Out With The Old & In With The New!

“There comes a point when you know without a doubt, without hesitation, that you cannot go back to your old life. You cannot be who you once were and also have a new life with new riches.” – Julie McIntrye

As 2020 comes to a close and many look forward to the new year for obvious reasons, I want to ask you, have you made a New Year’s resolution? At this time of year, many make resolutions about losing weight, exercising, and being more disciplined in various areas. I usually don’t make resolutions except for a couple of years ago when I did resolve to eat more pizza (I know…a truly brilliant idea!). Let me tell you, I felt fantastic making and accomplishing this goal! If I'm going to make a resolution, at least I want to make it something that will make me feel good!

Speaking of feeling good, that is my new resolution. Feeling good more often. Feeling good about leaving the old behind and welcoming my “new life with new riches.” I’m suspecting many of us would also like to embrace something new and better than what we experienced in 2020.

In order to move forward and take hold of “new riches,” many of us need more than just a change in the calendar year or an end to this pandemic. I believe, letting go of the “old life”- the limiting thoughts, toxic beliefs, attitudes and relationships - is necessary to birth all that is possible for us in our work and in our personal lives. Like the saying goes, “Old ways won’t open new doors.”

While many focus on worthy endeavours in the realm of health and fitness, I thought I’d mention some patterns of thinking we could all do without:

Fear

For some of us, fear is keeping us imprisoned. In fact, I would say fear is holding most of our world hostage right now. The news feeds us a steady diet of fear. Fear of the getting sick, fear of losing a precious relationship, fear of not having enough (money, time, recognition, information, power, prestige, etc.), fear of not being good enough or looking good enough or knowing enough; fear of being inadequate to handle a situation… fear of oh so many things! 

For sure there are some things we need to have a healthy respect and fear of, however, many of our fears are actually no more than thoughts we have in our heads and not necessarily the truth. I know this for a fact. When I was a teenager, I was anorexic for 5 years. My thinking was that I was grossly overweight and so I stopped eating properly and exercised compulsively. In reality, I was underweight. So, my fears told me I needed to lose weight to be accepted and “good enough.” The reality is that I was born good enough. Fear told me as a child not to speak up until I confronted that fear, found my voice and I've spent most of my career doing public speaking and loving it.

Fear lies to us my friend. When fear takes over, confidence dissipates and we end up burying the dreams and the potential we were born with. We don’t level up, show up or seize opportunities the way we could.

What are your fears?

Are there any you would like to break up with?

Haven’t you been dating them long enough?

Bitterness

Maybe part of the old life you decide to shed is bitterness. Maybe there is someone in your past or in your present that you need to forgive. Maybe the person you need to forgive is yourself as you wrestle with regret or shame from the past. Actually, if you’re honest, there are likely many people you are holding resentment towards. You know, the people who betrayed you, rejected you, overlooked you, insulted you, treated you less then what you deserve. Maybe they aren’t even in your present life and it’s the person who hurt you decades ago that you’re still holding a grudge towards.

Who are you giving your power to? Who do you need to forgive?

Being alive means people can offend and really hurt us in some way. The good news is, we have the ability to shake off an offense or to choose to extend forgiveness even without having a conversation with the other person.  Forgiveness is not excusing what the other person did. Forgiveness is choosing to love yourself enough to not let what the person did or didn’t do steal your peace and joy. And that’s not all. Forgiveness is actually shown to be good for our health!  

There is an increasing amount of scientific evidence on the mind-body connection. Every thought we think affects every cell of our body (so be careful what thoughts you dwell on). Now more than ever, it’s imperative we stay healthy and have a strong immune system so that means warding off toxic thoughts, like bitterness and fear, which weaken our immune systems.

You may have heard the saying by Malachy McCourt: “Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” When we hold on to some type of animosity towards another person, part of us dies.

Do you really want that for yourself? Or do you long to be truly alive?

Limited Thinking

Many of us keep the doors to exciting possibilities closed because we hold a limited vision of our futures. As part of the “new riches,” let’s continue to dream big and expect big despite everything that has gone on before this moment. If we don’t expect it, it’s likely not going to happen. Now for sure we need to work hard, hone our talents and abilities and learn from our past experiences, but we also need to fix our gaze beyond what we see now and beyond what we’ve seen in the past.

Like professional athletes who train their minds to focus on the goal of their prize, we must learn not to be distracted by the news, the doom and gloom, who has done us wrong, what dreams haven’t been fulfilled and steadfastly pursue the thoughts that feed our soul and lead us to our destiny. One of the facts I find helpful is knowing that according to quantum physics, limitless possibilities exist in each moment. How incredible and exciting is that? For more on this, I urge you to read Dr. Joe Dispenza’s book, You Are the Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter.

I don’t know about you but I didn’t come into this world to be a victim. I came here for a purpose and so I can’t let what has happened in the past deter me. Forget that. And I can’t let the negative opinions and words of others hold me back.  

So those are just a few things we could let go of in order to be mentally and emotionally stronger and to make room for the new and improved life we deserve. And I guess there’s no harm in mentioning that it may be in our best interest to let go of few other things like:

·harsh judgements towards ourselves and others

·people who bring us down and speak negative words over our lives

·our addiction to: social media, having to be right, having to have praise from others, judging or comparing ourselves to others, obsessively checking our phones, a certain activity or substance (except pizza!!).

So, if you’re like me and you want to feel better and create an atmosphere for positive change, I encourage you to challenge your thoughts. Challenge your beliefs. Challenge your fears, your bitterness, your limited thinking because you hold the keys to your future.

Let’s let 2021 be a time we step into realizing the power we have all been given and stop believing we are victims. We have all been given a brain and the ability to choose how we will respond to what happens and to create a better future.

Let’s reimagine our new lives with its new riches. It starts NOW. Let’s make it awesome!