Tonight is the Webinox..the day of each year that I sassily pronounce It Is All About Me. It's my birthday. Birthdays are important, and mine is very important to me. But this year it isn't just about me being a year older.... It is about our world getting the gift of a new year. 2012 has been filled with challenges. It brought me to marrying my beloved Naked Coffee Boy...a greater gift than I could ever have imagined. But while this year has brought so much beauty, it has also brought our country and our world so very much pain. Fiscal cliffs and Indian rape victims and Malala and Syria and binders full of women and their uteruses (uteri?) and a nightmare of an election season (regardless of which side of the aisle you were rooting for) and super storm Sandy and babies dying in school shootings and The End of the Freakin' World. Can we stop now? Please? Can we stop hurting each other and do more helping instead?
I know it doesn't feel like it sometimes. I know that it feels like it's never going to get better, it's only going to get worse and in the end, we're going to destroy ourselves. I know there are days when I wonder why the hell I even got out of bed and I know that resetting our patterns can be hard work.
I also know that small things make a difference. I know that we can't all Change The World in big, splashy ways, but we can all change our world in small, meaningful ways. With our intention and our authenticity, we can make this moment... and this moment..and this moment...each a little bit brighter.
I would like to offer that we have the power to create 2013 differently. We have the power to offer up our hope and our love and our faith and our strength to create something different, something better, something luminous.
We can, you know.
So, in the spirit of New Year's resolutions, I vow to do the following...
1. Love myself more. "They" say you can't love someone else until you love yourself. I don't necessarily think that's true, but loving yourself is a good thing. Most of us don't love ourselves anywhere near enough. Swami Kripalu said, "Every time you judge yourself, you break your own heart." My friends think Im loveable, why don't I?
2. Learn people's names more. Like Maddie and Kailyn, the baristas at the Dutch Brothers near my house. And Frank, the delivery guy with the guaranteed-to-brighten-my-day hair. Next on my list, the funny gal at the Japanese place where I often eat lunch. When you see someone so often, why wouldn't you know their names?
3. Say 'should' less often. I 'should' all over myself and it leaves stains. When I get told I should do something, or feel like I should do something or someone else should, Im going to ask why. There might be a compelling reason. There probably isn't, though. Shoulds get in the way of living, of us being who we *really* are.
4. Im going to do things more that feel really good. I've resolved some of these in the past, so Im just reaffirming them. Im going to wear more velvet, drink more wine, dance more, laugh more, hug more, drink more water, give more compliments, eat more fruit, read more, smile more, love more, make more art, get more massages, buy the expensive cheese more, pet the furkids more, cuddle with my NCB more. Im going to be more of who I really am and less of who other people have determined I should be (there's that word again).
Im going to be open to more of the beautiful moments in my life and Im not going to leave space for the nasty shit to make a home in my spirit. That's how Im going to change my world. Maybe this is the lesson of the Mayan Calendar. We can end the world as it has been and rebuild it into something better.
Happy New Year and Happy Webinox. Have a beautiful 2013.
