The last of the late afternoon light, overlooking James Island, with Orcas Island in the U.S. beyond.
It's hard to believe that 2008 has come and gone already. Time is speeding up with each passing year...and it has nothing to do with age. (I'm in complete denial about this and that's where I'm staying)!
What was this year about for you? Did you experience any opportunities of major (or even minor) growth? Any rights of passage? Crisis? Incredible joys? For me, this year has been like the Chinese proverb "May you live in interesting times" which, while purporting to be a blessing, is in fact a curse. An interesting year it was but I choose to view it as a year of blessings rather than a curse for by December, that was the result.
It was't exactly the "Joy" filled year I had in mind when I picked my word for 2008. It ended up as a time of preparation for the joy that has followed. About a third of the way into the year, I realized I had bypassed an important building block to "Joy" and that was "Trust". I've twisted into an untrusting pretzel of knots, worry and anxiety for most of my life, so letting go of this was huge for me. Life changing in fact. For years, I've walked around feeling as though I'd been punched in the solar plexus without being aware that what I was experiencing was constant anxiety.
I recently read the following about stress...
"Wherever you find stress, you will find feelings of victimhood. Anger at being forced beyond one's willingness is the essence of stress." Doreen Virtue
The bluntness of this startled me at first but the more I thought about it, the more I felt the truth of it.
Making the decision not to live with that any longer was huge, but it took a major event over which I realized I had no control, to take that step. I've written before of just what I did do to help myself, but in short, I made it the priority in my life. The "Trust" is present now...a trust in myself and in the Universe...that everything will work out alright...no matter how it all turns out.
This piece was created last summer for a traveling journal group that I belong to.
"Joy" is a really, really great word but in retrospect "Trust" would have been the better choice for 2008. I was trying to go directly from A to Z, without taking any of the steps in between but life has a way of self correcting!
And now we're on to 2009. I've finally chosen my "one little word" for the year and I'll write more about that tomorrow!