What I am Leaving Behind

     This post may come across a little on the emotionally heavy side, but I promise you, it is coming from a postive place, I'm only getting all this out in the open so it can lead into the more positive posts coming up :)

      Last week, on the Solstice (12/21/12), Mikey and I attended a lovely holiday party that was sort of a Christmas/Solstice/Yule Party all rolled into one. In additon to wonderful company and delicious food and drink, we also had a small Solstice Ritual ouside in our friend's backyard. On the longest night of the year, with the snow falling softly around us, we all gathered around a small bonfire and sang, offered thanks, greeted the return of the Light, and offered our intentions for the New Year to come. We each had two pieces of paper. On one piece was a list of things that we wanted to leave behind, the things that we wanted burned away. On the second piece of paper was a list of the things that we wanted to take their place, the new intentions we wanted seared into our hearts for the New Year. We put both pieces of paper into the bonfire to seal our intention. I found this to be amazingly cleansing and also empowering. I made an extra copy of each list so that I could reread them and refer back to them in the year to come. I am sharing them here, to further make plain my intention.

      Today, I am going to share the list of things that I am Leaving Behind. I gave myself about 10 minutes the morning of the party and created this list. Here is the list of what I am leaving behind, uncensored and unedited, in the order that they ocurred to me:

I am Evolving. These are the things I am Leaving Behind. I will become a better *Me*

      -Spending time with negative people

      -Letting the negativity of others hurt me

      -Letting the limits other people place on themselves limit me

      -Letting other people steal my Bliss

      -Putting myself last

      -Not taking time for myself

      -Putting everything I want on hold so that other people can have their lives made easier

      -Being afraid

      -Mistreating my body

     -Focusing only on my shortcomings

     -Not standing up for myself

     -Feeling like I am less of a person than I actually am

     -Wasting my time

     -Holding onto the sufferings of others when I should let them pass through me.

     There is no room for any of this inside of me any more. I cannot carry it with me any longer.  I do not want to lose my generosity, my kindness, my compassion, or anything like that, that is not what this is about. But, it has become clear to me this year that I seem to have lost the ability to live for myself. I live for others. I hurt for others, I take care of others before myself. I put what I want aside so others can have what they want. I make most of my choices based on the effect those choices will have on others. When people hurt, I hurt with them, I hurt FOR them. None of these traits are necessarily bad on their own. In fact, they are good, honorable, important traits, and I don't want to lose them completely. But there need to be boundaries. There needs to be Balance.  Everyone has the right and the responsibility to advocate for themselves, for their happiness, and for their own physical/emotional/spiritual well-being. I need to learn how to do this again. I WILL learn how do do this again.

    I'm not expecting this to be easy, and I'm not expecting to get good at it overnight. I'm sure there will be slip-ups and stumbles and sticky spots. But, I want to make a concerted effort to improve on this during the coming year. I took the above list and turned it into a List of Affirmations (the second piece of paper from the ritual), which I will also post here. But, if you want to see those, you'll have to come back tomorrow ;)

Love You,
Lynn