I’m going to take a moment here, or maybe a multitude of moments, to boast and to brag. I realize this is a bit counter culture, or at least counter my culture. I am going to scream from the mountaintop (my blog page) the badassery I manifested in the last month of 2018. I am going to savor and digest the goodness of it by writing it down and sharing it with YOU, thus helping myself to squeeze all the gratitude possible out of it. I do this to live the experience again, further imprinting it in my memory and shifting my brain toward the positive, and I do this to inspire. I do it because I keep hearing how awful 2018 was, and I feel moved to point out some highlights. I also do it because the universe has repeatedly given me the message:
Undigested goodness turns to negativity.
…or in my case at trip to urgent care after many sleepless nights of belly pain.
Only a short while ago I would never have dreamt to have courage enough to risk wasted time, wasted effort and possible rejection like I did this past month. But here are my brags (thanks for the terminology Mama Gena and thanks to the women who helped me learn to brag).
Here goes. This past December…
I invited anyone who had done one of my circles (and a few that simply are my circle) over for a sisterhood solstice soiree. We nourished. We circled. We shared. We sang. We honored. We even crafted.
I celebrated the solstice with my four boys by studying the enneagram with a spiritual director, and they stayed engaged for the two hour+ exploration.
I asked for an electronic-free night in the candlelit house, and the five of us spent the night being together —talking, joking and sitting around the fire.
I coordinated a meaningful gift for my in-laws’ 50th wedding anniversary. Local artist Bill Hoover beautifully captured the essence of the seventeen of us in a painted family portrait.
I orchestrated the exchange of 19 made-by-hand Christmas gifts, inciting hugs and laughs and nearly 100% engagement of nearly 100% of the group, aged 2 – 67.
I rang in the New Year without alcohol, something I don’t believe to have done since age 17.
I write this blog also to encourage us as humans (especially those of us who tend to create connection and meaning by sharing our trials and tribulations as opposed to our successes and brags) to elevate the way we relate. I am not encouraging us to hide our darkness, but rather to shine in our splendor when the opportunity arrises.
Thanks for sharing in my sunshine.
Happy New Year!
Katie