Re-making Our Lives In the New Year

Welcome to 2018! I know from the many I see every week that statement is likely a mixed bag, isn’t it?

We have all come through varying types and intensities of change and many of us are feeling as if we are in that uncomfortable space between how it used to be and knowing what’s coming next. Above is an eight minute talk I gave this past summer about being in that space. I hope you enjoy it.

Before I share more about these shifting times and moving forward in our lives, I want to share this with you.

My purpose and Kusum Institute’s purpose is to be a constant soft space in this world for you to land. A place where you can find quiet, warmth and guidance. A place to let your body and mind re-relax so you can keep your focus where you would like to move and actually enjoy your life more NOW along the way.

Please feel free to join us anytime for our ongoing daily yoga and meditation classes. If consistent classes don’t work for you right now but you want to learn more about all this and how to bring it into your life, come in for any of our workshops, no experience needed. For more specific info:

Finding a place like this to be can help so much as we go through change.

We each had our individual experiences of 2017. But the common thread I see is that it was a year of foundations starting to creak, rumble loudly then begin to visibly shift before our eyes… at the unseen level within each of us, in the set up of our daily lives, in the previously unchanging fiber of our world structures.

I also see that we were in many years of preparation for this collective time.

For quite a while now, starting to feel restless as if we didn’t fit into certain parts of our lives any longer, maybe even realizing that what want may have changed, the re-evaluating, discerning what is no longer working for us, the letting go that has been occurring either voluntarily or not. Not easy.

And here we are with a lot changed, maybe a lot still in the process of leaving us, likely uncomfortable and a little unsettled about it all. But here’s the key…

Hidden in plain sight, right under our noses, but unseeable through the distraction of the very real challenges we’ve been facing, something else has been developing.

Space. The uncomfortable space that resides between the letting go and the knowing what the next phase will look like.

We all habitually have the urge to jump out of this space of not yet knowing because it can feel like we don’t have solid grounding… so precarious and unbearable. We jump out by quickly choosing the first new opportunity that comes along so that we don’t have to be in the not knowing.

But here’s my message at the start of this new cycle in 2018. Let’s not jump out. Let’s stop primarily focusing on the past things that were not working.

With courage and eyes wide open, let’s hang out in this space between AS RELAXED AS WE CAN BE while we re-choose, re-form and re-build. Let’s trust that something in us will know when the next right choices come. This part CAN be exciting because things that we can’t imagine yet can happen if we don’t habitually re-make the old.

We know what it’s like to habitually do things the same old way . To get a different result we have to do something differently. To do something differently we have to think differently. To think differently we need the desire, a little gumption and new ways of thinking about things…. which is why we take classes, read books and learn from others who approach life differently.

What would happen if we waited for something out of the ordinary? That we didn’t expect? That really flips our trigger? 🙂

How to start? Instead of only focusing our eyes on what is no longer right in our lives, let’s put some intentional strength into finding different options for ways to think and be in this world. Let’s intentionally focus on those things that we KNOW are calling us and that light us up.

Even if the things that light us up make no sense and we don’t know how they could ever become a major part of our lives, follow them. Find small to large ways every day to participate in them, take small steps towards them, stop negating them and KNOW they will find ways to be in our lives more regularly if we can let ourselves physically and mentally relax with trying to figure it out. And if we do that as long as it takes, three things are for sure:

Keep it light. Lighten up. Lighten your load. Head towards the light. 🙂

As always, if you have questions or aren’t sure where to start, feel free to visit me at www.PennyClum.com and my studios at www.KusumInstitute.com .

May this be a year of learning to find more ease in our bodies, lightening our own loads and finding those things that bring us joy.

May all beings everywhere live happy, healthy and free from suffering and may our actions benefit our lives and all lives we touch.