I embrace family, love family.
I am a family person.
I come from a big family, and like many others may have experienced, my holidays have been riddled with family dramas. There are so many ways the dramas show up with holiday festivities as opinions, dysfunctions, addictions and long standing antics that mix with pure doses of love and family bonding.
Despite all those twists and turns of agendas and dramas that USED to churn their own twists and turns on my insides, I have had the best Christmas and holiday ever.
I have spent so much of my life trying to get inside that place where I was untouched by the swirling craziness or lack of it because of disconnection. Neither extreme felt like home to me. There was a time when it felt so hard to get into that place when the very immediate and primary family I was creating began to have unsettling dynamics. My primary family didn’t feel like an “at home peace”.
This Christmas has the most confirming to me for the inner work I have done to get here.
It took honor, deep truthful self-honor. It was tough, one of the hardest decisions of my life, to step toward what I call, “getting inside my life”. There were so many unknowns I had to cross, especially with having young kids because I wanted to do right by them. I wanted so badly to have health, peace, love and connection in my core family unit. My soul craved it, yearned for it. I longed for that comforting family belonging.
Why was it so hard for to reach for a life that felt congruently meaningful down to the core? I had to choose it. Yes, CHOOSE IT. Choosing it isn’t a one-day decision. Choosing it isn’t an instant fix either. It’s many small steps towards that truthful place.
Although I have overcome so much in my life since being run over by a lawn mower at age two, I function and walk at what is considered a miraculous status for my condition. Many people get inspired by it. The thing is… life threw that on me. I had no choice. I had to accept it. In a sense, it felt easier to handle that challenge than when I had to make the choices from inside for a change.
It takes A LOT to choose changes with relationships and energetic entanglements of inter-relationships with family whether it is primary or extended. It takes a lot to choose change for long standing patterns that have entrenched their energetic hold in our lives.
Getting a divorce and breaking up the core family unit I treasured was hard for me, very hard, I was trying everything to make it work. I am fiercely loyal. I am a tremendous giver. I am a true, true believer that love is the answer. How do you take those deeply seated core beliefs and make peace when you feel conflicted by dynamics that say otherwise?
I did it! And I did it by choosing the life experience, first on the inside, that I truly wanted. I knew I wanted a life of congruence with my heart’s inspired dreams. Next, I had to choose it again as I stepped into my outside world life. Step by step, day by day, I let myself arrive “inside my life”. The journey guided me to where I felt my belonging with myself and now my primary family unit that I am building.
This Christmas was the best ever for me despite all the big or extended family dynamics. I know that it’s all because of a true settling of peace. Living the song, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me,” I now have a family unit as a blended family and a true soulmate loving experience.
You know the Oprah question, “What do you know for sure?”
What I know for sure is this: it takes stamina from the soul to really stand on the sacred ground of your life’s journey. The winds of life blow, and you can lose your footing, your way, the path meant for you, your place that is at home with your heart.
As we start a new year, my wish for everyone is not to show up in the new year with obligations to settle some surface aspect of life such as more money, less body weight, more material items, or simply more ideas of what we “think” will make it better because those drivers will be fleeting if they don’t have the sticking power of the soul’s stamina.
My wish is that something sparks brighter from the soul of you, a direction, a way, a step, action that is inspired from what your soul yearns to experience, how your heart longs to belong in this life with your name on it!
Yes, I wish you more “experiences” of your truth than the “ideas” of what truth should be.
Experiences don’t lie; they are real life. Ideas change.
May you live inside the life experience that belongs to you — with whole hearted congruence!
Empower a Happy New You Revolution for 2015.
Start with what you truly want.
Let that lead you!
Happy New Year!
Namaste,
Anne