Happy New Year/Happy New Decade!

A big shift in perspective often happens around the turn of the year, and especially around the turn of the decade or century. This is a time when we often try to prepare for the coming year by examining the year falling away behind us. Some of us set goals to accomplish what could not be done in 09, or what we want or hope to do and have in 2010.

I would like to share two simple methods of “goal setting” designed to honor you as spirit having a human experience. Goals for BEING, to prepare you for the doing and having.

One comes from Mike Dooley. To boil it down, get HAPPY. Sit in a quiet place, eyes closed, breathing deeply, thinking “Happy”. Feel happy. Think of a person or a happy event to get started if you must, but your focus needs to be on the feeling of happiness, not the event or person. Let that feeling of happiness grow within you (a great exercise in itself). Allow your whole body and being to feel happy.
Now as you are overflowing with happiness, the overflow can spill into some area of your life. Think broadly. For example: Health, Work, Relationships…and let that happiness feeling spill over into those areas of your life. If you notice a particular aspect within that category, you can have a secondary spilling over into that area of your life. For instance, while filling the idea of relationships with happiness, you may become aware of a particular relationship, such as “my partner” or “my children”. You then allow the glowing, flowing happiness energy to spill into the thought of “my partner” or “my children” rather than attempting to give energy or fill up the other person. Keeping your mind on generalities allows your energy to shift without your control, a good thing!

A second method of working with Being goals is to set energy levels for the coming year. Here’s what I do: Through meditation or focused breathing ask yourself, “What quality or characteristic could I develop or enhance in myself that would have a beneficial effect in my life and relationships?” Often Courage is on my short list, or Discipline, Creativity, Grace, Harmony, or…what comes to you?

Identify 3 words that summarize feelings or qualities you would like to focus on for the coming year. Ask to see, or imagine a color that represents the specific vibration for each of these words. There are many ways of working with colors or vibrations, but perhaps the simplest way is to imagine these colors pouring into your body from over your head. Allow your body to absorb these vibrations, so you can begin to work on them from the inside out.

After my meditation, I write these words down in my planner and post them on the fridge where I can see them often. I collect colorful images to represent and coordinate with these powerful word-vibrations. The most lasting changes are made in the unconscious mind, so it is useful to feed your unconscious self with frequent reminders, like post-its for building deep memory connections.

Sometimes setting specific goals for amounts of money or numbers of things or the specific job at this or that company, can cause us to try to control the outcome of our actions or control the unfolding of the events to deliver what we want. Often, when something we want is coming into our field of reference, we don’t recognize the form it takes, and we may reject opportunities too soon. Setting an energy level is a way to get out of the way of creation, allowing a bond of trust to form between you and the universe, allowing you to be the universe you live in; to determine the emotional form of what you are creating while you revel in the mystery of how it comes. In this sense, Mike Dooley says, “HOW is none of our business!”

Happy, truly, New Year and Decade!


“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.” Albert Einstein