Dance with Gratitude Into 2013! Allow Yourself to Shine!



It’s the last day of 2012 and the world is moving forward. We must move forward with it. As 2012 evolves into 2013, take some time to realize, appreciate and be grateful for all of the many wonderful ways in which you have evolved for the better over the past 365 days.

If you’ve been reading this blog, at the very least you have gained new-found awareness. That is a great gift. You are better aware of yourself, of your old self-destructive patterns of behavior and—most importantly—of your new-found power to choose healthy life-giving patterns of behavior.

If you have been a notorious people-pleaser or caretaker, you know now that you don’t have to please anyone, aside from yourself; and the only person you can really nourish and care for successfully is yourself. You’ve hopefully learned to be more compassionate with yourself; kinder and gentler with yourself; and more open to totally accepting yourself just as you are.

You’ve been learning, hopefully, to accept all of your flaws by living a new spirituality; a spirituality of Imperfection. You have a great new Higher Power who loves you because of all of your imperfections. You have real friends who accept and empathize with your imperfections in the same way that you are learning to accept and empathize with all of theirs.

You’ve let go of all of the people who don’t accept you as you are, and you have set them free with love and blessings. You now know that you don’t have to do anything for people to love you aside from being your authentic self.

Today you can also be grateful for the enlightenment you have received concerning your fears of abandonment. No one really abandons us. People abandon themselves. People leave us behind because they can’t face themselves and life. Dads and Moms pick up and leave for this reason. Lovers and friends, husbands and wives do the same. When people pick up and leave it’s never about us. It’s always about them and what they can’t accept or face about themselves and life. And for years the same was true for us every time we chose to leave someone behind. It was about us and our inability to accept ourselves just as we are. We projected our bad feelings about ourselves onto others, decided we weren’t good enough for them and we sabotaged the relationship by pushing the other person away, or leaving them behind.

But no more. Today we can all be grateful that we better understand our old fears and dysfunctional patterns of behavior. Today we are able to move forward with life into the new year of 2013 with the confidence that each day will bring new opportunities for clarity, growth and new moments of genuine happiness. Happiness that is uniquely our own. Happiness that we hold in the palm of our hands. Happiness that entails nothing more than owning our personal power by giving ourselves the great gifts of unconditional acceptance, approval and love.

Today, write out your list of all of the ways in which you are grateful for the gifts you received in 2012. And resolve to grow that list during 2013 in all ways positive! Happy New Year!

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