Hello, Sunshine.

I know 2008 doesn’t start for a few days, but I did my main completion for 2007 on the winter solstice (the 21st). It’s an energetically powerful day, and it just felt like the right time (especially since I never feel like doing anything of this sort on new years eve). So how to complete a whole year?

I like to keep it simple. This is my tradition:

I lit a small candle and grabbed several blank pieces of paper. Then one by one, I wrote down all of the things that I wanted to release from 2007. Sickness. Loneliness. Discontent with myself. Then I thanked each item for the role it played in my year, and burned it in the fire place. I followed each one with writing my positive intention for the coming year.

The whole process is really healing. This has been a really hard year. I’ve been tested in what felt like every way possible, and at times things felt unbearable. There was a lot I had on my chest to let go, and it felt really good to watch these negatives shrivel to ash in the fire place. A lot of good has happened to, and I used those moments with the candle to express my gratitude for that. Gratitude is really where it’s at…So thank you 2007 for everything, and I’m really ready to start this coming year!

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Journal Entry July 2006

The question: what will it take for me to love myself completely?

In the past I have faced life with primarily my outward appearance, making me self-conscious and uncomfortable, either too-attractive or not attractive enough.

Recently I’ve been in a phase deconstructing the old me — reaching a “lowest” — my heaviest weight, feeling sick, feeling insecure and inept in dressing myself, many insecurities — and suddenly it was like - I QUIT. I’m done. This is ME, if I am ugly who cares, I’m more than that. I am beautiful me, with or without the outside package. It is uncomfortable and yet such a relief to reach this place. I see this as the next level of loving myself — completely surrendering to who I am in the present moment.

So the question… What would it take to love myself completely… I feel at a loss for words, nothing brilliant is coming to me. What I am getting when I close my mind is ultimate self-love will come when I relax, when I stop thinking, analyzing, worrying, and instead can just breathe and smile. When I have released this remaining fear, anger, doubt, etc. about myself, as i confront my “demons”, greater love will be present.

Ultimately though I think complete self love is there, and has been there all along. All I need to do is relax, embrace, and live it. As obstacles arise to challenge this, I can deal with it then.

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During a middle school summer vacation, my dad gave my sister and I little business-like notebooks and suggested we write ten things we were grateful for from that day. I recall feeling very angsty at such a suggestion, and resenting it though I filled it out daily, probably because my dad offered us small amounts of cash if we did it for a month. I remember at that age how HARD it seemed for me to come up with ten unique things daily that I felt grateful for. It seemed like a cop out to say, “I’m grateful for my dad. I’m grateful for my mom. etc” every single day (I thought the purpose of the exercise was to find unique things daily). Slowly I gave up on it because it seemed too challenging, but it’s a practice I have come back to time and time again. Something that I find to be the most deeply rewarding, and to be a surefire way to get a grip with reality and count my blessings! No matter how upset I might feel over something trivial or significant, writing down ten things I am grateful for is a very powerful practice to bring me back to a higher flow.

So, why does this practice make you happier, peaceful, and more abundant? Well, quite simply because what you focus on expands. The more you can relish and appreciate exactly what is present in your life at this moment, the more you will get! For example:

Today I am grateful for…

• feeling strong and invigorated during & after yoga class
• the fun and joy Harry Potter has brought to my life these past few days
• becoming healthier every day
• warm cool summer weather
• solving “difficult” math problems with ease and joy
• the creative flow that blogging has brought to my life, creating such joy and delight and balance
• all of the abundance in my life
• outflowing some tears, and reaching a closer level of friendship with someone close to me
• the health and joy that my family is experiencing in each of their lives right now
• having the freedom to relax this summer and really figure out what I want to be doing
• everything and all things in my life that I have not clearly articulated in this list - I am grateful for it all!

What are you grateful for today?

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Prayer is a relationship; half the job is mine. If i want transformation, but can’t even be bothered to articulate what, exactly, I’m aiming for, how will it ever occur? Half the benefit of prayer is in the asking itself, in the offering of a clearly posed and well-considered intention. — Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

I never had much of a concept of prayer as a kid, being raised in an agnostic household. I knew it was what people did at church and in the movies, and so I assumed it was how you asked God for what you wanted most. The first time I can remember praying I was in 5th grade. I knelt down at my windowsill and clasped my hands together, being mindful to properly assume the position. Then, I apologized for not praying sooner in my life. I asked God for what I wanted most, “God can you please make me stop growing? Can you please make me shrink so that I’m not so tall, and I can be like my friends.” Yes, that is what I wanted most. Night after night I knelt by my window and made my request.

A few days later, my family went swimming at the pool next door. We were there practically every day. I swam closer to the deep end and went to touch down right about the 5′ mark and my head went under. This was my spot, and I was sure that I could stand there before. Everything I thought I knew about possibility and spirituality flashed before my eyes, I jumped up and down and called to my mom sitting in a chair by the pool, “Mom! Mom! I could stand here - now I can’t - oh my gosh - I’m shrinking! Mom I’m shrinking!!”

She looked back at me and smiled, “No dear, there is probably just more water in the pool today.”

I stopped kneeling by my window after that. I was understandably disappointed. However, that moment, that one pure moment where I was so sure that something in this world was powerful enough to make me shrink…. well that sold me on the power of prayer forever.

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