Your Annual Review

This title might sound dreadful, if you’ve ever had an annual review to measure your job performance. Leave out the dread and think self-review with the goals of patting yourself on the back for a job well done and redirecting your course in the year to come for goals you’ve missed.

The review I suggest isn’t your typical report card to Mom and Dad, even the Mom and Dad in your mind. (If I could learn how to turn off parental voices in my mind, I’d be the richest woman on earth when I shared that secret!) What I’m suggesting is an objective, loving look at your course and whether or not you’re getting closer to where you want to go. I talk a lot about my GPS or God Positioning System. Have you veered off course? That’s all … and if you haven’t, it’s time to get excited about whatever represents Paris, Rome, or other exciting destinations. You’re getting closer!

My Year-End Review

No joke, it’s more than a rear-end review where I measure how much weight I haven’t lost! I review my journal to see what’s really been going on in the past 365 days. I play Objective Observer and view the scene from further back than too close to see what’s really happening. If you don’t already journal, read Journals: The Sort-It Detail and consider starting one as a goal for the new year and decade. But even if you don’t journal as yet, you can do a meditative review of your year by simply observing it as a movie in your mind. Do it as early as possible in the new year.

Keep a calendar or PDA? Use it as a memory jogger to recall key events. Find a quiet corner and an hour to do this exercise. Start with January, and month by month, see what you were up to. Drink in the events as your memory movie unfolds, then contemplate them for 3-5 minutes to sort out the feelings and learning. Next write what comes up for you. What were your key lessons, feelings, progress, stumbling blocks?

Once you’ve got 12 monthly blurbs, you can check for common patterns and truly experience the magic of Objective Observer or Overseer. Remember, there’s “seer” in that last role, which means you are seeing with wise eyes and the ability to notice the course you’re taking. What would you redirect? What would you “not change for anything?”

Enter the New Year Softly

Wave hello to 2010. After all, it’s a new decade. Wasn’t it just yesterday that we were worrying about terminal crashes to our computers (pun intended) and stashing food for the dreaded domino effect of bad programming fallout in our electronic devices? Bad programming is what we’re trying to avoid taking into the new year with us. To change a pattern, we have to see what it is—and tinker till we get ourselves back on the path we want to travel.

I can’t repeat too often, winter is an inner time. Be joyful, celebrate the New Year, but the real celebration is another year of growing as a spirit embodied on Earth.

What’s your “10”—your hottest projected accomplishment—in ’10? What do you aim for? What looks like success? At the end of this new year, you may change your mind and discover in this process that your truest accomplishment was something different all together.

That’s the inner adventure. May yours be fulfilling and dotted with exciting surprises. May the 2010 decade overflow with cool insights.

~~~

Photo Credit: HOLIDAY BACKGROUND © Dmstudio Dreamstime.com

Things to Bear in Mind As We Round 2009

I’ll be on away the first week of the New Year, taking a mini-vacation from blogging. So, I’m writing ahead some thoughts to bear in mind as we enter 2009.

January 1: This is the first day of my inner journey.

It’s a new day, and a new year. The whole world is making resolutions, thinking about a new start—a new slate.

I’m going to suggest that you reconsider.

Our Gregorian calendar has led us to live off-cycle with nature for nearly 500 years. The natural New Year begins at the Spring Equinox, on or about March 20. A diet, a new project, or new beginnings are much more on cycle with the seasons and rising energy in spring. They’re more likely to work for you then.

We, too, are part of nature. Our figurative seeds need to be planted at the time of year when they are most likely to germinate, flower in summer, and be ready in autumn for harvest.

Then what is this winter change of calendar all about, like the changing of the guard?

It’s another way of counting things, often more worldly things. Happiness comes from taking time to connect with All That Is and your innermost being. Here is where your spirit meets the Great Spirit and your Higher Power. The right thing to do in winter is to take a cue from our friends the bears. Hibernate. Take quiet time. Be introspective.

This year, put the inner journey on your calendar from Day 1. Give yourself one precious moment—one minute—to make your day with a short meditation. Here’s one I love that works any day of the year:

Take three deep, healing breaths—deep inhale, deep
exhale—three times, slowly. Ask Spirit—what do you want me to know—and what do you want me to do—today?

January 6: Breakfast at Epiphanies

In addition to celebrating the visit of the Magi to Bethlehem and the conclusion of the Christmas Season, epiphany is a word that means an aha or a flash of insight. Visit last year’s post, Epiphanies, to learn more about this wonderful day and why the everyday usage of the word makes Epiphany the official holiday of this blog.

While I’m called Hot Flashbacks as the short form of this blog’s title in my e-mail address and on most social networking sites, the real emphasis in both my book and on my blog are the cool insights. I write about my insights all the time, but today, I thought I'd put the insights in your court. Let's do some exercises together to get some new aha’s. This is something we can do, like a guided meditation, as you read this post. Just pause to get some writing materials—and open a notebook or computer file. (Don’t forget to name and save the file right away to avoid accidentally losing it.) Alternatively, you could print out this post and do it later in a quiet moment.

Meditation: Imagine you are at the manger scene, coming to visit the baby Jesus. You have been following an awesome star for weeks. It is brighter, more spectacular, and shaped unlike anything you have ever seen. You know it’s a sign! You are one of the wise astrologers, an expert at deciphering larger meanings in life. This is just like a time machine, and you can create it however it would happen because you’re you—and only you have your unique gifts to give.

* What are your most precious gifts that you bring to the baby—and why?
* What will Jesus do with your gifts?
* What gifts do you get back?
* What gifts will you bring into 2009 because of this magical experience?

This is the first week of the last year in the first decade of the Third Millennium. Think of all that has happened since we worried about the Y2K crashes and food stashes on the cusp of the Year 2000! May you find some new tools and perspectives in this post to shine the star of your own inner light. The key is to slow down, rest, and visit the “manger within,” the rebirth of Love accessible inside us every day of our lives. Spirit can only speak to us when we stop talking--and listen.

A sweet, soft New Year with many moments of replenishing silence …