Happy 2024! Woohoo!
Everyone loves a fresh start. I do. Maybe a new planner is your thing. Perhaps you write a list of goals or wishes in your journal for the upcoming year. This year, I’ve made a list of things I’m grateful for, then written each one on a strip of paper and put them all in a big jar. Each one has a smiley face and a love heart drawn on it. If I ever feel like I need a lift, my plan is to go to the jar and pull out a gratitude. I know whatever is on that little piece of paper will remind me of how lucky I am… how abundant my life is… how many things bring me joy… how full my life is 😁❤️
For those of you who know me as a yoga teacher, you will know I have never really bought into this “New Year, New YOU!” idea, even when we used to use it at the gym where I taught yoga for 17 years. I’d watch my classes go from 40 students every January down to 15 or so by mid February. Sure, it’s a great marketing tool to get us on a healthier track with diet and exercise, but built into this mentality requires looking at ourselves and thinking there must be a better version of our body or mind out there somewhere. To suggest any of us should be a “new you” insinuates the current version of you is somehow unworthy, not good enough, somehow undesirable. And what if I kinda like the “me” I was last year? Can’t I keep her?
Here’s the news flash, folks: yesterday, today, tomorrow… it’s still you. The REAL you isn’t going anywhere–you are beyond time. The authentic you is infinite, limitless, and divine. It’s the darn egoic part of us that is limiting and that categorizes us with titles and labels that we either have to live up to or that we want to get rid of. And those limitations and labels are hard to get out from under if we can’t see ourselves as the marvelous, magical, and multidimensional beings we are!
You are already amazing. You are already beautiful. Deserving. Worthy. Abundant. Perfect. Do those words seem too big for you? Try saying them out loud as an affirmation: “I am worthy.” It’s easy to trash ourselves and think, “why do I deserve to have everything I need when there are people on the planet starving?” But we don’t need to diminish ourselves to feel for the suffering of others; instead let’s be more proactive about how we can help those in need. How can we be more compassionate? How can we cultivate more kindness, more forgiveness, more appreciation and joy? There’s no need to go looking for a “new you” to connect to these qualities. We just need to nurture our true nature: Love.
It is the judgments placed on us by others and ourselves that trap us in worn-out belief systems, old ideas, and deep patterns that make us feel small, undeserving, or imperfect. This doesn’t give us a pass at taking good care of ourselves, having health and wellness goals, or beginning a new workout program that will help us feel more vibrant, empowered, and truly support our emotional, physical, and spiritual health. My dearest PT buddy recently told me if I don’t pick up a set of weights soon, there’ll be no saving my saggy a**. Gotta love friends who love me enough to tell me straight. I’m all about it!
If you are looking to get out from under the yoke of limiting beliefs and old ideas of who and what you really are, it helps to spend time with others who are up to the same spiritual shenanigans! Consider joining me to begin a yoga and meditation practice (or deepening an existing one) that can help you peel back the layers to find the sweeter, more loving, forgiving, joyful, and compassionate being you really are at your core. I would love to see you in yoga class, at a workshop or special event, in our online Heart Based Meditation series, or to welcome you on a wonderful retreat to a beautiful place that will support and uplift you and inspire health, wellbeing, and spiritual evolution! Sound fun? Sound exciting?
Then let’s head into 2024 together and nurture ourselves. This is about the true YOU. The authentic being that is multi-faceted and deserves all of your love, affection, forgiveness, acceptance, compassion, and joy! (and maybe some butt-kicking yoga on the way too!) You can opt in or out of that part 😉
With so much love, joy, and many blessings to all of us in 2024!
Katie
