What’s Your Word for 2017?

It’s almost New Year’s Eve.

Nearly 2017.

Ready to start this new year?

One of the best ways to get clarity is to choose a word, ONE word to focus on, to dive into.

ONE word to be your theme for the year.

In 2016, I chose receive.

I’ve spent the last 12 months really exploring what receive means to me. Some of the questions that I asked were:

• How do I allow myself to receive?
• Where am I limiting that?
• How do I experience opening up to receiving in my body, mind...

This inquiry taught me a lot about myself. About where I hold back, where I get stuck, where I feel afraid.

Through a deeper relationship with this word, receive, it's helped me open up more, relax more and allow myself to feel safe, comfortable and happy to let in all the abundance, happiness, opportunities and change that has come my way this year.

And now it’s time for me to choose a new word!

Here are 3 Ways to Help You Tune into Your Word for 2017

1.     Ask

Get quiet and simply ask. What is my word for 2017? Is there something I could benefit from focusing on?

Here is a list of some of the words my students have chosen in the past: bold, trust, faith, love, dream. balance, speak, mindfulness, pause, deliberate.

2.     Use A Book

If you’ve asked and nothing has come to you, you can always try this cool trick.

Grab a book, any book, off the shelf and close your eyes. Think about your word for the year and then randomly open the book. See where your eye lands and what it reveals.

3.     Meditate on it

Once a word comes to you, try it on. Settle into the energy of that word.

• How does it feel?
• Is there an opportunity for learning and growth?
• Is this where you need to go in 2017?

If the answers feel affirming then you’re on the right track. Don’t be dismayed if you feel scared. That’s often a pre-requisite to change.

My husband often tells me that if he feels afraid, he knows he’s onto something!

Have fun with this and share your word with me! Simply type it in below.

If you’re ready to dive in more, download my free vision worksheet to really jump start your year! Click HERE

Here’s to an amazing, wonderful 2017! 

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Time to Manifest! Make A 2015 Vision Board

For the past several years, our family has had a New Year’s tradition. We decided to make our own because -here's my confession- I always hated New Year’s Eve. From the time I was a teenager, my sister and I would look at each other mystified. All everyone seemed to do was get drunk and then watch a stupid ball drop. What was the big deal?

So a few years ago, we modified our evening to make it work for us. As a family, we enjoy a celebratory meal, something special, because it is a holiday after all. We even have a bottle of champagne or Prosecco along with sparkling apple cider, (known in our house as kids champagne.) After our leisurely meal, we all gather in the living room and get to work making… vision boards.

What is a Vision Board?

It is a pictorial representation of your year, what you would like to manifest or be inspired by in the upcoming year.

We buy poster board, and canvas panels, glue, sparkly markers, have lots of magazines and scissors and start cutting out images, words, and phrases that speak to each of us.

Often before I start, I spend some time making a list of goals and intentions I’d like to manifest for my year. I think about every aspect of my life from my career, to my health, finances, family, spirituality and, importantly, fun!

Then I tease out each idea. For example, if I want to be more successful in my career, I try to specify what that means. I qualify it by stating a certain amount of money or a specific number of transactions, appointments, sales or closings.

With these clear ideas in mind, I get to work digging for words, and pictures that will best remind and inspire me. Maybe for my above goal, I’ll put the phrase “cash in the bank” as a reminder or find a photo of someone shaking another person’s hand to represent a sale. Perhaps I really want to see humpback whales this year on vacation, so I’ll look for a picture of them to add to my board.

Other than that, the look, design and outcome are all up to you and your creativity!

It’s an opportunity to both have fun with your family and work toward manifesting your dreams in 2015.

If you’re in Vero Beach, join us on Saturday, January 3rd as we’ll be making vision boards together! Click here for more information. Otherwise, here’s what you’ll need:

Supplies for Vision Boards:

•  Poster Board or Canvas Panels (These are canvas-coated cardboard and can be found at Michael’s)

• Rubber Cement – This is the best glue even though it’s smelly, because it dries flat

• Magazines -  A wide variety is best

• Photographs – Take some time before New Year’s Eve to print any photos you’ll want to add

• Scissors – One for each person is ideal

• Anything Else Fun – Markers, stickers, glitter, ribbon, stencil lettering, craft paper...

This is a great activity with people of all ages. Kids especially enjoy it and are incredibly creative.

When you’re done, post your boards below so I can see them!

Happy 2015!

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What’s Your One Word for 2015?

Last year, right after 2014 had just begun, I was listening to Dr. Robert Holden on Hay House radio. He shared an idea he’d been doing for awhile of choosing one word for his new year. Then he would meditate on it, delve into it, and explore it for the next 365 days.

Inspired, I decided to do the same, choose one word for the year.

My word for 2014 has been trust.

Over the past twelve months, I’ve allowed myself to simply be with this word and see what happens. At one point, around March, I had a serious crisis with trust. I became super afraid of the future, and about what might happen. That experience invited me to go deeper with trust and prompted me to create a visual representation to both remind and inspire me to open up more to trust.

As part of my pictorial representation, I have a few quotes from Rumi. Here’s one of them:                                  Knock, and He’ll open the door.
Vanish, and He’ll make you shine like the sun.
Fall, and He’ll raise you to the heavens.
Become nothing and He’ll turn you into everything.

When I see this, it helps remind me to let go and… trust.

2014 is coming to a close and as I reflect on my relationship with trust, I am pleasantly surprised to realize that I’ve embraced trust at a deeper level than ever AND am experiencing it in a new way.

In fact, I don’t even think about trust (or lack of it) in the same way. The constant uncertainty or questioning I always had before has slowly fallen away. Now trust is a given, it just exists. It’s my divine right. I know the outcome is assured and I trust that my life will unfold in the right and perfect way.

But over the past 12 months that wasn’t always the case. I’ve felt insecure and scared, uncertain and fearful.

To me, trusting in life is trusting in the unknown. Often when I have those hiccups of faith, those moments of anxiety or lack in trust, they occur right before some kind of transition or change. Maybe it’s me moving into doing something new, taking a risk or challenging myself. Each time, it’s like I have to jump into the void. I see myself standing on a cliff having to leap off into the unknown. So of course my visual representation depicts a cliff with the word trust spanning it.

Over a decade ago, I had an astrologer tell me that I was so taken care of, I could relax back into the hammock of God’s love, that this energetic web would completely support me no matter what. Of course at the time, there was NO WAY I was doing that-- relaxing, trusting. The world was too unsafe and uncertain.

I couldn’t trust any living person, how could I trust something I couldn’t even see?

Yet it was almost like my astrologer planted a seed, a reminder of what was there for me. Over the years, I’ve allowed myself to try it out, to lie back into that energetic hammock and feel supported.

Fifteen or so years later, I’m capable of doing this more and more, especially after this year, my year of exploring trust. And you guessed it. I can look at my picture of trust, hanging over my desk, and see the golden hammock.

Today I do feel that trust. I know that I am being held and supported, that only good lies before me, that I am loved and guided. My only job is to show up, be present and loving.

Now I have to choose a word for 2015.

I have so enjoyed my exploration into trust. It has opened up a new way of being for me and I can honestly say that trust is a permanent part of me. I carry it with me always, like I own it.

Since I more fully understand the power of choosing a word and its significance in my life, I have to find THE word for 2015. Simultaneously, I know I don’t really have to go in search of it, because just as trust showed up loud and clear as my word for 2014, I know the right and perfect word will appear any day now.

This new word will invite me to contemplate it for the upcoming year with thoughtfulness, intention and insight. And I’m looking forward to it!

Do you know what your word for 2015 is?

If so, share it with me! If not, sit with this idea and ask, “What’s my word for 2015?” Invite your word to come to you. How will you then spend your year exploring and delving into it?  

Let me know, I'm all ears! Leave me a note below.

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What do YOU want in your New Year?

Hello everyone! Tomorrow is New Year's Eve. Are you ready? Okay, okay, so I don't mean party plans, champagne purchases and designated drivers. I mean, are you ready to start your year with clarity, with purpose and with intention?

This is the perfect time of year to release that which you no longer want and get clarity about what you want to attract (all that we desire). Want to know how? Let's start with letting go...

This is my board from 2013

There are lots of ways to do this. If you like fires, have a roaring bond fire. Write down anything you're ready to let go of or release and then one by one throw those words or phrases into the fire! If you can't go to the beach, don't have a fireplace or suitable backyard, try a barbecue or a burning bowl! You can even do it with firecrackers by thinking about what is leaving you as you light it and then watch it blow up in front of your eyes!

Now how about attracting the good stuff. I really love vision boards. A few years ago we started doing this as an annual tradition with our children. Last January, my 19 year-old took hers back to college with her while mine sits on my desk at work. A vision board can be anything that inspires you- words, pictures, objects. People go about them in different ways. Some like to start with a list of goals for the new year- "what I see for myself." Others are more organic and surf the internet, browse magazines or newspapers for words and images that appeal.

Last year I learned about a similar concept to the vision board from Robert Holden. It's a compass to orient you. In a workshop I attended, he handed out these paper compasses. So last year, that was the theme I used, placing joy at the center of the compass, reminding me of where I always want to be. Then I oriented mine so spirit was in the north, fun and grounding in the south, family and emotional needs in the west and intellectual pursuits in the east. This year, I think I might allow it to be more flowing but I will start with making a list of goals for myself because even though I want my board to be more free-flowing, I will choose precise and specific objectives for myself this year just as I do every year. 

Actually, if this is something you already do, a great way to check in is to review the list from last year and see all that has been accomplished, all that has manifested in 2013. Celebrate and honor it! That list can often help dictate 2014 too because sometimes goals continue or deepen. 

Having a vision board enhances that goal/objecive list, provides visual imagery to it and is a constant reminder, when you see it, of what you want. When we decide how we want our lives to be, the universe helps make it happen. It's so much better than letting life happen to us and way more fun not to mention satisfying. An expression I heard Marci Shimoff say that I just love is that we have to set our intentions - that's our goals, our objectives, then we put our attention to these things by making a vision board and by writing them down and seeing them often and finally we breathe in and allow for no tension- letting the universe (or God) support us in manifesting our dreams.

So, what are you waiting for? 2014 is just about here, are you?