2021 was epic. As we welcome 2022, I have a message for you: Get a bigger dream. Ideally, get 3. We need you to shine your light as brightly as possible. 

 

I started this newsletter a couple of days ago and got stuck. I wrote 3 drafts and tossed them all. They came from my passionate brain that wants your expansion and sometimes gets tangled. From Sara Blakely I learned the questions to ask to connect to purposeful work. What lights you up? What do you lose time doing? 

 

What pisses you off. What breaks your heart. 

 

What pisses me off and breaks my heart is the experience (mine, yours) of being stuck without adequate tools. So, Happy New Year! Here are a few of my proven tools. 

 

 

INTENTION: If you don’t know where you are going, you will not get there. The Universe is both a school, and a choose your own adventure experience. Get quiet with yourself and review what worked, what didn’t, what needs to change and what you want to make happen next year. Was it really only 13 months ago I was picking up my Thanksgiving dinner on a paper plate from my cousin’s house? It was a freezing cold night and we stood outside tenderly catching up. It wasn’t sad. It was actually just funny, and Sarah’s Brussel Sprouts were divine. Those were some very solitary days though. The quiet times I had at the end of 2020 gave me the space I needed to feel into—what do I want next year? I played around with goals in my journal, testing them for fit. In that spaciousness I landed on simple goals that felt reverential to me, meaning there was room for the Divine to weave with me. All the many processes I’d studied about goal setting fell away in the light of simple spacious goals. Here I am on the eve of January 2022, and I stand by that process 100%. 

 

KEY TAKEAWAY: Simple goals, created in spaciousness. Revisited frequently for resonance. 

  

 

DISCIPLINE ABOUT PRACTICE: Nurture your vessel and your vision consistently. 

Vessel: Only YOU can take the best care of yourself. Pay regular and loving attention to ALL your needs, knowing that you are the god or goddess of your life and that in attending to your energy you bring the lens of love to everything you do. I keep a running list of my support team on my computer; it has many categories. This is a deeply personal thing. I’ve mentioned before that my list is unconventional—it includes my humor people, one of which is a friend from first grade. I need all my supports in all categories. So. Do. You. Let yourself have EVERYTHING you want. I don’t like shopping for clothes. Hello Nordstrom Trunk Club. We all have the things we need and want. Let yourself have them and be disciplined about optimizing yourself for performance. Triggered? Gotta have that support team and practice set. 

 

 

VISION: Manifestation is a process that has been proven scientifically. We’re all doing it all the time. What pisses me off is that we often chose to manifest misery. God knows I did. The reasons for this are myriad, but we can easily put cultural and familial programming on the table. Bruce Lipton’s ground breaking work ‘The Biology of Belief’ showed us how we program our own cells. My grandparents went through the Depression. My mother inherited their frugality and fear, along with other faulty programming about how to feel safe in the world. Despite our very secure upbringing, my three sisters and I inherited that too! If you believe even a little bit in the idea that you can manifest your own reality, then you have a duty to yourself, your family and your community to create bigger. The more you shed old stories and become you 2.0 and beyond, the stronger and more resilient your kids, clients, loves and everyone around you will be. “Manifest your dream life” isn’t an out there thing to think about. It’s actually your responsibility. 

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS: Life is meant to be magic and amazing. It is your responsibility to optimize yourself for performance and magic through self effort and conscious reprogramming. 

 

 

HAVING AND BEING SEEN BY A TEACHER: Being mentored is essential. You can be the world’s greatest auto didact and soak up all kinds of content, but you still have blind spots, and you will wobble hugely when you’re up against your big goals. It’s human nature. Want to grow your practice? Get a teacher or mentor who is ahead of you, but with whom you can be exquisitely vulnerable. Demand the best. Being mentored properly has grown me as an entrepreneur over the years. We grew significantly this year in large part due to brilliant mentorship and next year is going to be even better. Entrepreneurship can be a solitary experience. Ubuntu: I am, because we are…GET SUPPORT. On a personal practice note, moving away from my yoga teacher in September was so heartbreaking for me and for my teacher that we actually only talked about it last night! The noise and shifts of the marketplace aren’t where your heart’s guidance is found. If you have a good mentor who is doing their work stay with that person. Many of my clients and students stay with me for years. Because I keep doing the work. A student who puts their mat in the very back of the room thinking they are not going to be seen by the teacher is resisting growing. 

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS: Get seen, get naked, and get fed.