Starting 2011 Off On A Good Foot… After Rewinding A Bit…

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Hello! Welcome to a fresh new year! A year filled with anything you can create… anything you want it to become.

Our family took a few minutes on New Years Eve to write down (on our massive chalkboard that I blog about creating here) all the things we want to manifest in 2011.

Then we walked around the house with a sage smudge stick and cleared the old energy out of each room, adding back in love and excitement for this new year.

But a funny thing happened…. the smudge stick stayed lit while we walked through the downstairs, through each and every room… then up the steps into our bedroom… then our bathroom… where it promptly died.

I had entered the bathroom and took one look at the clutter, the gross nasty surfaces and my little tiny stash of make up and hair stuff shoved into one corner… overtaken by the rest of the family… toothbrushes and toothpaste and washcloths and electric shavers and drinking glasses and tons of other stuff… and I instantly felt crowded out.

I started telling my husband that this is how I feel most of the time — this is my one spot where I’d like five minutes to focus on *me* — help me start off the day feeling pulled together and with fresh breath and a freshly scrubbed face… yet I have to fight for those five (more like two) minutes in between the rest of the family’s needs.

Blah blah blah. Poor me. I’m the only one who cleans up this place, the only one who brings the dishes down and cooks breakfast and brushes the kids teeth and yadda yadda yadda.

Then guess what. I turned and looked at the smudge stick. Dead. Fire put out, no more smoke wafting through the room, no more energy being cleared out.

Well no wonder.

Whew, with all the crap I was spewing from my mouth, it was so toxic in there I had managed to complain all the life out of my poor little smudge stick, and smothered it.

Whoops.

Rewind.
In our family, if we do something/say something we regret, we graciously allow a rewind. I love that. A chance to start over… and boy I needed that.

So I re-lit the smudge stick, and promptly moved on to the rest of the house.

And the rest of our New Years was awesome… we went to the beach for the afternoon (pics from that day will be posted on Wed…) then fireworks at home, fireworks with friends, late night Jackie Chan movies, and all four of us passing out just before the New Year actual rung in. Perfect.

When I woke up on the first day of the new year, I had a new energy. A new feeling. A new hope. Could it be more obvious that complaining is not the way for me to go?

Complaining is adding toxic energy to a situation that you already don’t like.

If you don’t believe me, just ask my poor smudge stick.

So complaining is out, and a fresh new take is in. My new take on my bathroom situation?

Not much has changed, except how I look at it. I on purpose didn’t clean it… wanting to *choose* this life, this experience, this sharing messy smooshed together life with my amazing family. I absolutely love it and can’t believe I wasted one moment of my time complaining about it.

My bathroom symbolizes how I care for myself… most of the time I take care of everyone else and my face, my clothes and my hygiene look like my bathroom sink… dirty, greasy, in need of a fresh start. And most of the time I’m thankful for that… as I know the days I am truly wanted and needed by my little ones grow numbered.

I figure I have the last third of my life, when my children are launched and grown, to sit around washing and powdering my face, taking long showers, getting my haircut at a salon (instead of my husband trimming it at 10 PM like he did for me two weeks ago…)

But by then I won’t want that extra time… who really cares if my eyebrows are perfectly plucked… what I’ll be missing are those voices shouting “Mommy, I’m thirsty!” as I’m trying desperately to fit in brushing my teeth. I love being Mommy even more then I love being Laura.

So gratitude… that’s the order of the day… gratitude that I have so many toothbrushes to share my bathroom sink with.

And in the meantime, I decided to lit an incense for myself when I need a little reminder to treat myself well, to soak things in, to find my own space, to find my own way… not complaining to my husband, but rather taking a moment to fulfill my own needs.

So on New Years Day, I started off the year not by cleaning my bathroom, but by allowing the mess to be… grateful and in harmony with the clutter, I cleared a small spot by the faucet and found a tiny old mustard jar, filled it with the only things I could find (an old marble and a few rocks and sea shells my kids had picked up along the way) and stuck an incense into it.

Told you the sink was disgusting! Just ignoring all the discolored splotches and splatters, here I stand, dirty hair in a bun and in my Xmas flannel PJ’s that Grammy gave our family… thanks Mom!

Lighting the incense, I washed my face and watched the smoke dance up through the air, clearing the way.
And guess what. It stayed lit!

Laughing to myself, grateful for shutting my mouth and being thankful for what I have, and for finding my own solution to my own complaints, I’m ready to pick up where I left off… holding a new flame.

One that I won’t put out with my own thoughts or my words.

How long can I keep this new one lit? I’m aiming for all year.

This year, 2011, is not to be squandered… it’s to be cherished. I need that reminder every once in a while.

Consider walking through your house with a sage stick or an incense this week, to clear out your old habits, thoughts and energy, and make way for 2011. Heck, if your smudge stick stays lit the entire time, you are off to a better start then I was!

And I truly think 2011 will be our best year yet. It’s going to be hard to beat such a fabulous 2010… but my heart is light and full of joy, my children are more fun then ever, and my husband is the rock of our world. Yep, 2011 is going to be a good year. xoxo