Friday, December 30, 2011

Happy New Year, 2012!

The end of 2011 is here and 2012 is about to begin. As you look toward 2012, what do you want to create? What accomplishments have you been able to manifest? What habits or behaviors have you been able to release? What is working for you and what is not working?

What do you want to invite into the new year? What do you want to "feed" this year, love or fear? It is important to make conscious choices and set clear, positive intentions. Whatever you put out into the world is what you will manifest. If you choose to feed love, love will grow wherever it is focused as you join with other like-minded people throughout the world. However, when you connect with the daily barrage of fear-based news stories or conversations you feed fear. It is a choice.

Currently there are tremendous, ongoing, global and individual shifts. 2012 will continue to bring change throughout the world. How we perceive and respond to these changes will determine our future as inhabitants of planet Earth. So, instead of reacting from fear, anger, and/or resistance, I want to encourage you to respond to any challenge with an open heart and trust that this energetic shift is creating our personal and global transformation.

The global perspective can be overwhelming so I suggest that each of us begin with our personal growth. It is what we become that changes the world, not what we do. So what changes do you want to see in your own life? What fears do you want to release and what hopeful, positive expansion to you want to envision?

This is a powerful time to sit down and write out your goals and wishes for the coming year. One suggestion is to choose the areas of your life where you want to grow and write about them, in the present tense, as if the changes have already manifested. The more succinct you are in the writing, the clearer your vision and resulting manifestation will be. Consider some of the following questions:

1. What do I want this year in my personal life?
2. What do I want this year for my financial life?
3. What do I want this year for my business life?
4. What do I want this year for my spiritual life?

Now take out your new, 2012 journal out and write about each question.  For example:

I now have the financial freedom that a stable cash flow provides. I now have a monthly income of at least _____ each and every month, with ease and grace, and I am able to meet all my financial agreements plus put away money for travel and extra expenses. 

Do this for each question and then read them daily. This will help you shift old limiting beliefs and change out-dated paradigms in your life. Have fun and be creative! You can also create vision boards or a collage to provide a visual representation. What you do is not important, it's the intention, focus, and passion you have to recreate your life!

I wish you the happiest of new years.

May 2012 be filled with personal expansion and blessings for our world and for all sentient beings on Mother Earth!

Blessings of peace, love and light ~ Gretchen

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Inner Light


The days grow shorter. The temperature has dropped and today I'm sitting at my computer wearing sweats with a cozy wrap around my shoulders and a cup of steaming Peach Blossom White Tea beside me. 

Winter is approaching. Solstice is just a few days away and the holiday season is in full swing with parties and celebrations everywhere.

This is a festive time of year but it is also the time of year to reflect on the previous months of experiences and lessons, honoring areas of growth and expansion. The soul's journey requires tending. My past experiences have provided opportunities for learning and my life is enriched because of these life-lessons.

Winter is the final phase of the twelve-month cycle of Earth’s seasons. Like all cycles, winter holds evidence and clues within it about what came before, what is and what will likely be. The energy of winter is an ending and a new beginning. There is increasing darkness, the darkest point and then the shift toward increasing light.

At this time of year I look to nature to show me her rhythm, her way of "being." She is quiet. Her leaves cover the ground, decomposing. During the process of decomposition, the decomposers provide food for themselves by extracting chemicals from organic wastes to produce energy. The decomposers will then produce waste of their own. In turn, this will also decompose, eventually returning nutrients to the soil. These nutrients can then be taken up by the roots of living plants enabling them to grow and develop, so that organic material is naturally recycled. Virtually nothing goes to waste in nature.


During this season of quiet reflection and review, I encourage each of you to recycle your energies. Renew, refresh, and envision the richness of your journey to date and the possibility that lies before you. 

I love to search for quotes that inspire. May these quotes help invoke that spirit within.  
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
~Albert Camus


One is wise to cultivate the tree that bears fruit in our soul.
~Henry David Thoreau


We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light.
~Mary Dunbar

This is the season we are invited to go within and honor our personal journey. In the darkness of winter, may we find our own light. May we shine and, collectively, may we brighten the world.


Happy Holidays!
Gretchen