2013!!! What a year it has been! I entered in to this year filled with excitement and anticipation, knowing that I would celebrate 50 years of life on this planet. The past year has been an exact replica of my 50 years all squeezed in to one. I have watched as time has sped up over the years and learned to savour each moment. It has been a full spectrum life, swinging from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows. I have learned that nothing is forever so there’s no sense in attaching myself to any one thing, person, activity or even a thought. Everything is fluid and it is learning to ride the waves of life that is what living is all about. Loss has been such a central theme in my life and this year has been no different. I have experienced the devastation of something being gone, removed, taken away (when I’m really caught in the victim mode) and I have watched as that space is filled with new life and new opportunity. Living the complete cycle…participating in the birth and death of all that is. I have been caught in the fear of life as my life has been threatened, and I still continue to fight my way in to a space where all is possible. It is a vulnerable place to be and in that vulnerability is my life. If I am not vulnerable and afraid it is because I am doing what I know well, living in the box of security. That box of the known is predictable and comfortable and I have sought solace there, but it is no longer. 2013 was an integral year of change. I was invited in to a world of vulnerability and living in a way I never imagined possible. 2014 is calling me to live outside of the box, in the unknown where nothing yet is imagined and therefore uncertain. It is scary and I am filled with fear. If there’s one thing that I am sure about after this year it is that the purpose of my life is to stretch beyond the confines of what existed before me, to actively participate in the creation of the unknown, to be vulnerable and stop living the illusion of a fearless life but rather embrace living in the fear of the unknown, with every day, and with every breath. 2013 has taught me well that it is only through being fearful that a fearless life is remotely possible.
This year has been filled with opportunities from the beginning of the year. From a week on a catamaran diving with the sharks and living on a boat with complete strangers to a month in Cuba, writing, diving, meditating, being present in the mountains and the sea, playing with, and experiencing the love of friends on so many levels, a private birthday surprise concert with my favourite musician planned by the best friends anyone could ask for and experiencing the power of girl friend love in its most authentic form, add to that, children going off to school, getting married and starting families and all of this in amongst a year of immobility and restriction. Amongst my own vulnerability, I have seen authenticity and beauty in the rawness and vulnerability of others. I have witnessed loved ones desires to stay strong for me and the pain in their eyes when their hearts are breaking with inability to do anything but just “be” with me. In that state of being, I am so aware and filled with gratitude for a life with richness most can only dream of. As the pendulum wildly swings from one side to the other with absolute uncertainty, I realize that the swing is the energy of love, the power of life and when we embrace it wholly, all of it, in complete vulnerability we are able to live a life of passion in all that we do, all that we are and all that we experience.
Wishing you all a year filled with passion to experience life outside of the box you know so well and in to the unknown creating a year beyond your wildest imagination!
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