A New Year, A Positive Start

I try to be a good person, and to do things because they are the right things to do--not for fear of retribution in doing the opposite (need I mention I was raised Catholic?). I try not to judge other people and to live positively, to see the glass as half full, not half empty, which is not always an easy task. That is, it doesn't always come naturally.

It's more instinctive to say ugh, I am so broke, than to think, based on my budget, I should be caught up and feel better about my budget by the end of January. But I'm trying. And I do have a budget. I also tend to complain a lot about work, and commiserate with my friend Amy about it, but there too I am trying. Recently I started a new venture with her--as both a diversion and a way to begin exploring other career options. And while we haven't given up hoping for snow days and wearing pajamas inside out as our students do when snow is predicted, we also plan a December getaway to Boston, to make those snow day prayers not our only option for a well-deserved break. This blog, too, is another example of trying to put my energy in a positive place. I can't become an author if I don't write, after all. I remind myself and my friend Tamara of that nearly every day. We need to show up at the page; showing up at the page affirms us as writers.

In addition to heeding Julia Cameron's advice to "show up at the page" and espousing other ideas presented in the The Artist's Way, I have also long been a Shakti Gawain fan. Before Oprah found The Secret, there was Creative Visualization, and for years I have started my day by saying my positive affirmations on my way to work. I shut off the radio and talk to myself. The days of hitting pause in my mental affirmation track at stoplights, or pretending to be singing along to the radio, are over. It doesn't matter what people might think if they see me talking to myself in my car. What matters is that the positive affirmations work.

Today, as I enjoy my last day of vacation, sipping mimosas in comfortable new pajamas, after showing up at the page here, I will sit down with Shakti again knowing that I will find inspiration in her pages as I start the new year with intentions to be a better person and to try even harder to live positively. As I move forward in 2009, while happy and grateful for what I have and who I am, I will behave in ways that demonstrate and affirm my belief in myself and the brighter future within my reach.

Here's to 2009. May it be all you need it to be and may you, too, believe it is within your power to bring that to fruition.