A New Year, A New Intention.

For the past couple years, I declared an intention instead of a resolution. The year 2012 was self-declared my “year of authenticity.” I wanted to make choices based on what was best for me. I would spend my time for me. I would honor my truth. 

As I reflect back on to 2012, I can confidently say, that overall, 2012 kicked my ass. 

I was challenged in ways I would have never imagined. I experienced life changes I had not expected.

In the end though, 2012 was full of greatness and my intention was honored. I learned more than I anticipated about what it means to be authentic, honor my truth, and understand and act on what's best for me. It took almost a year but I realized that's okay too. Sometimes things don't unravel as we expect. Some lessons take longer to learn and sometimes it's that process that's needed to point us to our lessons.

As I prepare for a new year, I have set a new intention.

The year 2013 will be my year of experience!

I will be mindful of every experience and truly live in it. The challenging, sad, jubilant, frustrating, lonely, new, exciting, and colorful moments will all be truly experienced.

So often, it's easy to just go through the motions, brush off our low points, and focus too much on the future or past. Everything I do and everything that happens in 2013, I will give myself permission to just experience, free of judgement. 

My New Years Eve wish for you is that 2012 is closed with a blessing and 2013 embraced with an intention that suits you.

Happy New Year!

And now a few of my memorable moments from 2012....

Yoga retreat in Costa Rica 

Surfing for the first time and making it to shore in Costa Rica! 

  

Visiting lifelong friendships and remembering that they are only a plane ride away sometimes. 

Loosing my job of almost four years...

...landing a new job. 

Packing everything up to move from the familiar to the unknown.

Signing on for a new adventure with a Florida address.

Letting go of relationships that no longer served my highest good and being blessed with new relationships full of love, spirit, support, and plain silliness. 

Happy New Years! May 2013 be more than you anticipate. 

Your Heart Too, Will Go On.

I was sitting in a coffee shop the other day and overheard three girls chat about their lives. Which at 17, almost always only consists of boys and relationships. 

"I don't know what I would do without him. Honestly, I don't know if I could be happy without him," Coffee Girl said. 

Hearing her, I reminisced back to my first relationship and recalled how the heartache can be so palpable you feel it in every muscle and with each breathe. 

Heartache doesn't lessen or get easier to handle with age and experience. It still hurts and the bathroom floor is still a place you end up on at 1:00AM with a piece of overly used Kleenex. 

With every break up however, you do experience enhanced endurance, resilience, and a wee bit of wisdom. 

Having gone through a few breakup's myself, I can vow that each one proves to yourself, that you can not only survive a break up but you can also thrive after one. 

I'm sure your boyfriend is great Coffee Girl. (That's not true. He may be a real douche bag but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt). In the chance that it doesn't work out, know you will in fact be happy again. Sure, you will cry, feel moments of despair, and dramatically threaten to go rescue a cat to start the collection that will eventually run rampant in your knitting filled and potpourri infused home.  

But one day, a moment will enter where you feel the smallest tinge of what you can only recall as happiness. Little by little, these moments will string together before you're eventually just living your life again, happily. 

Thursday Night and Thoughts of Frank.

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"Modigliani. Your first summer in New York City, you were dating a guy who worked on Wall Street ...this was around the time you discovered Modigliani and became obsessed with his painting of this woman who had a blue scarf on, holding a baby. You said, 'That painting captured the essence of that woman better than any photograph.' I also remember you freaked because you said you felt more passionate about that painting than you did about Mr.Wall Street and you wondered if you ever could meet somebody that could make you feel as passionate as that work of art." -Made of Honor

I remember being about thirteen years old and dancing in my bedroom to a mix CD full of Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Bobby Darin, and Sammy Davis, Jr. I loved how magical all the songs felt. They breathed lives lived. They carried adventure, emotion, and promise. Letting each note flow over me, I could envision how one day I'd dance a life fit to be accompanied by such melodies.

As we get older, it's easier to hear sounds of reality play over the notes which first inspired us. We discover unpaid loans, relationships with varying and sometimes challenging traits, bill payment due dates, food that actually has the potential to turn into fat, that traveling includes costs along with adventure, doctors sometime deliver bad news, and restless minds make for restless nights. 

In the mist of it all, we have the ability to hear a song and travel back to a familiar melody and nostaligic memory. It can remind us how passionate and ambitious we are at heart. It should encourage us to grab onto that feeling, aspiring to acheive at least that much. Find something in life; a book, film, piece of artwork, or song. Let it push you to crave better things in your life and be sure to turn up the volume.  

Forgiveness - It's More Than Saying Sorry

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While visiting my Grandma, she was flipping through a notepad she used to scribble down quotes, random thoughts, lists, reminders, and theories.

She read one of the quotes she recorded, “Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

I believe as human beings, it's often easy to view withholding forgiveness as proof to the other person that they don't deserve to be forgiven. Somehow what they did was so hurtful, wrong, and disheartening, they are simply not worthy of being forgiven.

Instead, we hold resentment. We foster anger and let sadness cascade over any prevailing pleasant thoughts. We hold resentment because it's easier than facing any harsh truth of reality where we could have been hurt by someone we love or even by someone we just brush elbows with at the water cooler.

Though, as Grandma's notepad explains, this resentment only kills us.

The act by which you hold bitterness toward someone creates a chord to you and extends to that person, hurtful action, or condescending phrase spoken. As we move forward in life, we do so dragging these chords along with us. They wrap around us, cradling negative energy and heavy weight to an unresolved past.

Work toward cutting the chords. Seek forgiveness. It's not easy and it will take time but there truly is no single act unforgivable. There are just many challenging moments forcing us to grow and be pruned into our highest self for our happiest life. 

Costa Rica - Journal Entry #5

April 28, 2012

The taxi is schedule to pick us up in 15 minutes. I'm sitting near the yoga deck taking in the view and feeling of being apart of this experience had in Costa Rica; knowing this is me breathing it in for the last time.

There is a certain feeling of calmness and serenity that's reflected in the surrounding ocean and mountains. A light Costa Rican breeze blows and I know this trip was a gift for me that will only unwrap more over time.

This trip is an imprint, displaying how if I look to it, I will experience great things. I will travel, love, learn, and this is merely just the beginning.

So long Costa Rica and thanks for the view.

xoxo,
K

Costa Rica - Journal Entry #4

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April 26, 2012 


I had never been surfing before but had always viewed it as something that simply defines you as a quintessential badass. By this mere fact, I was allured to the board and becoming a self-proclaimed badass. 


I'm not a good swimmer. I hold my nose when I go under water. I understood surfing would push my aquatic abilities but I'm in Costa Rica and I'm up for the challenge. 


Two locals taught us on the shore. Imaginary surfboards were lined in the sand and we practiced doing an upward facing dog which led to a standing position on the board. After the precautionary information was explained, it was time to head out into water. 


The first trip, would simply be lying on my stomach. I'd ride the wave allowing myself to feel the tide and pull of the water. 


This will be fantastic I thought. I just get to lie here and cruise into shore. 


False.


I was on the board for a total of 3.2 seconds before a wave pummeled over me and swirled me around a bit before allowing my head to bob up for air. 


Alright. That's it. I'm out. What was I thinking? I don't swim. I'm not badass. I belong on shore doing something less strenuous like whittling a stick or applying more sunscreen to my pasty white skin. 


As water drained out of my ears, nose, and eyeballs, I was able to see a bit more clearly. 


Screw stick whittling. Let's give this a real shot. 


I marched back out pulling the board and my new attitude with me. 


It's fierce out there. As Yohan, my instructor, reconizged the right wave rolling in, he'd holler to get on the board. I'm facing the rolling waves and a few crash into my face before Yohan spins my board around to face shore. 


In an instant, I feel the sensation from the wave curl under my board and I know that's my queue to push myself up in preparation to stand. 


As I get up, I mentally check the notes Yohan taught on shore. Foot placement, knees over ankles, butt stuck out and balancing low. Hands straight and spanning the width of my board. 


Everything was in check. I was standing. Granted, it was only for 2 seconds but now I knew I could do it. 


This time, I was ready to march back out before my head had even surfaced. 


I was addicted. A few more attempts, and I was now regularly surfing upright to shore. 


Runs of success pushed me to crave more wins and trips where I was less successful only pushed me to do it again and to do it better. 


By the end of my session, I felt exhilarated. I took some mean falls and succeeded at some smooth rides. In the end though, it was all about the process. 


Far too often, as perfectionists, type-a personalities, and human beings, we beat ourselves up on the status of our successes and failures. Far too often, we let ourselves become defined by a win or a loss. Most often, it's the seemingly failing moments we focus on and sulk into; spending more time basking in a downfall than rising from it to move on to the next wave.


What we should focus on is the ride. It can beat you up, push you down, leave you with shortness of breathe, take your breathe away, balance you, motivate you, make you stronger, and have you bursting with exhilaration.   


But at the end of it, hopfully you walk away simply feeling like a badass. 

Costa Rica - Journal Entry #3

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April 24, 2012

It's weird. You'd think when you're surrounded by such beauty, it'd be difficult to feel anything but pure joy. Oddly enough, I've felt a range of emotions today; lonely, intense vunerability, and unexplained sadness. It seems downright silly to feel such emotions in a place most will rarely have the opportunity to visit.


Had I been surround by anyone except for this group of women, I would have most likely judged myself for these thoughts and emotions. It is a different mindset here. 


Lori spoke earlier about how small children cope with their emotions conversely to adults. A child often transitions from crying hysterically to running around like crazy. Then, giggling to sniffling tears, falling asleep, and back to playing again with big smiles. They feel their feelings and they experience them fully as they come.


Why as adults do we tend to judge our emotions? 


"I can't be tired now, I have more errands to run." "I'm hungry but dinner is not for another two hours." "I can feel the tears welling up but I'm at work." "I feel like staying home to rest but my friends are waiting."


Why do we judge our thoughts and feelings rather than let ourselves feel them without fear, doubt, or even apologies?


Here it's easier to feel like children do. Just this afternoon I teared up during a conversion with some of the ladies. 


Then, I cried. I cried a really deep cry. 


The day and my emotions completely transformed when a spontaneous dance party evolved out on the yoga deck after dinner. 


There's something to dancing freely under the Costa Rican stars overlooking the ocean and mountains. It is both an idealistic feeling that could be deemed as merely wishful thinking and a moment of jubilant, comfortable, grateful reality. 


The ladies formed a circle and each one paraded through the middle. It didn't matter what had brought you here, what had brought tears to your face earlier, or what was going on at home. This was the epitome of living in the moment and we were feeling our emotions as they came and as the beat of each song played on.  


And this time, I laughed. I laughed a really deep laugh. 


xoxo-
K