Yes, it’s the holiday season, but please don’t look back … the rest of your life isn’t over there!
The holidays are such a tempting time for us to indulge in so many things, not the least of which are our feelings of nostalgia and sentimentalism. These feelings often manifest as unspoken desires to go back to the things, people, places, and/or spaces in our past that we’ve already transcended; with the hope that maybe we can make what was, different in some way; rekindle something in order to have it turn out the way we had hoped it would have the first time around; give some-one, or some-thing, another chance in the name of being open and generous because, well, it’s the holidays after all. And then there’s Life. Life has such an interesting way of challenging us to indulge those same feelings by inviting exactly those people, places, spaces, and/or things to show up in our lives at this very time.
What does one do?
Respectfully decline the invitation.
Resist the temptation to bring the old with you into the new that awaits you.
As you move forward making your way into another new year, another new chapter, don’t burden yourself with baggage from your past that was never meant to travel with you into your new – your new year, your new you. You have everything and everyone you need in your life right now for the next steps in your journey moving forward. There is nothing and no one you have to go back and get. Remain open and generous, but not for that which has already passed; which you have already transcended; which is no longer for you; which no longer serves you. Remain open and generous for the abundance and newness of life that awaits you – not in looking back but in living your life forward, forward and free; free of all that has passed so that you can be free to embrace all that is waiting to enter; all that is waiting to serve you in your next chapter along your evolutionary journey – all the people, all the places, all the spaces, and all the things. All of which simply just does not exist behind you, but it all does exist, all of it, ahead of you.
So, no matter how tempted you may be, do yourself a favor this holiday season: don’t look back for the rest of your life; trust that the rest of your life, what you truly desire, isn’t back there behind you; it’s over there in front of you!
BE in your present.
BE free of your past.
BE living your life fearlessly, fabulously, forward.
BE … ILLUMINED!