It Might a Ladder to the Stars - Who Knows?

Happy New Year!  It's funny how from one minute to the next things change.  I think this is more a change of how we look at them rather than the things miraculously changing.  One of the things that I discovered late in 2020 was that I have been able to make commitments to others that I keep without even batting an eye.  I have never been as good at keeping commitments made to myself.  This stops now.  Now. 

There is so much whirling around in my head in terms of projects and things I want to accomplish in 2021, but most important, I believe, is learning to keep promises and commitments made to myself.  I am starting with a six-month commitment.  To myself.  To do whatever I need to do to take better physical care of myself.  One of the things I have planned to help me with this is to participate in a coaching program through Balance365.  I joined their program back around Mother's Day 2020, but opted at that time for the DIY approach, which I fell away from because I didn't keep a commitment to myself.  Their coaching program opens on January 8th. I plan to register for it and commit to it for six months.  This is a commitment to myself and my hands are open ready to catch this one on the 8th.

My hands are open.  They are waiting to catch all the good things that I know are coming in 2021.  I wrote about this concept here a number of years ago.  Here is what I said:

"Many years ago at Fourth Presbyterian Church, where I used to sing in the Evening Choir, I heard a sermon.  There are a lot of ministers at that church because it's a really large congregation.  One was a woman.  Her name was Linda Loving (and isn't that just the best name ever for a minister?!  :-) ). The upshot of what she said, lo those many years ago, was that in order to move forward, we had to stop clutching at and holding on to the past - we had to open our hands and release what we were holding on to, so that our hands would be open and free to catch all the good stuff that was coming to us.  It was so powerful and so important for me at that time in my life that I have never, ever forgotten it.

Do this:  hold your hands out in front of you, palms up, and make tight fists.  Look at them.  Then release and open your hands.  Look at them again.  Really look at them.  I'm telling you - it's powerful.

When I pop up in my own mind's eye in a baseball hat and a mitt, I know there's something I need to release.  I'm wearing one of my baseball hats, and I have a catcher's mitt on, and there is amazing and wonderful stuff falling like snow from the sky.  Like little post-it notes fluttering down from on high.  But they aren't sticking to me, and I can't catch them because my hands are not open - they are filled with the past. All I have to do is open my mitt to release what I've been holding on to . . .

It's not always as easy, but it's always profound, and there is always a great sense of relief.  And along with the relief comes a feeling of joy, because now my hands are open and I'm free to decide which of those amazing things floating down from the sky to catch first.

Holding on to pain/grudges/anger/fear/loss/betrayal/control . . .  Wishing the other person would get their comeuppance . . . These things don't serve me, and even though I sometimes fantasize about said comeuppance (who doesn't?) or the perfect retort hours after the fact (why on earth am I so fricking slow on the uptake?!), I feel my feelings.  And when I've wallowed long enough, I put my baseball hat on . . . and open my hands."

Been a long time since I've popped up in my head in a baseball hat . . . that's just confirmation that I haven't been listening to or hearing myself.  Hmmmmm . . . I'm opening my hands.  So much of last year was awful.  It's time to sing the Frozen song and let it go.  It's time to find the Path to Myself again.  I know it's there, I was just off on what Joan Anderson calls a counterfeit journey for awhile.  It's time to keep moving forward. 

Speaking of moving forward, here is one of my new projects for 2021.  I have more than one new project rolling around in my head, but this one is on Instagram.  I have created an Instagram account where I plan to take and post a selfie a day.  Real, not perfect.  I think that women of all ages and sizes are so often overlooked and their voices not heard amid the din of "perfect" and "youth."  If there is one thing I have learned - painfully, unfortunately - in my life thus far, it's that trying to be perfect all the time is a useless waste.  I also think that women of a certain age become invisible.  I hate that this happens, because all women of all ages, sizes, and colors are beautiful, and those of us with more (and often colorful ;-)) life experience have so very much wisdom to share.  I got this idea from an older episode from Balance365 Life Radio.  

If you want to follow along, you can find this project on Instagram at  @selfieaday_ar

Do you have a word for this new year?  My word for 2021 is:  Focus.   It came to me clearly, and it makes a lot of sense based on how I've been feeling and my commitment to myself. 

Anyone else need a fight song?

Onward . . .