Ready to start 2021 off right? Here’s one of my MUSTS for starting a new year with intention, guidance and inquiry - vision boards.
But this year I have a twist!
I created a new thing- a Soul Vision Board!!!!!
Wanna know more?
What’s your opinion about this idea -finishing what we start versus quitting before it feels done or complete?
I had a conversation about this a while ago and am still pondering it.
Like most beliefs, this one was unconscious inside of me until I really began to unpack it. As I did, I began to see how the idea of finishing what I start, has been a big driver in my life.
It got embedded in my system when I was a teenager. I had a challenging (some might say traumatic) experience my sophomore year as a new student at boarding school, after I’d lobbied to go away. Only, a few months later, I was desperate to come home.
In my memory, I phoned home every day, begging to leave. That’s how unhappy I was. Finally, my mother told me I had to stay and “finish what I’d started.”
I resigned myself to being there and eventually graduated.
I read this quote from the poet, Mary Oliver the other day:
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
I found myself thinking about her words all day, both the simplicity and the truth. Maybe that’s the power of poetry. It speaks to that part of us that can hear the simplicity of truth.
Remember when Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth came out? It was in 2008! I have a distinct memory of reading that book one summer while driving around rural North Carolina. I know, random.
That book was filled with amazing insights, and if you’ve never read it, I highly recommend it. In fact, writing this now is giving me the urge to pick it back up! I know there’s more there for me.
But what I wanted to share today was an idea I learned from that book that was a major game changer for me. I’ve been sharing it recently with some of my clients which is what gave me the idea to write about it, too.
First, let’s start with a basic definition to what Eckhart Tolle refers to as the pain-body. He describes it as, “an invisible, semi-autonomous energy field of accumulated, repressed emotional pain.”
Before we dive into this topic- which is a personal fave – I want to let you know a bit about what’s up for me right now. I’m in a transition with my career track. Writing those words feels and sounds SO weird to me! Because it’s more that I’m wanting to focus my time and attention on nurturing my creativity and living more as a visual artist and writer rather than as a coach, teacher and psychotherapist.
When I was thinking about writing this blog, I was genuinely surprised by what popped into my head, but then I knew I HAD to write about it. 😆
It’s… forgiveness
Yes, I know, unexpected.
But the words I heard were, “I forgive and I set myself free.”
I think there’s so much confusion around forgiveness, and rightly so. It often gets confused with thoughts like:
If I forgive, I’m letting them off the hook
Or, if I forgive, they won’t be punished
Or, if I forgive, I have to pretend /act like nothing happened
