In this week, a suspension of time between the Christmas holiday and the dawn of the New Year, it can be a wonderful time for reflection. For some, the last few days have been a flurry of activity with family, dinners, gifts and cheer. For others, the last few days have been challenging, with work commitments, time feeling scarce, or hearts longing to be with loved ones. Regardless of our circumstance, when we take a pause to look at the past year, there are certainly moments of brightness, given to us by various means.
Taking time to purposefully pause, if even just for a few minutes, reveals the deep contentment we have felt during those moments of brightness throughout the year. Digging into these moments when we have felt alive, when our hearts and minds were stirred, allows us to discover the source of that contentment. These sources of peace and joy are places where gratitude lives.
Gratitude shows up as things we are thankful for having in our lives, or things we have learned, or people who challenged us to grow or bring us love. Gratitude can also be thanks for things that didn’t happen to us, for the chance timing or decisions we made (or didn’t make) which left us in more fortunate situations. However gratitude shows up for you, taking time to connect back into these moments is a rewarding practice which both humbles us and grounds us in a sense of peace and security.
In these next several days leading up to the New Year, many of us begin to feel empowered with new possibilities. Before moving forward and closing the door on the past year, consider taking a pause to reflect back on all the times when fortune shined upon you. With a quiet regard for how well things have gone, despite challenging situations, or even with immense expansion and prosperity, it frames us to be in a place of gratitude as we set intentions for the coming year. When we live in this mindset of abundance, we are able to feed new intentions from a place of positivity.
Remembering the sage advice, ‘what we feed, grows; what we starve, dies,’ think about what you want to sow for this coming year, and what can you stop feeding?
With humble thanks for the many blessings, and wishes for a happy new year ahead!