Welcome to the last month of 2024. It is hard to believe that within thirty days we will be in 2025. As the holidays go zooming by, let me encourage you to reflect and give thanks for all the good, bad and ugly things that have taken place in your life this year. As my voicemail message reminds us all, a day above ground is a good day!
Yet life is more than just having a good day. Living a full and meaningful existence takes work and introspection. As Carl Jung reminds us:
Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams;
– Call Jung 1961
who looks inside, awakens.
In this often crazed, over scheduled, online, plugged in, posting, liking, video watching world it can feel like madness to even attempt to be still, think and sort out what we really want out of life. As we all know, everyone has an opinion about who we should be, how we should be living, and what we should be doing. There are countless opportunities to do, join, share, get involved and even spend our time. All of that on top of just taking care of the day-to-day things of life like laundry and bills. It is indeed overwhelming!
Jung invites us to look inside. He suggested our best path for figuring out what we want and how we intend to spend our time can be deciphered best with self reflection. Only by looking within our own heart can we truly know what matters to us, what we want AND how we want to live each day. I have to agree. Because in the end when we face our last day and look back on how we utilized our gifts, only then will we truly see the fruits of our labors. Now we have to choose wisely how we invest in order to best give what only we can give.
Let me encourage you to set aside time to sit, think and reflect on what you have enjoyed doing and want to do more of, and what you really don’t want to do anymore. How can you step up a bit more and be challenged in a new way? How can you clear up or out in order to have breathing room to grow? And what do you want to learn or do better in order to best share your gifts with the world? Your family? Yourself? These are questions only you can answer, and those answers come best with peace and quiet…and maybe a cookie!
You are worth the time and effort looking into your own heart requires. Have the courage to reveal who you truly want to be with yourself first, then share that best self with all of us. We look forward to knowing all it is you have and want to offer.
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