This time of year can make me a bit nutty, what with all the talk about resolutions, creating the “best year ever”, “new year, new you” etc. It’s enough to make me want to crawl back in bed with a box of donuts until the whole “fresh start” season passes.
Now I’m not against personal goals or transformation – I am a Life Coach after all, and transformation is kinda my jam. But at this time of year, it just feels like we put an awful lot of pressure on ourselves to become something else, something MORE than who we already are (even more so than usual).
I’ll let you in on a little secret: we don’t need a “new you”, we need a NOW you.
Yes, we need the one you are right now. Her, with the laugh lines and a bit of squish around the tummy. Her, with the chipped toenail polish and messy closets and crumbs in her backseat. The one who’s experienced life, with its joy and heartache, and beauty that made her knees weak. She’s the one we need – the one who is here, now.
We need the old you too. Not the one who settled or put her dreams on hold or found herself living someone else’s life. We need the wild one who believed in magic, who loved fiercely and played with abandon, who dreamed and created and sang her heart out. The one with hope in her heart and a fire in her belly.
You are still her. She is still you.
These are crazy, mixed-up times. Now, more than ever, we need to remember who we truly are – we are the ones who shared our lunches, stood up for our friends, and wept at injustice… then wiped our tears and set out to make a difference.
We are the ones who created and wished and laughed and loved with abandon. The ones who were overwhelmed by the devastating beauty in the world – so much sometimes that it felt like our hearts would crack in two.
We don’t need to be new, we just need to be ourselves – our True Selves, the ones we were before the world told us who we were supposed to be.
We need to be our True Selves now because that is how we change the world. By being willing to show up just as we are, opening our hearts and minds and hands, and reaching out to one another in the spirit of kindness and compassion, and community.
Right here and right now, we already have the power to be the change we want to see in the world.
We do this by being present with our own feelings, and with the feelings of others.
By nurturing our bodies and souls and hearts.
By being brave enough to speak our truth.
By turning our energy towards the things that light us up, instead of the ones that drain us.
By treating ourselves with compassion first, so that we can then extend the same to others.
We don’t need to be new, we just need to be NOW.
with love,
Nicole
P.S.
The thought I’m playing with this week is: “I am enough, right NOW. I already have everything I need to be the change I want to see.”
Try it on, and pop over to Facebook and let me know what you think. I would love to hear.