The Power of Artful Endings for a Great New Year!
At the New Year’s time we hear lot about celebrating the new year, adopting resolutions for the new year, and setting goals for the new year. Well, what about the old year? What do we do to put the old year to bed? Is it really possible to go into the new year successfully without at least saying good bye to the old year?
We have many examples of the importance of endings in our lives. Think about it. Desserts are the crowning glory to a nice meal. Graduations mark the ending of huge efforts. Funerals mark the passing of lives. Even a good book depends on the last chapter to make sense of the rest. Many endings are artistic and ritualistic in nature. Why?
Change is just as dependent upon effective endings as it is on effective beginnings. Endings are the help us to “let go”, so that we can free ourselves to “grab onto” the beginning. The things we hang onto and the things we let go of define us in the deepest recesses of our psyches. We identify with what we hang on to and there is only so much we are able to have in our grasp at the same time.
If we feel limited by events or people who have had a negative impact on us, as long as we hang onto that thought, it has control over us by controlling our focus. Everything becomes an interpretation of that lens on reality and we cannot truly free ourselves from its grasp to strike out on some new success. The new success would be a violation of the belief we are holding, and people subconsciously want their belief’s to turn out to be right…even the negative ones sadly.
Simply put, what we all know is that “old baggage” drags us down. Some people go through life accumulating so much old baggage, it’s like they travel with a caravan of UHaul trailers loaded to overflowing. Whenever there is an opportunity to do something new or change for the better, they have oodles of examples from one of their trailers to prove it can’t possible workout.
While the sense of the impossible seems incredibly real at the time, it is amazing how quickly it becomes impossible when someone decides to give up the baggage. I have done it and I have seen it happen in others. Once the old baggage is willingly given up, all the excuses just fall away and life emerges new and refreshed…as long as you don’t go picking through the old trash again.
So this New Years Eve take only the blessing of 2009 along with you that lift and encourage you. The things that happened that brought you joy will continue to bring you joy in the new year. But those things that dragged you down or depressed you will also keep doing that if you hang onto them.
Lots of Americans have a lot of baggage from 2009 to let go of so we can face the New Year with great expectations. We’ve lost finances, lost jobs, lost business contracts, lost homes, lost credit ratings…possibly even lost relationships under the stress of this challenging year. They all need to be left in the graveyard of 2009. 2010 is a new adventure and you deserve a chance to receive 2010 with enthusiasm and expectation that God Himself is doing a new and even BETTER thing in your life. I am hanging onto that vision!! Join me in having a BIG VISION for a renewed future of success and blessings. And by all means, bury the sense of guilt! You didn’t create this mess and God know it. He is with us and wants to help us all recover for his glory. In the words of Winston Churchill…Never, never, never, quit!!
So I am having an Artful Ending! I am having a funeral and graveside service for the disappointments of 2009. Jeff and I are writing down everything we want to forget and wadding it all up. Then we will stomp on it and say a eulogy. We will bury it under the tombstone I made for the event, and come back in and eat potato salad…just like every funeral I’ve ever attended. Then we move on for a new adventure! Can’t wait to give some memories up! Try the artful dumping of your bad memories. You will be amazed at how it frees you up to grab onto a renewed vision of your future! Claim your success! God made you for greatness and He isn’t done with you yet!! HUGS Friends and Happy New Year