Crystal Clear
As I mentioned yesterday, last year, on New Year’s Eve, I wrote a future letter to myself.
In it I detailed the events that I hoped would happen in 2010. (For more details about how to do it, click here.) And then, I felt surprised as, one by one, they began to come true, some of them by choice and effort, some of them just seemed to fall into my lap. It was as if the universe had read my letter and moved things into place for me. I started to wonder: was it really possible that I could predict my own future? Coolio. But then something else happened. As the good things started to happen, as my wildest dreams started to come true, I felt scared. And, when I felt scared, I started to botch it up. I started to try and control it instead of just enjoying it. I started to live in the future instead of the present. And the things I wanted most seemed to disappear.
Marianne Williamson once wrote that:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
As the dreams started to disappear, I did a lot of soul searching. Hopefully, and I certainly feel confident that it’s true, I’ve exorcised a lot of demons that have been sitting in my corner of the ring for a long time. This year I’m feeling ready to try again. I’m still feeling anxious about letting go and letting the universe decide what’s best for me. I want what I want when I want it. I feel challenged trusting that everything will unfold in its own rhythm and that the universe doesn’t need me to control it, it just needs me to experience it and feel wonder at it and enjoyment in it and embrace it. It just needs me to live in the present, which, and I’m feeling totally embarrassed to even say this kind of cliche out loud, is exactly what it sounds like: a gift to be opened right away.
In some ways, I feel more prepared for good things to happen then I did last year and I feel confident that however woo woo it may seem, spending the time to write a letter to myself is a way to ponder where I feel happiest focusing my energy for the coming year. What about you? What are you looking forward to in the New Year? Where are you going to put the focus? If you could have exactly what you wished for, what would it be? And are you brave enough to embrace it when it appears? Or will you run from it?
Though I don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions, I’m making one this year. My New Years resolution? Dream bigger in 2011.