Can you believe January flew by so quickly?   It was a great month… I think I am in love with 2016…:-)  I shared a bit in my last post about bringing in the new year with intention and coming up with my word of the year, Presence.

I chose Presence as my word of the year because I wanted to have a daily touchstone to remind me to bring as much as me as possible to each present moment.  It is easy for us humans to have our thoughts in the past or to be worried about what is going to happen in the future.

I spent quite a bit of my free time last year doing some deep emotional excavation work.  My cat Charlie’s diagnosis with Lymphoma triggered quite a bit of unprocessed grief from my past. Some of this stuff went back to my childhood.  I’m not going to pretend that it wasn’t  challenging and painful to navigate through. It was tough and uncomfortable at times and I had been avoiding some of this pain and grief for a long time.  When I came out the other side I felt so much lighter and grounded in my present life.

What I have learned is that solutions present themselves to us when we are ready. We can’t force healing to happen. I was committed and continue to be committed to allowing my process to gently move forward. Looking back now, I am relieved and grateful that I had the courage to allowed the process to unfold and I am uber grateful for the support that was available to me.  I don’t regret doing a deep dive into my past last year, it was something that I needed to do to help me to move forward.  However, I chose my word of the year, Presence, to remind me to Be. Here. Now.

Charlie

However, I chose my word of the year, Presence, to remind me to Be. Here. Now.  Life is super busy these days.  My practice is growing and my husband’s business is growing.  There are more demands on our time and I am managing to enjoy it all.  January was incredibly busy with work demands, spending time with my cat Charlie as his lymphoma progresses, teaching my class, and tackling my various “to do” lists.  In the past, I would have absolutely got caught up in feelings of overwhelm and anxiety.  January was different. I have my daily self-care practices in place to support me.  I have a master to-do list with everything that needs to get done and I check in every morning and decide what the most important things are for the day.  What doesn’t get done, gets escalated to the top of the list for the next day.  I can choose to align with my core desired feelings of Love, Gratitude, Joy, Peace, Freedom and Abundance or I can fall into anxiety and overwhelm.  So far so good!  I am choosing to take things gently this

January was different. I have my daily self-care practices in place to support me.  I have a master to-do list with everything that needs to get done and I check in every morning and decide what the most tasks of the day.  What doesn’t get done, gets escalated to the top of the list for the next day.  It is a simple process that is working very well.

I can choose to align with my core desired feelings of Love, Gratitude, Joy, Peace, Freedom and Abundance or I can fall into anxiety and overwhelm.  So far so good!  I am choosing to take things gently.  I am finding that the gentleness is allowing  me to take some powerful actions.  That is the beauty of this practice called Gently Moving Forward.  By inviting gentleness into our lives, we can empower our lives and we navigate from a different starting point. It is a practice and it is a process and I have been working on this stuff for years.  It is delicious to see the rewards start to trickle in from the work!

Gently Moving Forward,