Happy Lunar New Year!

I missed greeting you in to January’s New Year, my apologies.

My life has been busy and full of creating new inspiring behaviors and habits for this new year.

It feels like a good one, even if there is a lot of turmoil happening on so many levels of our world.

At the end of December I shared an article and an audio for completing 2023 and creating and designing 2024.

Well, I’ve been at work on this myself.

Besides for adding in more consistent self care behaviors and habits that I can build easily build upon, I’ve also embarked, along with my husband, on a de-cluttering project.

We’ve started with physical photos. Some of you may not have as big a collection as we do, but when you’ve been around on the planet for a while, before there was a digital means of photographing, those photos accumulate.

Yes, we have many in albums, but we had many many more that weren’t. They were in envelopes in boxes and taking up not only physical space, but energetic space.

They felt heavy, weighing us down with indecision of what to do with them all and wondering what memories and experiences we were keeping boxed up.

We decided it was time to take action. It was time to do some hard work of going through them, sorting them, scanning them and then eventually getting many onto a digital photo frame, so we could finally enjoy what’s been hid away for so long.

It’s been going on for a month. We developed a habit of doing some work on it most days.

We were fortunate to be able to borrow a friend’s very high end scanner that scans many photos quickly and in high resolution. We sorted them into categories in their digital folders on computer.

And we just finished. Over 4500 scanned photos. And, there were at least over 1000 that went into the trash. We are saving the scanned photos for now and they are living in only a few boxes, instead of 12 boxes and are neatly organized to be able to find what we need, should we choose to access the physical photos for whatever reason.

Why am I sharing all this with you, besides a reason that I haven’t communicated in a while?

I’m sharing this with you because the experience I had looking at my past through my photos was extremely rewarding on so many levels.

#1-Decluttering is freeing. It frees up the energy we can carry around about these things that “should” be getting done.

#2-It’s a huge accomplishment to get through so many photos. When we accomplish a big task, it just plain ole feels good! When we feel good, we’re getting lots of good endorphins in our bodies. I love the endorphin high, don’t you?

#3-And, this for me was the most significant: I got to re-experience all I’ve done, seen and who I’ve been-which all add up to who I am now. It’s an acknowledgement of one’s self.

Even with the sadness of having lost touch with people who were once a part of my life, or feeling the loss of some people who are no longer with us, I was enlivened by the experience of this process.

Looking at those photos brought all the things forgotten back to mind-to re-mind me of how rich my life has been and is.

I’m wanting to share all this with you because I know so many of us can get burdened down with our day to day lives’ chores, to-do lists, and obligations.

We can forget the many joyful paths we’ve been on or the challenges we’ve overcome to be who we are now.

When we use our past to remember our essences, our strengths, our wisdom in choices made that worked well for us, we can utilize those resources of who we really are in our everyday lives.

If we re-mind ourselves of how strong we are, how courageous we are, and how awesome we are, instead of letting that inner critic beat us down, we are bound to feel connected to loving ourselves, our humanity, and our gift to others.

What’s a Next Step?

So, as we enter this Lunar New Year of the Dragon-I’m a Dragon, by the way, I invite you to be strong and fierce in connecting with your true essence of yourself. Stop the shaming and blaming and instead put the stake in the ground for YOU.

Maybe you need to take on a de-cluttering project; maybe you need to really set yourself up for success for self care, maybe you need to step up and take inspired actions that will support you in reaching your desired dreams.

Whatever it is…know you can use your past successes, your past joys, your past “lessons of life” and experiences, as resources to create and build on what it is your heart desires.

If you need any support in clearing out those burdensome aspects of your life and accessing your unique resources while creating new habits and behaviors for an amazing year ahead, let’s talk.

I offer, as always, a complimentary phone (or Zoom, if you prefer) 30 minute Discovery/or Breakthrough the Challenge of Change session.

The time we spend together will allow you to get clear on what is blocking you from where you want to go and what steps are right for you to take so you can get out of the struggle mode and into the flow of making changes that align with who you really are!

I look forward to hearing from you, whether for a complimentary session or just to let me know how you are doing.

I care!

Warmly,

Jackie Foskett