When we set our sights on achieving things that really matter, the stakes feel high. The more deeply we care about something, the more vulnerable we become to fear and doubt.
The real problem with fear is this: it often prevents us from taking action. When we don’t act, we feel stuck. And the longer we feel stuck, the harder it becomes to act.
But here’s the thing: we’re collaborators with the universe and our action is required.
The beginning of a new year is such an exciting time, but sometimes it can be tiring and overwhelming to think about a brand new year stretching out ahead of you. (You’d better make it count, right? This’ll be the best year ever! The year you finally get your shit together, make that change, do that thing, find happiness/success/health! Ugh, just writing those examples makes me feel bad!)
Rather than create a list of goals and resolutions that will either be forgotten or cause you stress (or, um, both), I suggest you take my simple, compassionate approach to transitioning to a new year. Three simple steps, which work fabulously to usher in the new year but can also be used any time you want to hit the reset button.
I suggest you read through the process first and then go back to actually do the exercises so you have a sense of what you’ll be doing and how much time you’ll need (I recommend setting aside about 30 minutes).
To start, you’re going to forgive yourself. Don’t even think about all the people who’ve wronged you who you need to forgive. Once you’ve forgiven yourself, all that karma wrapped up with other people will sort itself out.
Get out a piece of paper and a pen and write down whatever comes to mind that you’re blaming yourself for. It doesn’t have to be from last year, it can be anything you’re carrying that has an element of self-blame. Disappointments, mistakes, things you did or said that you wish you hadn’t, things that didn’t turn out how you wanted them to, negative ways that you treated yourself or others, anything. Don’t edit or judge what comes up, just spend 5-10 minutes writing it all down.
Then close your eyes and take a few deep breaths. You’re going to invite forgiveness for everything you’re blaming yourself for, and you’re going to graciously accept it. Breathe in forgiveness and breathe out all the self-blame and pain. You are deserving of forgiveness, you are good, you are lovable. You did your best. Whatever you did in those moments that caused you to blame yourself was truly your best–if you could’ve done differently, you would have. It’s okay, and you’re forgiven. You’re free to move on now, and to receive all the goodness and love that is waiting to come to you.
If you find that you’re stuck on something and it feels like you simply can’t forgive yourself, that’s okay. Recognize that you’re stuck and ask for help. I suggest something like, “Please allow me to forgive myself for X,” or “Please help me forgive myself,” but the wording doesn’t really matter as long as it resonates with you.
You may realize that there’s a part of you that doesn’t want to be forgiven because you don’t feel like you deserve forgiveness. This is normal, and it’s okay. In fact, if you’re really feeling a lot of self-blame, expect to run into some difficulty with forgiving yourself. The truth is that you’re deserving of forgiveness no matter what, and you just need some help getting there. As in the example above, ask for help. Simply say, “Please help me feel deserving of forgiveness,” or “Please help me realize that I deserve to forgive myself.”
You’ll know when you’ve come to the end of this first step. You may feel lighter, you may feel a stream of supportive thoughts coming through, you may just intuitively feel done for now. Regardless of whether you’ve fully forgiven yourself or not, you can move on to the next step.
Now take your piece of paper and pen and write out a list of everything you’re grateful for. Again, this doesn’t have to be limited to things that happened in 2015, and it can even (and probably will) include things from the list you just made of everything you need to forgive yourself for. Some of our worst experiences and biggest mistakes often teach us the most important lessons and/or create the most significant turning points in our lives.
So put it all down on the list, without editing or judgement. Everything–little and big, good and bad, weird, wonderful, difficult, terrible, lovely–everything that, when you think about it, you’re honestly glad it is or was part of your experience.
Gratitude is like fertilizer for happiness. The more you can find gratitude, even for the awful stuff, the more happiness and ease will be part of your experience. Gratitude encourages feelings of alignment, empowerment, and joy. So write it all down!
Now close your eyes and think about the things on your list. Breathe in and let the warm, glowing energy of gratitude surround you and fill you. Let it seep into all the cracks and crevices inside and buoy you. Spend a few minutes breathing deeply and allowing the overwhelming sense of gratitude for your life and experiences to consume you. When you feel ready (you’ll know intuitively when you are), open your eyes and move on to the third and final step.
The last thing you’re going to do is offer whatever needs to be offered to the Divine (or Source, or God, or the Universe–really, whatever you want to call it). You can offer anything and everything. Delegating to the Divine (which is really your own inner divine self) is the best way to handle anything that just feels too big or too difficult for your small self (which includes the conscious mind, logical mind, and ego) to deal with.
If there was something you couldn’t forgive yourself for in the first step of this exercise offer it up. If you’re facing a problem or decision that you just can’t seem to make headway with, offer that too. You may choose to offer the entire upcoming year, or even your entire existence.
The point of offering our struggles, our problems, and ourselves to the Divine is to align with our highest selves. Remember that we are the Divine just pretending to be people (another way this is often said is that we’re spiritual beings having a human experience). Aligning with the Divine is a way to access all of the love, wisdom, and power available to us.
You can either write down what you’re offering or say it out loud. Or both! Write it or say it with the words that resonate most for you. It doesn’t matter if it’s not the most eloquent wording as long as you’re offering it with the full power of your heart. If you’ve chosen to write rather than speak what you’re offering to the Divine, write it down a few times. If you’ve chosen to speak, say it out loud a few times.
Then close your eyes, take a deep breath, and place your hands, open with palms up, in front of you. This gesture signifies your openness to receive whatever wants to come to you however it wants to come. The final piece of offering is staying open to receive. Set the intention to be fully open to receive, knowing that whatever you get is for the highest good. You can set the intention in your mind or say it out loud, both work equally well as long as you’re fully invested in the intention itself.
If you feel like you need help staying open and having faith that you’ll receive whatever is needed for the highest good, ask for it the same way that you asked for help with forgiveness at the beginning of this exercise. The wording doesn’t matter as much as the feeling behind it, so simply speak from your heart, whether you say the words out loud or in your mind.
If you really want to take your offering to the next level, you can also do a coconut smashing ceremony. I did one for the first time this year and it was so much more powerful than I expected it to be!
To do the coconut smashing ceremony, you’ll need a mature (brown, not green) coconut, and an outdoor space where you can smash it. Once you’re outside, hold the coconut so you can see the three dots on one end, don’t they look just like a face? Focus on the face of the coconut and think about what you really want to offer to the Divine. Choose just one thing if possible.
If you’re having trouble deciding what to offer, choose the thing that pulls most strongly on your heart, which is most likely the first thing that comes to mind. You may also find, as I did, that there’s one thing that influences so many other things, and offering that one thing is like pulling the thread that causes the whole mess to unravel.
Spend a few minutes pouring all the energy of what you’re offering into the coconut and then say out loud what you’re offering. Then smash the coconut on the ground. It may take more than one throw to smash your coconut. I’ve been told that if you’re offering a particularly old or sticky issue that it can take several throws to smash your coconut. I’ve also heard that sometimes the inside of the coconut will be brown or rotten or old and dried out when you’re offering something that has been a long-term issue or has really had a negative effect on your life.
Don’t you feel lighter and more free now? I definitely did. Clean up your coconut pieces and throw them away. Do not eat the coconut!
That’s it! No pressure, no guilt, no list of stuff you need to keep track of. Of course you may choose to do more specific intention-setting or planning for your year, but energetically what you’ve just done is an ideal transition to help you move forward.
You can do this full exercise, or an abbreviated version of it, any time you’re feeling stuck or like you need to lighten your load. It’s a great way to shift your energy to a more receptive, positive vibration and align with your higher self.
Feel like you want some guidance and help with your transition into the new year? This is truly an optimal time to book an Intuitive Counseling session! Together we can work through issues much more quickly than you can on your own, and we’ll clearly identify exactly how you can create the experiences you really want to have in the coming year.
