Please share your experience and thoughts with me below. Thanks!


Three weeks ago I declared Christmas was not coming out of the storage boxes. Knowing our children or friends from the U.S. were not visiting this year, I tried to pretend Christmas wasn’t important. With it being summer here in New Zealand, I figured I’d just pretend it was June and get on with my life.

Then we received our first Christmas card. “Okay,” I said to myself, “maybe one Christmas CD and a box of decorations…but no tree!”

Upon opening that first box of goodies and allowing the Christmas magic to seep into the room, I was immediately overcome with memories of Christmases past… cutting down our tree in the forest just past the meadow where we lived, pulling it home on the sleigh with our youngest riding on top. Making gingerbread houses with lots of candies, frosting and giggles. Christmas cookies in the oven, carols in the background while our family decorated the tree.

In that moment I knew I had a choice. I could indulge myself by dropping into self-pity and sorrow (something I could have easily done in the past) or, tap into my authentic sadness – and then into gratitude for creating these memories and this incredible life I am living today.

Remembering the ebb and flow of life consists of highs and lows, it wasn’t hard to tap into gratitude…for everything in my life, including the sweet sadness.

Ah life! Like a big tossed salad -or fruit cake 😉 – the combination of sweet, sour and savory help to add complexity and character to life.

It wasn’t but a few moments later we received, not one, but two invitations to join dear friends for Christmas lunch. And, the very next day a thoughtful friend and her daughter dropped by with a freshly cut tree!

It’s wonderful to feel my whole realm of authentic emotions!

I have learned when I’m responsible for all of my emotions I can consciously choose to live my life from love, joy, happiness and peace. I also know, the only way to do this it is to be grounded in the present rather than caught up in stories of past or future.

What big learning did you have for 2011?

Remember, your life insights don’t always seem like a big deal when you reflect upon them. Being present and responsible with all your emotions, catching yourself when you become a victim and begin to blame others for your circumstances, taking time in the morning for inner reflection and/or journal writing, asking for help instead of being a martyr all sound rather insignificant, but when it begins to shift your whole life from a place of struggle and dissatisfaction to more love, joy and freedom, now that’s BIG STUFF!