had meant to create my own vision board but had shelved the idea until my neighbour reminded me of it again.  So finally after years of good intentions, I created a collection of my ALL for this new year, 2013.  A brilliant compilation of my goals, the things I aspire for, the things I want to experience, feel, create, build, purchase, own, share, dream or believe in.  Images and words that move me, revitalize me or remind me of who I am and where I want to be.  Instead of falling into my usual ruts or routines mid year, I want the wonderment and hope that this time of year brings, to last.  What better sustenance than a vision board to help me focus on the extraordinary each and every day.  I spend my first cup of coffee before my vision board each morning, and each morning I walk away from it with my soul smiling.  Last year, I was waiting to be inspired…until I realized, I have the power to inspire myself.

 

 

 

 

I commit to starting this new year in action not contemplation.  What I described last year as a transitionary period might have been more of a period of preparation.  I recognize now, it’s time to find a new home, metaphorically speaking.

What does home feel like to you?  To me, home feels safe and comforting.  Home is familiar and welcome. Home is second nature, warm and secure.  When I am “at home” I feel true to myself and I feel like I belong.  In an ever changing world, how often do we uproot, pack our bags and wander until we find a new home?   I find myself doing that in cycles.  Cycles marked by my growth spurts, my life experiences, my maturity or developmental stages – or maybe wider still, my destiny, my fate, the chapters in my story, the lessons I need to learn – It almost feels like we are chronically leasing, because true permanency seems impossible; the world and all of life is constantly in motion and dynamic.

We make new homes in new friendships, in the birth of children, when siblings move away, when best friends marry, in a new partner, by ourselves, in the absence of a parent, after a fight, when trust is broken, career changes, after the death of a loved one, after a first love or in the heart of a last.  Building a home is finding our place, our peace and ourselves in a new situation; not only adapting but thriving again.

I was talking to my girlfriend at work and found myself complaining of a long standing issue in my life, particular relationships in my life that feel unbalanced or unfair.  And she said to me “when you have kids you’ll understand because your priorities will change and what will matter most to you is your family.  The things that matter to you now, won’t seem so significant because you will see what will matter to you more.” Wise words. She didn’t mean it in a negative or demeaning way, she simply described the natural evolution of cycles and how we all go through them and experience the conflicts when we are inbetween them.

Last year there were dynamics in my life that dramatically changed in ways I had not expected.  Friends, family, work, Church, love – things shifted; and I called it a transitionary period.   But what felt transitionary and unsettled was simply my attachment to those things staying the same, or staying the way I had always expected them to.  It was my naïve resistance to changing cycles.  But I see now that it’s the right time to build a new home.  Build a new home in this body I have, this love I am blessed to share in, this new phase for my retired parents, in facetime with my sister, in new friendships I have acquired or old friends I have weathered with,  in my new four legged best friend, in new ways of expressing my spirituality that aren’t just passed down to me….it’s time to build a new home, and what better time than the start of a new year.

Happy New Years!