Evanna Lynch shared her aerial practice the other day and mentioned that one of her mentors had said something to her while learning how to spin on the hoop.  He said, “You don’t force your way to the center, you have to let your body find it.”   It struck me because I immediately knew the visceral feeling described without having felt it for a long time.  It’s the discussion of flow.  I’ve been privileged to have moments of it, but it’s something I’m shooting for long term.  My problem is always falling back to fear and trying to control the situation.  I’m trying to force my flow.  I’m trying to force a specific outcome.  The reality is, when we flow, we are free.  We aren’t holding onto anything.  The reason we are able to survive and move in flow is because our center guides us to keep upright even when we are getting swirled or pulled by the current. 

A few months ago, my husband told me he wasn’t sure he loved me anymore.  At the time my world was completely rocked.  I had known for a while that we were having issues, that something was bothering him.  But I had NO idea it was that deep to the point of him not even wanting to be in my presence or continue working on us.  When he said those words, my heart went through my stomach as all of the fears I’d had of him leaving me seemed to be coming true.  I really had to process what he said and what it meant.  I knew the trigger moment of that fight, but, as we all know, it wasn’t just one thing that led to that pivotal confession.  Now, anyone who has been with someone for more than a decade or two knows these things sometimes happen.  They also know when it means something different.  I knew this wasn’t a normal fight.  This was no longer about being annoyed with each other’s habits or frustrated about not getting our way.  This was a life-changing confession about the core of who I am. 

I couldn’t catch my breath and the entire world literally spiraled.  I didn’t know how to behave around him.  I didn’t know how to feel about him or about myself.  He told me the next day he was glad he said it.  Instead of that feeling like another gut punch, it sparked something in me.  I’d been feeling awful long prior to him uttering those words.  I’d been rushing through life, trying to achieve major goals all at the same time.  I’d been trying to create an entirely new life without reconciling the old one—some of it without consulting him.  I don’t regret doing those things because some of that has become the foundation for me to move forward.  But that was the pattern I’ve always had: I want to get through it all so that it can be done and it won’t feel overwhelming.  But there is always something else to be done.  And if we continue to rush through it all, soon life will be that check-list and we will be at the end of it.

So, I started seeing a therapist.  I know much of my behavior is a control response out of fear.  For so long I’ve been pulled by the current of others that I started putting stakes in the ground at every opportunity.  Everything that didn’t go my way was an insult to me.  My husband hadn’t been very attentive to me so I started lashing out.  He was becoming an anchor for some of my projects and my fear of never achieving my goals seemed real.  The truth is, he doesn’t have to have the same goals as me.  I need to be centered in myself and know which way I’m going.  Whether or not he comes along is his choice.  I was trying to force him to my center without really knowing my center because I was too busy doing all the things, living that check list. 

While things have changed significantly in the last few months, I’m finding it’s less about his actions and more about mine.  I don’t want to be the person I was, rushing through the day with no clear focus, but filled with activity thinking I was pushing something forward.  I don’t want to miss the now thinking I’m doing something for the future when all I’m doing is widening the circle.  The actions need to be meaningful.  And that means being centered in myself.  So letting go of controlling others and simply choosing a new course of action if needed.  It means knowing who I am and allowing others to go if they feel the need—even if we’ve been together forever.  Who they were may not be who they are—and the same goes for me.  I’m feeling my way into who I am, and I’m learning to understand what I like and what I don’t like in a new way.  I’m working on not anticipating the worst, I’m just trying to feel my way to good.  I’m working on breathing, on keeping myself upright no matter what happens.  Knowing I’ll be ok no matter what.  At my core, I am ok.  I know that.  I’m done forcing myself to center—all it’s done is make me dizzy.

Today I’m grateful for the lessons that lead me to myself.  There are days I wish someone would just do it for me—like all of it.  Either I have no energy or no interest in the activity, but still it needs to be done.  I know we all have those moments.  But I realized recently that I lived in a princess like fairy tale fantasy where I wanted someone to come and save me from the work I was doing and tell me I got to live the life of my dreams.  I’m actually a bit embarrassed to admit that.  The truth is, I had to learn to rely on myself.  I had to learn how to do the things I wanted done for me, for myself.  The only person who can come and rescue me, is me.  If I hadn’t been through what I’ve been through, I never would have learned to make it through.  I wouldn’t have learned about my own strength.  I didn’t need someone to save me, I needed to get out of my own way.  I needed to stop creating problems for people to help me with and simply do the work.  I’m grateful.

Today I’m grateful for people who see me.  I’ve been mentally struggling at my 9-5.  It’s a constant challenge to dive in and out of the work of three unrelated departments and keep all of them on the tracks at the same time—especially when there are moments it seems they are on different railways let alone the same train/track.  At the end of the day, I always take the time to connect with my staff because I know they are all doing their best.  They all have different fears and motivations and they are all human so I try to give them the benefit of the doubt.  One of my employees gifted me a gorgeous journal that says, “Strong women fight with grace in their heart, kindness in their voice, and love in their souls.”  It nearly brought me to tears because I felt seen. In that moment I understood that me taking the time to honor their humanity made them see mine.  And that is a gift. 

Today I am grateful for time with the real me.  I don’t often get to spend time away from my family.  Truth is, most times I don’t want to.  I really love doing the things we do together, I love being at home, I love being with my husband and son.  But there are facets of me that don’t go expressed as often as they should.  This weekend I got to spend time with a friend and we really connected over life.  It started when she shared her library with me and now I’ve gotten to open up and share mine with her.  While this seems small, the truth is books are such a large part of my life that it’s a very personal thing to let someone in like that.  My husband doesn’t care for books like that and my son is just learning, so sharing that depth of where I’m at means a lot.  The things people look for in their books tells a lot about them.  It felt good to show that again.

Today I am grateful to take additional steps.  I’m learning as I continue on this path that it is a journey.  There isn’t a point to reach, a destination.  It’s a state of being and it’s a constant flux and flow on this path.  There are always steps.  There are always things we can do to bring us closer to where we are going, until we find the next point of evolution in our lives.  I have been receiving signs more frequently and more clearly—quite frankly, more persistently—that a new course of action is necessary and that it’s time to take it.  I’m thrilled.  Part of me feels like I have been waiting forever for this moment.  The things I’ve been working toward to bear fruit.  Granted I have no idea what is coming my way, but I have a knowing in my gut that it’s the right thing.

Today I’m grateful to clear out.  I’m finally finishing taking down the decorations I had up for Christmas and, as overwhelming as it is, I am so glad to end the season on such a high note.  I am grateful to lovingly close that chapter, to feel gratitude for the memories I’ve been blessed to share with my family, and to step into what’s next.  I mentioned a while back that I completely overdid it this season—and again, I love doing it—but I am so grateful to bring my space back to normal.  To be at home again.  See, I will always enjoy the magic of the season, but I am learning to embrace where I’m at now.  I used to get sad taking everything down.  Now I feel at peace. 

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.

Jay Shetty shared in is Daily Jay the other day the concept of taking another way around.  He talked about not lining up at the front, but finding another route if necessary such as the road/path less taken.  I love that this followed the idea about viewing problems from yesterday.  We need to know what we are actually solving for and we also need the flexibility to get to the answer we need.  Sometimes that answer isn’t what we think it is.  Sometimes it’s exactly what we think it is but it’s going to take smaller bites to get there.  There are little quests on the way to the grand quest.  Think about every adventure story we love, every fantasy, every science-fiction.  They all have a quest and it takes a lot to get there.  We LOVE that.  So let’s approach our lives the same way.  It’s a quest.

Quests always start at the beginning, but the beginning isn’t always where the story starts.  Sometimes we meet in the middle because that’s where the adventure begins.  Or we have to pivot and the story takes us somewhere else.  The point is to get the vision right and then find the ways to get there.  We are capable of so many things, we have great capacity to do things in many different ways.  Sometimes the most direct route ends up being a disaster.  Sometimes we are meant to take a few detours to learn a new lesson or develop a new skill.  How do we want to approach the adventure of life?  Think about how boring it would be without any sub plots or twists.  Think about walking into the end perfectly preserved, not knowing any of the richness around us.  While we may have survived, that isn’t living. 

As we embark on a new year, let’s look at where we are starting our adventure.  If things haven’t worked out so far, or if they haven’t worked out how we thought they would, then perhaps it’s time to try something new.  To hear the calling of our intuition to take a step on that less trodden path.  We receive those callings for a reason.  They are messages and they are guides.  Just because something didn’t work out on the straightforward path or in the way you thought it would doesn’t mean it isn’t turning into exactly what it’s supposed to be.  Take the shot in the dark and go on that quest.  We may arrive messy, we may arrive a bit scratched, but we will have tasted everything on that journey, and we will know who we are.  That’s a story told from taking the other way around, that’s a story told from the essence of who we are.  How exciting is that?

A quick thought on problems.  “A problem well defined is a problem half solved,” Charles Kettering.  At any given time, we think there are a million problems.  Truth be told, that may well be the case.  And we think we need to solve them all at once.  We need to be the super hero, always on top of the situation and creating a better day, a better way, a better world.  What we don’t often realize is that the problem we have isn’t the problem we’ve identified, or the problem that needs to be addressed.  Knowing what the real issue is becomes key when we want to move forward.  That’s why we repeat patterns as often as we do and why we keep diving deeper into the onion—there are SO many layers and until we really learn the lesson, we repeat.  The same is said for identifying the real issue.  Most of the time it’s how we look at the situation.  There’s always another way out but if we get stuck on one facet of the issue, we limit what we are seeing.  The ability to get to the root of the issue is key.

Now that we are in a new year, we may have a slew of “problems” we are trying to solve. I encourage you to reevaluate the thought process on that.  Half of the problems we have aren’t really problems,  it’s a matter of how we look at them or how we cope with them.  If we are trying to achieve something, it’s not a problem it’s a goal, and if you’re looking at a goal as a problem to solve, then maybe that isn’t the right goal.  We are trained to think that we are something that needs to be fixed when the reality is we live in a world that tells us we are wrong unless we are a certain way.  What if we allow ourselves to simply be who we are and we work on changing that mindset?     

So, a lovely little synchronicity happened the other day.  I’m noticing these coincidences speeding up as I get more in line with who I am, and I love sharing this journey.  So as we talked about La Dolce far niente yesterday, I had mentioned that the previous day at work was really rough and that I simply didn’t want to be there, feeling like I couldn’t do it anymore.  This morning, my son woke up with a reflux attack.  We are well seasoned in these and it isn’t anything major any longer, thank goodness, but it puts a major delay on the day as we have to wait for the spasms to pass.  Normally I would have allowed him to wait until halfway through an attack and then we would have gone to my parents so I could go to work.  But I knew with what I had written and heard yesterday that I needed to make a different decision.  This is the last true working day before the holiday, there isn’t anything I can’t do from home, and my son wanted to spend time with me.

I made a new decision, and we stayed home.  If I’m serious about honoring my path, then I need to make decisions more in line with the decisions that future me would make.  The future me wouldn’t force her child to travel while not feeling well.  The future me wouldn’t put work before health.  The future me wouldn’t tolerate two hours of commuting for a partial day of work in the office.  The future me wouldn’t tolerate the insubordination or lack of effort from her team (again, I totally understand where people are coming from, but I don’t have it in me to make it worse for others so I do my part).  The future me solidly knows her worth and she doesn’t settle for less than that.  In order to be that person, I need to live as that person—so we stayed home.  I texted my boss, I worked from home, my son was happy, the world is till turning, and I feel better. 

I realized toward the end of the day that most of what I was working on was just future prep and that it isn’t totally necessary in this moment.  The work can wait.  Everything that had happened, happened for a reason.  I was meant to be home with my son, enjoying time together.  The woman I’m becoming handles her life like that.  Her time is her own.  She doesn’t ask permission to do what needs to be done.  I’m proud I gave that version of me a little more space today.  I felt scared at first, but it felt so good.  I saved myself the stress of being accessible to people who just wanted me to do their work, I saved myself the frustration of commuting, I saved my parents the worry of whether or not it was just reflux (it was), and I stood my ground.  It felt so good. 

The universe responds to our needs, our cries, our demands, our hopes, our fears—just not in the way we think.  I never want my kid to suffer, but his not feeling well this morning was the catalyst to make a new aligned decision with my authentic self.  I had been so upset at work the previous day that I didn’t think I could go back and the universe gave me the choice today.  I chose my son.  I wouldn’t take that back for the world.  Sometimes what we think we need is what the universe offers to us, just in a different way.  I knew I needed to be out of the office, I knew I couldn’t go back and deal with the stress another day.  I’m so grateful for that choice.  Sometimes we have to stop and appreciate the opportunities that come our way.  I could have freaked out about my son getting sick—but I immediately knew the universe was giving me my shot.  So I took it.  I am worth the life I want, the life I am building.  I have earned the opportunity to thrive in a way that works for me.  I didn’t need to do anything more, it came to me in that sweetness of doing nothing, responding to what needed me.  How can you answer the calls in your life?

I remember the first time I read about a saying (more of a philosophy or lifestyle) the Italian’s have: “La dolce far niente,” or the sweetness of doing nothing.  It was ages ago when I read Eat, Pray, Love and Liz Gilbert describes the philosophy as the ability to be comfortable doing nothing, knowing you have earned the time to simply be.  Not so much earned, but rather by existence, you have the right to simply be.  The saying was brought up again in my meditation the other day.  Jay Shetty used it in the context of the need to replenish every now and then.  There is such a thing as productive down time.  A necessary respite to recharge, replenish, restore, and rebuild.  In our society we tend to operate under the idea that we need to earn that rest.  But what happens when we hit that wall and keep going?  We struggle, we exhaust ourselves, and we cloud our thinking.  It’s often far more valuable to stop and evaluate than it is to keep pushing.

The other day was simply one of those days at work.  No one is really in the mood to be there right now so the work is becoming careless and people are missing small details or choosing to not do things the way they need to be done.  I privately lost my temper, thinking constantly, “I can’t do this anymore, I don’t want to do this.”  It was horrible, but I pushed myself to the end of the day and picked up the slack from my employees—it wasn’t like I didn’t understand—but it was too much.  I started to single handedly attempt to dismantle the wall we were all facing, and that made it worse.  I got home and I checked my watch and saw my stress level had been in the high range nearly all day.  That was enough for me.  For as often as I talk about doing something else, I have yet to make a plan to move on but seeing my physical reaction and KNOWING how I felt made it clear: this is not for me any longer, at least not like this.

This is important for two reasons.  Sometimes walls or obstacles are redirection.  We are meant to be impeded because we are being directed elsewhere, down a new path, or to a new state of being.  In that moment, feeling that frustration and fear about what to do next companied with the fear of not getting the work done, I simply KNEW.  No one should carry that kind of weight on them.  The other reason is more in line with “La dolce far niente”: sometimes those walls are meant as a place to rest, not to be torn down.  Sometimes we simply have to go with the flow of life and understand that not everyone operates like us.  It was ok for me to take a break too.  I’m only human. I didn’t need to prove that I could do it all when my team wouldn’t.  I needed to stand my ground and accept that what I did was enough. 

When we have those moments when we feel we need to push through, I know our training makes it nearly impossible to stop.  There is no nobility in suffering or in martyrdom.  There is no one at the end of the day who will give you your ultimate score that says, “You’re enough.”  That’s your business with your beliefs.  Remember that living is a rough game at times and we all get caught up in what we think we should do.  It pays to take some time to give people some grace for who they are—and that includes yourself.  You need to know you’ve done enough even if it doesn’t feel like it.  You don’t need to earn your time.  You don’t need to be told when you’re allowed to vacation or what you’re allowed to see or who you’re allowed to spend time with.  Be who you are because you are enough.  You are entitled to your rest, to recharge, to replenish and refill all parts of you.  Sometimes doing nothing is everything.  It’s all for you.

Today is my son’s birthday.  I’m making choices aligned with the person I want to be and that means choosing my family over and over again, no matter what.  The things I do, I do for them, my presence with them.  Remembering that on the day he was born, I was born again as well.  On this day six years ago, I waited anxiously for my pregnancy to be over.  It was such a painful experience with the illness, the stress of working how I did (I was a contractor), being alone (my husband was on the road 12-15 hours a day), that I couldn’t bear it anymore.  I loved my child, but we were not meant to share a body any longer.  Space was limited physically, and emotionally it was getting rough for me.  When the doctor said that we were going to do a c-section, I could have cared less—I think I said something along the lines of we could have done that hours ago.  I was just done…

They wheeled me into the operating room and I didn’t feel a drop of fear.  I was ready to meet my son. I couldn’t get a good gauge on how my husband felt because he maintained a pretty stoic demeanor the whole time.  They took him out of me and I felt INSTANT relief.  I had been waiting for someone to validate my discomfort the entire time, that I really struggled during my pregnancy and it never came.  So seeing my boy for the first time, I told him, “So you’re the one who was causing all that trouble?”  I said it in jest, but I felt so good having my body back that there was some truth to it.  I remember holding him in the recovery room, sleepily keeping him on my skin, him trying to latch the second he was on me.  I had mentally prepared myself for getting back to work right away because I was contracting and I kept some distance because the thought of leaving him that soon hurt and I was angry because I didn’t have a choice because of our finances.  I never allowed myself to be present and enjoy the time we had together. 

Six years later, I remember that feeling and I’m working on eliminating that fear in my life.  I want to be present, focused, and a part of the life we have.  I don’t want to be a thousand steps ahead as a defense mechanism anymore.  It’s exhausting.  Holding it all together for this long has been tiring and painful, still.  So on my son’s birthday, just as I was born a mother six years ago, I welcome myself anew.  I welcome the love I have for him and the time he asks of me, and the adventures we go on together.  I welcome motherhood in all its messiness and I no longer care to tailor the time I have with my child against what the world dictates I’m allowed to spend with him.  Our time is our time and I choose to celebrate that, especially on this day. 

I am so grateful for the life my son has brought to me.  He is pure magic in a growing body and it is pure joy to witness it.  He reminds me what life is, what it is meant to be before we are indoctrinated with all the negativity and crap.  We are navigating this together because having children in this day and age is unprecedented.  We haven’t done this before.  Priorities are different, we are re-establishing the importance of presence—and not just physically being somewhere, but giving the attention needed.  I have learned so much from my son over the years, and I want to cherish each moment a little longer.  Hold him more, play with him more, love him more.  Because he teaches me to love life the same way—fully, completely, and more.  Happy birthday do my boy, and to the life we are making together.

I started thinking about how often I’ve written about embracing myself, accepting myself, allowing my authentic self to shine through.  Each time I’ve written about these things, I’ve had the most positive intention in mind: self-acceptance leads to understanding the self where we can learn to perform at our highest and then help others to do the same.  That is ALL true and I stand by that.  But I’ve never looked at the concept of self from an ownership perspective.  Owning ourselves and taking responsibility with the understanding that the outcome lies in our actions is a different thing.  I can love me all I want and that may not be enough to call me to action for what I need to do.  I have to create the focus needed to hone the discipline that cuts out the noise and makes the steps clear.  That is a powerful shift.

Again, I stand by everything I said regarding embracing self and allowing the authentic self to come out.  We can’t move forward with any type of plan if we don’t know who we are, it is that simple.  I’ve also said before that we need specific intention—I used the example that we can’t hope we get to Bali by booking a ticket to Florida.  Now, the key in moving forward is in the discipline and the steps we need to take to create the vision.  Embracing is about respecting and honoring the vision and accepting who we are or what we need to do to get where we want to be.  Owning is about the action and the discipline required to get there.  Embracing is accepting who we are, owning is the follow through. 

I mentioned a few days ago that I want to help people get back to themselves.  What does that mean?  I want people to learn to hear that inner voice and trust it.  I want people to know who they are and not be ashamed about it.  I want people to feel the pull to step out of their comfort zone and actually do it.  I want people to know that they aren’t crazy or unrealistic to have the drive to become something else.  It doesn’t matter what stage of life you’re in, if you have a calling, then it is time to follow it!  That calling is yourself (your higher self) and we have to learn to cut out all the other crap that tells us we can’t do that for whatever reason.  Getting back to yourself means hearing your voice and doing what it says, trusting the intuition and, again, taking the action. 

There is ultimately only one person responsible for where you end up in your life: you.  The same for me. I am responsible for where I end up.  Talk is a helpful tool, but talk without understanding and not accompanied by action gets us nowhere.  That is the other subtle difference between embracing and owning.  It’s nice to be warm and fuzzy and cozy—and, again, we do need that to a degree—but the follow through is what gets it done.  Take the steps toward yourself.  Love yourself, yes, but love yourself enough to do what you say you will.  Be gentle with yourself, but be gentle enough to hear the truth.  Be aware of yourself, but be aware enough to be honest about what you need to do.  That is how it happens. The life, the dreams, all of it.  That is how it comes true.  We got this. 

I am so grateful for another year.  I am grateful to be alive, to be healthy, to be privileged enough to continue to work on my health and development, to be surrounded by people I love, to have things that make my life easier and more enjoyable.  Mostly I am grateful for the opportunities.  When we reach a certain level of understanding in our minds, life changes.  When we see how much time we waste on the extraneous noise and the chatter and anything else we distract ourselves with, that gives us a new opportunity to shift that focus.  That’s a privilege. I’m grateful to understand my power on a new level.  I’m grateful to see myself in a new light. 

I am grateful to remember who I am.  My father found some old pictures of my husband and I from about 16 years ago and I saw something.  The last few months have been the culmination of developing mental fortitude in the form of breaking down in ways I didn’t know I could break down.  When I thought I had already experienced my lowest, there was another level.  Seeing the pictures I did at a time when I’m building back up meant something.  I saw a beautiful girl, confident, knowledgeable, aware of who she is, ready to take on the world if needed.  I made a promise as soon as I saw that to let that girl out again.

I don’t want to become a new version of myself, I want to become the best version of me, who I remember I was and who I was on my way to be.  I want to own the process of becoming who I’ve always been, of releasing that authentic version of me to bring out the best in others.  Elevating isn’t just about ourselves, it’s about the impact we have on the world.  I am so grateful to make the decision to take some focus off of myself and refocus that energy on what I CAN do.  That’s a powerful platform.  Changing the view means different opportunities come into sight. 

I’m grateful to know who I want to be.  I’m grateful to understand the relationship I want with myself, with my husband, with my son, with my siblings, with my parents.  I’m grateful to have goals and more importantly, I’m grateful to have a different drive.  The season has changed and this isn’t about being a victim any longer.  This is about taking ownership and taking the wheel.  We don’t need to drive along aimlessly hoping we don’t hit a pot hole.  We can steer around it.  We can take an entirely new path.  The choices are endless and THAT is where freedom comes in. 

I am grateful to simply be.  I don’t know what the next year brings, but I know I am ready for the next step.  I’m ready to share in a new way and to experience new things.  I’m ready to release the fears that keep surfacing and I’m ready to take ownership of where I go next.  No one is going to tell me the answers to my life, it doesn’t work that way.  The universe whispers and we hear, we know through our intuition, that is how it happens.  Sometimes we have to get quiet to hear it.  On this New Year’s Day, I hear.  I am grateful.  I am ready.  Welcome 2023.

Here we are on the precipice of a New Year, ready to ring in 2023.  I enjoy New Year’s Eve just like anyone.  I love the excitement and anticipation of the new year and being with people I care about, I love the idea of one moment leading to the next and making a fresh start.  I remember feeling it as a kid and I remember the excitement and anticipation just three years ago when we were about to welcome 2020, talking about the roaring ‘20’s, how the decade was going to change things.  On that eve three years ago we had no idea what was in store for the year.  We talked openly about things changing as we always did, we talked about shifting the world and making things different, we talked about being better and welcoming a new way of being.  We all know what happened a few months later—we started talking COVID.  The point is, we all talked about changes and what we thought we wanted for us and those changes came—just not in the form we thought it would. 

The point is simply this: we approach each new year with anticipation when the reality is we have no clue what’s going to happen.  We set intentions and make plans and talk about goals and we either let them fade away as we fall back into our routines or the unexpected happens and we aren’t able to see them through.  There are a few who make the change, who dive in and do the work.  More importantly, they are able to pivot as things move along.  That’s the key.  We generalize change or we get too specific about it.  We cant throw a dart hoping something will happen and we can’t have a choke hold on the outcome because we will suffocate it. 

This year I suggest a different approach.  Flow.  Yes, we can set the course, we can choose the direction things are going in, but we need the follow through.  At the same time we can’t expect to drop the person we are in favor of some new version we haven’t tried on before.  It’s a process, an assimilation, a becoming.  Do I have goals?  Yes, I do.  But the main goal in all of that planning is to allow myself to be the person I need to be to achieve those goals.  Life is too damn short to continue on a path that doesn’t work, so I still say shoot for the stars.  I’m also saying take the time to build that rocket ship so it will make it there.  This isn’t about giving up, it’s about laying a foundation and that’s another difference.

We look at the clock expecting that a shift on the dial is going to change our lives.  I’m not saying it CAN’T happen, but we are pretty much the same person before and after midnight.  In order to become that new version, we need solid ground to walk on.  We need to act as that person would—and honestly, it’s more than behavior, we need to be that way; it’s just really hard to do that if you haven’t been that person before.  So let’s not pressure ourselves to magically transform.  Instead, let’s approach the time with optimism, gratitude, joy, and anticipation that we can shift and that we are able to handle what comes our way.  We are all still here and that is a gift.  The truth is we are meant to change the course of things, we are meant to make them better.  Sometimes that means diving into the muck and doing the work instead of hoping for a magic shift of the tide.  We can still roar and make this a pivotal decade, let’s look at the focus and pivot to what really matters.