What's Important for Me

In this season of hustle and bustle...
Okay, it's December and the holidays are here. Rich and I just got back from a lovely Thanksgiving in Hawaii, yea! We came home to more sad news of deaths of family and friends and while dealing with all of that we also had "work" to catch up on and then all the winter holiday tasks to plan and do.

Experiencing more deaths reminded of what I wrote last month and, of course, had me examining my priorities. So, the question: What's important for me, right here, right now? I just hung up from my weekly "wisdom group" call... one that I almost cancelled... too busy, too sad, too whatever. Two of my coaching colleagues and I established this group when we graduated from our coach training six years ago. On these calls we coach each other, we share whatever is on our minds and going on within our work or personal lives ...we just hold a space for each other. My dear "sisters" and I had a fantastic call sharing and laughing together and celebrating our relationship over the years. If I had cancelled I would be in different emotional space and would not even be writing this newsletter.

These are the things I know about asking myself: What's important for me, right here, right now?

First, find Center Energy flowing within and around me. What I know from my study of the life energy flows and the choice we have to shift our energy is that Center is the place where I can connect with my higher self... the part of me that knows the "truth" for me. To shift my life energy flow to Center, I sit or stand and relax my body. I let tension flow out of me. I check that my head feels weightless so it is balanced perfectly on my body. My body is balanced also; I'm not leaning forward or back. I then clear my mind and allow that feeling that all is right at this moment fill my body. My life energy flows softly and gently in all directions: up, down, forward, back, side to side, in and out. I breathe into my whole body and out to the Universe.

Then, I ask the question: What is important for me, right here, right now? I place the heal of left hand over my heart, my thumbs and first two fingers make a V below my neck. I allow myself to relax even more and allow an answer to the question to come. It may come as an awareness, a thought, a feeling. It may come immediately, in a few minutes or sometimes in a dream that night. The important thing is not to force it from my mind, rather to allow it from my heart.

Finally, I take an action to be or do what is important for me, right here, right now. This may be taking a moment for myself to support my health. It may be a remembrance of a task that is important to me or someone else. It may be to allow some buried emotions to just be and then to shift them to one of my choice that better serves me and those around me.

This practice is another way to prioritize my day or your life. It is a way to get in touch with what is truly desirable in this moment... the only one we have that can make a difference right here, right now.

Happy Holidays to each and every one of you! Celebrate the end of this year and the beginning of next with gratitude for all you have received this year and then consider a declaration for how 2012 will serve you and those around you. (Next month I will share a model for making such a declaration.)

"Center Energy is a tree... balanced... Connected with the Earth... Reaching for the stars... Extending out to others."

-Carol Harris-Fike