Dear Friends,
My wish for you this holiday season is the gift of hope: that no matter what has happened in this last year for you, that the coming year will surpass your expectations for happiness, supply, abundance, joy and peace.
2011 has been a challenging year for so many. Yet many of us are witnessing and experiencing a new movement of consciousness in which more and more people are waking up to the fact that the old ways of greed, avarice, materialism at all costs, disrespect and violence are not working. For this I am deeply grateful and hopeful.
I hope this year has brought you many gifts , both internal and external. I hope you found the joy in the simple moments, relished the quiet or the noise, saw the beauty in the sun or the rain, felt the presence of hope and possibility.
Each year brings with it new and different challenges, we all know that. I’m just like you, some challenges feel like obstacles I don’t see a solution for. Yet now near the end of another year, I have to say that each seeming obstacle has been an opportunity for me to learn something new about myself, or see something again that I am still learning.
People talk with me all the time about their “mistakes.” Like a person who stayed in a relationship in which they didn’t feel respected or appreciated, long after their instinct told them to go; or another, facing large financial hurdles and feeling so very alone in it all. I certainly have had my share of them, too, the “mistakes” I have made. Like the choice to leave the rented home I cherished several years ago because I was in the throws of an emotional storm with the owner ( a parent, no less.) Or investing in some business or personal venture that didn’t bring forth the outcome intended. Or choices I made in relationships and parenting, before I learned all that I have come to learn.
But I have to tell you, and maybe it will resonate with you, even just a little bit: as much as choices led me to really different chapters in life than I had ever anticipated, I have grown so incredibly much through each and every experience.
It is easy to look back at a choice and say, “ I wish I had done that differently.” (That’s why we all understand the saying, “ hind sight is 20/20.” )After the fact, when you see all the consequences and ramifications of what happened, it is easy to play armchair strategist and consider what you could have done differently.
But the truth is, you have absolutely no idea what would have happened if you had done anything differently. And, if you had known to do it differently at the time, you would have. You couldn’t do what you didn’t know to do. I know I couldn’t.
Any thought I have about “what it would be like now” is nothing more than a fantasy I am making up about it. Because at the end of the day, I am here now, this is the way it is now, I am better, stronger, wiser, more informed, much smarter, and much more confident.
Certainly I am less innocent. Certainly I assess things differently now. That is a very positive outcome of learning , and of learning the hard way. I don’t know too many people who learn really big life lessons the easy way. Do you? And there is no question in my mind that I am better, stronger, wiser, more informed, smarter, and much more confident as a result of having not just survived but internally thrived in spite of it all.
This is the greatest gift we can give ourselves this holiday: the gift of believing that no matter how hard it was, how much we have cried, how much things changed and that was uncomfortable, we have not just survived, we have internally thrived. Things may not look in the outside quite like we ultimately want them to yet, but we are on my way. And that is a good place to be.
Two of my favorite inspirational sources, Neale Donald Walsh and Esther & Jerry Hicks and Abraham, sent these to their folks this week. ( By the way, Jerry Hicks made his transition to the other side of the Veil recently. Esther is handling this with exquisite grace. I know millions of us hold both of them in our hearts and prayers.) These messages resonated so much with me that I wanted to share them with you.
..that all change is change for the better.
There is no such thing as “change for the worse.” Change is the process of Life Itself, and that process could be called by the name “evolution.” And evolution moves in only one direction: forward, and toward improvement. Therefore, when change visits your life, you can be sure things are turning for the better. It may not look that way in the very moment change arrives, but if you will wait a while and have faith in the process, you will see that this is true.
Neale Donald Walsh
We are really advocates of just getting as happy as you can be—which takes care of everything. Even if you don’t have reason to be happy—make it up. Fantasize it. Make a decision that you’re going to be happy one way or another—no matter what. “No matter what, I’m going to be happy! If I have to ignore everybody; if I have to never watch television again; if I have to never pick up a newspaper again, I’m going to be happy. If I never have to see that person’s face again, I’m going to be happy. If I have to see that person’s face, I’m going to find something to see in that person’s face that makes me happy. I’m going to be happy. I’m going to be happy. I’m going to be happy.”
— Abraham (Excerpted from the workshop of Esther and Jerry Hicks, in Sacramento, CA on Saturday, March 15th, 2003 # 292)
I want to offer you a gift from my heart to yours this holiday season: If you have not taken up my previous limited offer for the free download of I Will Do What It Takes, my e- mini book, please write to me within the next week at kathryn@kathryntull.com and I will joyfully send you your free download.
May your days be merry and bright, even if shadows pull at your heart strings. Choose to find a ray of sunshine or something that brings you warmth and happiness to see, to focus on, to think about. Although it seems simplistic, it works. What you choose to think about will affect the direction of your emotions profoundly. I know that pain and the memories created by pain can overshadow or distort any potentially happy or positive situation. I have been there so many times myself. I tell myself whenever that tries to happen – which is still can – “ Just breathe this moment. I can choose for just this moment to think about something else, something better.” I purposely redirect my thoughts, and keep doing it, over and over again.
It works. The more you do it, the better you will get at doing it. Over time, the effect will last a little longer, then a little longer.
Give yourself the gift of self-love this year. Let yourself see the growth you have experienced, do something good for yourself, no matter how seemingly small. A piece of chocolate, a hot bath, a walk in the brisk air, a nap. Or something bigger if you can: a whole day off, a weekend away, a vacation. Something to tangibly say to yourself, “ I love you. You matter. No matter what any one else says or thinks, you matter to me!”
And you matter to me. May your holidays be blessed and peaceful. Ring in the new year with hope and expectation for a bright tomorrow. You deserve it!
To your Next Bold Step with my love and Holiday Hopes,
Kathryn