Feelin' It

This is a great time for everyone to plan goals for the year. I keep advocating for focusing on how you want to feel. Goals are good, they're grounding, a place to start planning, a concrete something to end up with. But what if your goal was to feel a certain way? Feel strong. Feel loved. Creative. Filled with abundance. Don't we spend much of our time in the land of feelings? And what if ways for you to feel these feelings show up that aren't on your goals list? If you stress the feeling and not the goal, you will be more receptive to these wonderful surprises.

This was the question I posed to the wise women who attended the Bona Fide Butterflies' Women's Retreat this past weekend. Under the guidance of Debbie Philp of True North Yoga, they turned inward using restorative yoga, meditation and ritual. With help from freelance writer Beti Spangel, they were introduced to the power of writing and the many ways to journal. I was the Life Coach/Artist, encouraging them to play with art supplies and asking questions only each individual woman could answer for herself. And the biggy was "How do you want to feel in 2013?"

They took the weekend to distill their thoughts into wishes for this year. What we, the co-facilitators, did not expect was winding up with our own wishes.

One of mine was Patience.  I have oodles of patience for just about anything and anyone. Except myself. This dovetails on last year's lesson of learning to be more gentle with myself. And it is nurtured by my new found love of Letting Go.

But faster than a dog can throw a biscuit in the air and catch it, MY Life Coach, Ed, had me expand on the word and I realized this was really about my age old life work of learning to TRUST. Trusting that it will all work out the way it is supposed to. Or the way it works out, I'll either love it or learn from it. Might suck. But I'm still standing. And smiling. I realized how the simple word Trust pulled me back to right now. It is a simple method of mindfulness. It shuts off my overactive analytical mind. It gives me peace.

But. Did Ed stop there? Nooooo. He had me try on the shift from "I am trusting" to "I am trust." Wow. Try saying that sucker out loud. "I AM TRUST." Talk about down and dirty totally personal and mine to wear. I tried repeating my three wishes in yoga class meditation this morning: "I am passion. I am trust. I am love." It was calming and exhilarating all at once.

So as you think about your goals, I implore you to think about how you want to feel and put that into the sentence. "I AM ________________." Believe it. Breath it. Experience the calm.  Feel your way into the new year.