Start Now to Create an Awesome 2023!

We are now in that challenging and delicious time of darkness and more time indoors. This can also be a beautiful time of going deep within ourselves to discover what we are longing for and wanting to create as the cycle turns soon to more light and a new year. The winter solstice on December 21 and the days leading up to it and after is the perfect time to discern what your inner wisdom is revealing about the coming year of 2023.

Clarity

The first key to setting up an awesome 2023 is getting clear what you intend to create through a compelling vision.

We are co-creators with the life energy that powers everything. As we declare what we want to experience in our work and in the rest of our life, we participate in this creative process from a place of power.

This compelling vision is not something that is outside of us that we need to get to but is already inside us and is ripe for expression.

Pick a quiet place, close your eyes, and breath and connect with universal energy/all that is/the goddess/God/ the great spirit or whatever you choose to call it and imagine yourself living through the year and where you are by the end of 2023.

Questions to assist you in the visioning: Ask yourself: What am I doing in 2023? What do I love about my work expression? Your work expression is however you define it - it might be parenting, volunteering, creating a new part-time business. What am I doing that most inspires me? Who am I working with? Whom am I serving? What is important for me in my personal life in 2023 and whom do I love and serve? What values/qualities guide me (such as love, unity, power, cooperation, joy)? What impact am I having on my family/community/clients or members/the world? How do I feel as I stand in this one-year vision? 

Write your vision for your job/career/business/personal life in one year on a piece of paper. Express in present tense, as if happening now. Give it color and sparkle. Invite images and metaphors and even if you do not get images, you can get sensations related to it. List the thoughts, images, and feelings that come to you.

Faith

The second key to setting up an awesome 2023 is to ask yourself: where is my faith? 

Is my faith in the power of love, service, beauty, and harmony? Or is it in fear, separation, discord, worst case scenarios?

It seems odd, but we can unconsciously be energizing the things we say we dislike by putting a lot of our energy in following those things and dwelling in irritation and frustration about what we perceive to be happening. Or we can be participating in a toxic relationship at home or work and simmering anger or unhappiness affects our health.

We are living in a world that is facing some unprecedented dilemmas such as continuing Covid 19 and disturbing divisions in our political and communal life. This can be discouraging, scary, and feel overwhelming for sure especially if we have suffered personal losses of loved ones or are suffering from anxiety about the future. But we only have control over how we show up and how we respond to what is happening. Mahatma Gandhi said, “We must be the change we want to see in the world.” This is true in large and small things.

Put a heading on a piece of paper “My Faith this Year” and list the things you are grateful for/qualities/people/groups/organizations that you want to have faith in for the year. This can include friends, family, therapist, church or community group, organizations working for positive social change, your favorite spaces in nature, your ancestors or spiritual guides. You can have faith in a quality of the good in life like Love.

When you feel fear, anxiety or upset, review the list, and energize your faith not your fear.

Re-connect with your vision and sources of faith regularly and let them inspire your actions. Re-vision if you are inspired to do so.

Happy solstice and the return of the light and whatever holidays and traditions you celebrate.