© 2015 Kebba Buckley Button, MS, OM. World Rights Reserved.
© Daniele Depascale-Fotolia
So it’s a whole fresh new year—a blank slate to be written upon. Happy New Year 2015! Whoops (sound of brakes screeching)! Are you happy? How do you feel right now? If you need to move the ice pack off your head before you can operate the keyboard, that’s okay. I’ll wait. Open your iPad or your iPhone Notes app, or get out that pen and paper. Let’s take just 5 minutes together, or more, if you find this interesting. Today is the perfect day to ask yourself some questions:
- Is your body comfortable, your heart full, your mind clear and at ease, your spirit at peace? No one is going to see your answers unless you choose to share, so jot down key words, cryptic phrases, or even write out your feelings at length.
- And what about your life and livingness? Do you have the relationships you want? Do you feel loved?
- Is money working for you the way/s you would like?
- Are you and the Divine on friendly terms?
- What about your environment? Does it look pleasant to you? Does the flow work for you? Or is it dull and messy, the closets overflowing and files impossible to navigate?
- Today, how does your life look, compared to what you envisioned on January 1st a year ago?
Notice I have not yet used the R-word. I want you to forget the guilt and forget being hard on yourself. Most say we should jump powerfully into our new year with a renewed sense of discipline and determination. Today, as a stress management expert, I’m supposed to talk enthusiastically about goals and resolutions, why they work and don’t work, blah blah blah. But we can cover those tomorrow. And please come back for that piece. As usual, my recommendations don’t go where others usually go. I want your life and work to be as painless and as satisfying as possible.
So for today, please forget all the resolutions you made a year ago. Forget how you’ve been eating and drinking and not-exercising the last several weeks. Forget what the scale said this morning. (You had to look, didn’t you?) Today, you are behind on last year’s idealized ideas of who and how you and your life should be. Some of you are feeling really guilty about the gap. Guilt depresses your parasympathetic nervous system and leaves you more open to illness, so it’s the worst strategy to nurture your guilt.
“Guilt is anger directed at ourselves.”
~ Peter McWilliams
May I boldly suggest you stop guilting yourself right now? Instead, today, do what your body-mind-heart-spirit system needs: gentle transition from holiday health into the vigor you want and need for a powerful New Year. Do these things today, and continue this week:
- Drink lots of extra filtered water. This detoxes.
- Eat less sweet stuff today. Sweetness is yin and makes you yin: swollen, weak, slow and quiet.
- If you can, walk for 20 minutes or tread on your treadmill, at walking speed, for 20 minutes. More detox.
- Schedule some energy therapy like Jin Shin Jyutsu ® for balancing. This can eliminate the aches and unclarity.
- Take some time in Nature. This pumps up your master hormone, DHEA, making you stronger and more resilient. The effect is immediate. An upcoming article will expand on this amazing phenomenon.
- If you like God, pray, or just find a quiet place and moment, and talk. You may be wonderfully surprised at what you hear.
- Start a journal, in your iPad or the like, your iPhone notes section, or in a disguised document on your computer. As you finish reading this article, take 5 minutes to write down some of your realizations. Notice how much lighter you feel?
“It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.”
~ Oscar Wilde
I would like you to enjoy your New Year! And to start making the most of it, consider gliding into it gently. Forget the advice to jump in forcefully. Create a transition from the Holidays, treat yourself kindly, and your pzazz will be back in mere days. Now: Happy (and Fabulous) New Year!
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Energy, Peace, Meditation
- Kebba Buckley Button is a stress management expert. She also has a natural healing practice and is an ordained minister. She is the author of the award-winning book, Discover The Secret Energized You (http://tinyurl.com/b44v3br), plus the 2013 book, Peace Within: Your Peaceful Inner Core, Second Edition(http://tinyurl.com/mqg3uvc ). Her newest book is Sacred Meditation: Embracing the Divine, available through her office. Just email SacredMeditation@kebba.com.
- For an appointment or to ask Kebba to speak for your group: bookings@kebba.com .
