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On this, the fourth day of 2020, I’m still thinking about how I want to enter and show up in this new decade.

On the one hand, I want to launch myself into this new energy. I imagine pole vaulting over the line between 2019 and 2020, and rather than smashing on that enormous soft cushion thing, I envision landing on my feet and hitting the ground running.

On the other hand, however, this jolt into the new decade feels off. My intuition is telling me I need to ease and flow into the newness rather than burst into it.

As I ponder how to move forward, one theme keeps recurring: creativity. Although not exclusive to beginning a new year, our attention to what inspires us to be uniquely creative is in fact essential to our growth and evolution. As Brene Brown tells us, “Unused creativity is not benign,” and as Caroline Myss explains, “Our need to survive has always relied on our need to create.”

We are creators. We are here to create, manifest, expand, and grow. As you watch these videos below, perhaps you can think about how this theme resonates with you as you move into this new decade. In numerology, 2020 is a 4 universal year, meaning we are focusing on stability, building foundations, and putting methods in place to move us forward and assist us in growth and expansion.

Enjoy these videos and happy New Year.

With the winter solstice behind us and as we enter this week of Christmas, we are ready to complete our time of stillness and conscious waiting and journey through darkness towards the light.

Regardless of our religion or traditions, this has been the way for millennia. This awareness of literal darkness giving way to the light continues to inform our spiritual evolution. And this is where we are this week.

Whether you believe the arrival of the Universal Christ as revealed in the infant Jesus symbolizes the light we await, or you choose another symbolic or literal manifestation, the message is the same. The darkness of suffering, pain, fear, and uncertainty is dispelled with the light of compassion, understanding, and clarity.

And most importantly, this light that emanates from and is reflected in the universe itself is in all of us. This Divine light is always available and waiting for us to acknowledge it. The question is, can we feel and see it? Will we align with it and allow ourselves to shine with the light that is uniquely ours?

As 2020 approaches, let us ponder our own inner Divinely-inspired light. Let us acknowledge and allow it to flow through us and to those around us.

The darkness is receding. It is awaiting our brightness to give birth to our potential in the world.

There is almost nothing I like better than to witness and integrate thoughtful and inspired conversations. In Rich Roll’s interview with his wife Julie Piatt, the two explore how to remain centered, autonomous, and at the same time, engaged in oneness consciousness, especially when we are confronted with potential triggers and negative energy.

The holiday season presents many of these opportunities, so why not practice changing our minds about these potential triggers? As our awareness evolves, we can not only begin to view challenges as invitations to elevate, but we will also undoubtedly begin to move through the world with greater grace and understanding of the divinity that resides in all of us.

Enjoy.

Today was a milestone. Sean had his last big test, a lumbar puncture, to see if there are any icky cells left after treatment.

Besides the test, he spent the morning reading, visiting with Santa and Mrs. Claus, and chatting with the anesthesiologists.

Ending this series of chapters in our life is profound for me on so many levels. It’s a relief to be free of frequent trips into the city, overnights in the hospital, and painful procedures.

But…although I’m grateful to give up seemingly unending hours in the crowded waiting room, there are still so many children and families still there. Although I’m so glad we are no longer holed up on the oncology floor for days at a time, so many kids still are. And it goes on and on.

I guess here again is the non-dual essence of life. There are no good or bad experiences, there are only the labels we attach to them and the stories we assign them.

We have learned so much this year. Most important, we know life is to be lived. We are meant to have joy and magic and connection. We can find happiness and beauty wherever we are—even on the oncology floor. We understand that our experiences and how we perceive our situations and challenges, are dependent on how we choose to view them.

It’s really this simple and also understandably challenging.

As we come to the end of 2019, this I know for sure. My little boy is brave and strong and wise. His suffering and challenges have invited him to evolve, and he has. Regardless of what comes next, he has shown himself that he can thrive under even very stressful conditions. And he will carry this knowing with him forever. I will, too.

This excerpt from Tom Bilyeu’s Impact Theory is so important I had to share it.

Here, Joe Dispenza discusses how we all have the power to heal ourselves. He asserts that only between 1 and 5 percent of all diseases are genetically predetermined and immutable. All the rest, even if we carry genes which have the propensity for disease, are controllable through environment–how we choose to live. And this includes the mindsets we choose to carry everyday, all day.

We are living at a time when so many of us are seeking ways to discern and utilize our own empowerment. We accept as truth that our answers to all questions and resolutions to all challenges reside within us and not outside of us in any person or system.

This discussion speaks directly to our present cultural and spiritual milieu. Let it serve as fuel for our evolution.

(Watch the full episode on You Tube.)

We’ve all heard it. “I can’t meditate.” “I can’t quiet my mind.” “I don’t have time to sit for 20 minutes.” “What’s the point anyway?”

In this discussion between two of my favorite humans, Rich Roll and Guru Singh discuss meditation–the practice and why it’s invaluable.

One of the most important themes they emphasize is that the monkey mind and chatter we all hear when beginning this practice are revealing something essential. This noise, which grows louder when we’re quiet, is the noise we have come to live with everyday and don’t even know it! Only silence and detachment from daily business reveal this truth. And once we know this, we can see that it’s the noise that prevents us from surrendering to our true selves and actually evolving.

I hope you find a few minutes to watch.

Regardless of where we are on our consciousness journeys, Abraham’s message will resonate with all of us.

No matter what we encounter, how hurt, how victimized, we feel, how righteously indignant we choose to behave in the face of a perceived wrong, we are ALWAYS co-creating our realities.

It is the human condition to reject our own responsibilities as we move through the world in an attempt to protect ourselves and preserve our egos. But this will only lead us further away from Source and deeper into unconsciousness.

We will never experience the joy and wonderment and powerful transformative nature of oneness until we can honor ourselves as true co-creators.

So, where are you on your journey?

How we look at our challenges determines not only our states of mind, but also our ability to manage them and our day-to-day, or even minute-to-minute, lives.

As usual, Martha Beck (http://MarthaBeck.com) delivers this inspired information with humor and compassion.

There is no longer any doubt that abuse and trauma, especially in early childhood, often lead to chronic illness. Similarly, these same stressors throughout life can cause equally destructive responses in the body, especially if one already has a compromised immune system or is emotionally and spiritually fragile.

In this video, Irene Lyon discuses the link between trauma and illness. It is essential we understand this dynamic as we journey towards health and our best selves.

You know when ideas or themes start to repeatedly show up in your awareness and you think, “Huh; maybe I need to look at this more closely?” Well, that happens to me a lot and it’s happening again. This time it’s the topic of “Don’t take it personally.”

Oh, my gosh. Do you have as much trouble with this as I do? Several things occur to me. First, I think, “Excuse me, what? Not take that slight or criticism or spiteful act personally? Are you on drugs?” And then the more elevated part of my brain kicks in and responds, “Yes, of course. This is the evolved way. This is enlightened. That action or comment had nothing to do with me. It’s clearly a mirror of how that other person feels about himself.”

And then my first reaction, jumping up and down like a three-year-old who needs a cookie, chimes in again, “What the….? Of course it’s personal, and you, mean person, you suck.”

So here we are. Which part of our thinking is correct? One or the other? Both? Neither? And why is this so challenging for us to understand and at the same time so essential to master?

Needless to say, I’m still working this out. I’m not doing what most writers and spiritual teachers say to do and move through this discomfort before revealing the story. But I think I’m getting it, and as I navigate my way, I have to share my thoughts. By wrapping our brains around the fact that just about every negative interaction we encounter is NOT personal to us, we not only free ourselves, but we also free the other. And in doing so, we both have the opportunity to grow and evolve.

Spiritual teachers I admire explain it like this. Caroline Myss describes each human being like a building. On the first few floors, we are attached to form, have a limited perspective of our surroundings, and take everything very personally. On the upper floors, we are less attached to form, our perspective is greater and more expansive, and we take things much less personally. Pain and angst and constricted feelings are personal. Clarity, freedom, growth, spirit are impersonal.

Abraham explains it like this. Someone criticizes or comes after us. We are hurt. Then “we feel bad, because we are judging them about their judging us. We allow other people’s bad moods, conditions over which we have no control, to run our lives….Somehow we’ve trained ourselves to care more about their responses to us than our responses to us.”

How we feel or react or respond, then, to others’ criticism or attack is less about them than it is about us. Yes. The degree to which we feel triggered is the degree to which we have sensitive spots, holes, lack of clarity, and are detached from our true selves. Even when they are just wrong? Yes. Even when they are lying? Yes. Even when they threaten? Yes. Even when they do damage? Yes. Yes.

This is not to say that when we are hurt or feel attacked, we might literally or emotionally wince. But, to use Abraham’s vernacular, the goal is to sometimes take the hit and then disallow it from propelling us into a downward, spiraling momentum, resulting in anger, rage, self-hatred, and blame, all of which result from taking the action personally.

So what to do? Understanding the dynamic is the first step. As we do the work, we can then learn to feel the bump and refocus and realign. Through meditation and finding space in ourselves, we can discover the ways we best open to Source and allow alignment. Ironically, this very personal work of turning towards the light and truth and clarity ultimately allows us to reemerge into an impersonal, but deeply profound and satisfying state of being–a oneness with all that is good and abundant and healthy.

Abraham tells us that when we can discover this state, this impersonal state of loving and oneness, we can then not only energetically invite the person who hurt us into more wholeness, but we will also be able to see it in them ourselves. Then it is possible for both of our higher selves to meet and find resonance and peace.

Admittedly, all this sounds so very good and promising, and at the same time it is challenging. This is the work. This is one of the many steps on the journey towards greater awareness and a more enlightened way of being in the world. But we must try. If we want to honestly move to the higher floors of our beings, floors with more space, more beauty, more understanding, more abundance, we must be prepared to look at this aspect of ourselves and interactions with others.

Every once in a while I am able to get to this place of openness and clarity. And, oh, the views are brilliant.