I always end the year with contemplation. Go off-grid, get quiet, connect, meditate, dream up the coming year. A chance to reinvent myself all over again. Who do I want to be this year? Am I proud of who I was? What kind of life do I want to lead? That I get another chance to start again! How blessed am I?! That I am allowed to recreate myself and begin anew.
It’s never been about resolutions, but about my resolve. Who am I? What do I stand for? Why am I here?
Questions that sometimes get lost in the haze of a busy Spring market, the heat of the Summer sun, the hustle and hurry of Christmas time. But this last week of December, ah, that’s the time when I can turn it all off, get quiet and bring forward those questions that are often in the back of my mind to the forefront, make them centre stage and begin again.
We can do that you know.
We can start again at any moment.
As I get older and the successes and failures build my character, I notice how much harder it is to overcome those parts of myself that want to hold on to the past. That who I was is who I have to be, that I can’t, that it’s too hard, that risks seem more risky and trusting myself seems in shorter supply. I want certainty more than faith. I want gravity more than dreamland. I seek comfort and security over the unknown.
The battle rages most loudly in these times of quiet contemplation – there are no distractions to drown it out. Here I sit, face to face with myself. As I glance in the rear view mirror to see where I’ve come from and assess where I want to go, fragments of those battle scars hang on. Like travel stamps I’ve picked up from my journey, they stick. And I notice – I am more withheld, more reluctant to risk my heart. When did I become so afraid? When did I stop seeking adventure and start looking for the path already paved before me?
To reinvent ourselves, we have to be willing to let go of who we think we are, what has defined us, what has hurt us, what has scared us and all of the things we have believed about ourselves. To open the door for what is new to enter.
To welcome fear, past pains, heartbreaks, trauma and hurt to our dinner table. Our greatest fears, our darkest parts, our embattled and scarred hearts, to sit eyeball to eyeball with them and find a way to love them still, let them go, and risk our heart’s again.
Life tries to beat that out of us. Not in a malicious way, but in a testing way. Otherwise, how would we ever find our true Greatness? Like every great story of all time – the battle of good and evil, the quest, the journey to find what has been lost or forgotten, and the heart-wrenching trials of mind, body and spirit that must be undertaken before what is being sought is given.
We are all heroes in our own stories, our story is our life. We have the pen, the paper and the ink. If we are willing. If we are brave enough to commit to the journey, to the trials and the tests. And to never, ever, ever give up.
What miracles will 2015 bring? What trials, what tests, what opportunities and surprises? I don’t know. But I am willing. God, Universe, Spirit, whatever You may be, hear me now, I am willing.
Krystine McInnes is an accredited mortgage professional with over 10 years in the mortgage industry & a background in the legal field. She also stewards the vision for numerous boutique development projects between the Okanagan & Vancouver, British Columbia. Find more on her here: www.krystinemcinnes.ca