With New Years Eve around the corner, you might be thinking about how you want to reign in the new year. While other people in your neighborhood in your community may be going out for an evening of late night heroics, there are plenty of other meaningful ways to acknowledge the passing of a year. Consider setting the intention of an evening spent at home reflecting on the previous spin around the sun to invite deeper levels of gratitude, joy and happiness into your life.
In the quiet of your own room, choose consciously to make this new year about renewal or another theme that you identify with. Think about opting to be more present in the daily flow of your life. Often the distinction between the life we live and the one we yearn for is comprised of simple, small, sacred practices.
Sometimes holding gratitude doesn’t come easy enough, and that’s okay.
With everything that’s on your plate, it’s often very difficult to pause and take stock of the good things that are happening around you.
To get started, read this beautiful and inspiring list of daily grateful living ideas. Choose three or four to practice on New Years Eve and write about them. While simple and sometimes frustrating, the act of writing connects our thoughts with our feelings and makes them more real and meaningful than only thinking them.
The act and choice to write down parts of our lives that elicit gratitude signals to the brain that what you’re doing is important, worth remembering and ultimately worth repeating.
One other way to celebrate yourself in 2015 is to begin a gratitude jar. The concept is simple: designate a jar to fill with slips of paper describing what you’re grateful for. Beginning this practice encourages you to create a treasure trove of personal and positive parts of your life you identify with. During the days and weeks when you’re feeling most depleted, you can open up this jar you’ve filled to nourish and remind yourself with these thoughtful reflections. Here’s an example of how to put together your own gratitude jar!
One thing I’ve learned from being a Carer is the importance of appreciating what I have accomplished – and what I’m still learning is the power of being as positive as I can be under the circumstances. I’m also beginning to believe that I deserve to reach for my own goals and dreams, although I’ve had to change my perspectives, taking into account my Life’s experiences. I now try to turn negative events into positive lessons which help me to identify with other people’s problems. One of the hardest challenges I face is to forgive myself for past mistakes, especially those that occurred while I was still a young, undeveloped and ignorant youth. Guilt is not an easy burden, but I’ve tried – and am still trying – to make a positive outcome out of an extremely negative action on my part. However, I’m slowly beginning to accept myself as being a human being – flaws and all. This is one of the most important things I’ve learned from being a Carer.