Tomorrow is the start of my new year. I know it’s more popular to make your new years resolutions for January 1 but since my birthday or “new year” is on the 26th I have found it makes more sense for me to focus on my intentions for the new year on that day. It’s not something I ever used to do, I preferred to wing it and focus on things as the desire hit me. But, when I turned 41 something inside me changed and I decided to make a concentrated effort to make who I am a better person.

41 was the year that I followed the philosophy “be the change you want to see in the world”. I decided that if I was going to live in a better world that the changes for the better had to begin with me. I started looking long and hard at how I was living and making changes that would make that life a better, happier and more balanced one.

42 was the year that I worked on “healing”. All the thought of the year before had made me realize how broken I was. I had stripped myself down to my core in the effort of rebuilding and that drained me completely. I started learning about Ayurveda, learning how to feed myself better, discovering the importance of a good nights sleep, learning to meditate. Learning to heal myself.

43 was the year that I worked on “strength”. I wasn’t healed yet, but I could feel inside that I was ready to get stronger. Right before my birthday I saw a picture of someone doing the dancer pose and decided that was something I wanted to be able to do myself. I worked on it all year. When I started (and I wish I had taken a picture) I couldn’t stand on one leg and pull my other leg up towards my bum to grab it with my hand. I had to use a yoga strap to pull that foot up. Tonight I had Jenna take a picture of my progress over the year:

It’s huge progress. I’ll keep at it and post another picture next year.

44 will be the year of “my happiness” my happiness. Because I’ve learned that when I’m happy I spread happiness which makes the world a better place. I’m going to walk myself down my path of least resistance and consciously allow good things happen to me. Way too many times in my life I’ve had wonderful opportunities knock on my door and I’ve turned them down because I felt I didn’t deserve that kind of happiness. Now I feel not only do I deserve it, but it’s my duty to seek it out. We all deserve to follow our bliss.

My pose goal for the year is to be able to sit and stretch forward reaching my toes and have my body lie flat against my legs. I’ve never been able to do this. In junior high I used to do terribly at the flexibility toe touch. Although, while I’ve never been really flexible that way it did annoy me years later when I got married and we were comparing how we could touch toes. He could reach hands on the floor no problem. Then I realized that while he was taller than me his legs are 4 inches shorter. Which helped me let go a lot of the “I can’t touch my toes” insecurity of jr. high. I can touch my toes now. I love that yoga is noncompetitive – I need that.

Here’s my pose at the beginning of the year:

I’m excited about this year. A whole year focused on happiness. I have a feeling that wonderful things are going to manifest this year.

~ namaste