Here’s a new year’s message from BOSS executive director, yoga instructor and student of life – enjoy.
In 2019 – as you all traveled it with me the word that very often came up in my writing because it was coming up in my life was RISE. If you know me at all you know that my life path had some dark and twisty parts (and this is not unique to me, and also the dark and twisty parts still show up and always will) but through a lot of love, forgiveness, healing and frankly, hard freakin work I’ve learned HOW to manage the dark times a little bit better than before.
I had a clear as day memory of my dear friend and mentor Jim Lewis the other day where his voice (and energy) from some where beyond here said –“It’s ALL LEARNING, my friend…” as he so often said to us when he was alive. And I know he’s right, even now. When my perspective is that this life is about learning, and that life happening FOR me, not TO me – everything shifts. When I FINALLY started to sort this out, I started to rise.
I learned that rising does not always mean SUCCESS. Success is fun and makes me feel good, but I learned in a million different ways on a million different moments in my days that RISING means lifting your eyes up from the dust and shit I inevitably fall into and knowing that the dust and shit NEVER define me…that my rising means using my breath, the love of others, the mercy of the universe and the hope of grace to exclaim – I am brave and brokenhearted, and I am rising strong (thank you Brene for providing us with that mantra!)
So, my year of rising is coming to a close (even though for me rising is a daily thing). I am sad to see it go and encouraged to look ahead, most importantly, thriving in this moment.
I thought my word for 2020 would be thrive. It makes sense right? After you truly learn to rise (even if it means doing it over and over and over again) the next thing would be to thrive. But something wasn’t truly resonating with me in this word – for me, it felt a bit too cliché. So I did what my friend Meg and I always do when we need a better descriptor – I went to the synonym finder (this is a genius internet thing that helps lovers of language everywhere discover words to their hearts content).
SHINE.
A synonym for thrive is SHINE. And I got chills when I realized it.
SHINE.
My word, my intention, my deepest hearts desire is to continue to rise and as I do to shine. Rising last year was a lot about me. It was about leaning lessons I needed to manifest and bring about the coming year of light. Shining is about spreading light, it’s about being bright so OTHERS can benefit, it’s about going beyond yourself and sharing, connecting, relating and shedding brightness out into the world.
I feel outrageously blessed I have the tribe I do around me who taught me how to rise. The tribe that gives to me without abandon and on my darkest days shows up with candles, torches, spotlights, lighthouses…..what ever light I needed then to grasp on to hope (you know who you are – my light bearers). And I want to show my gratitude by doing the same.
Happy 2020 Friends – shine with me – together we can light up our selves, our families, our community and our big old world. What does Dr. King say? “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
SHINE ON.
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
