January 6, 2016
When the year has been long and successes few
When December comes and you’re feeling blue
God gives a January just for you …
Start Over!
(Woodrow Kroll of “Back to the Bible”)
STUFF I KNOW BY ME © Kathleen McKern Verigin
Start Over
There’s something liberating about the two words: Start Over. Consider when we learned to walk. We likely stumbled and bumbled about, falling numerous times. Imagine if we’d stopped the first time we toppled over because we thought…
Walking is dangerous.
Walking means I could fail.
Walking might cause people to laugh at me.
If any of those thoughts took root, we’d be a society of quitters and sitters. But that’s not how life works. There will be bumps on the road of life. We will stumble and fall. We might fail. And, we have the opportunity to start over, and, if necessary, over and over and over again. The tricky part is knowing if we’re starting over because we’re repeating a negative or destructive pattern, or if we are starting over to put something empowering in motion. That’s what January is for!
January is named after the Roman god Janus. He was depicted with one head and two faces, each looking in the opposite direction. It was the fallow time of year when the past wasn’t quiet finished and the new hadn’t quiet emerged. Therefore, it was considered to be a “time between time.” A time to relax, reflect and ritualize.
It took the recent snow and ice storm here in Portland to motivate me to relax and do nothing. That’s a challenge for me, since I’m a doer. During that down time I reflected on the past year’s events and experiences. A major epiphany emerged from the willingness to dwell in the “time between time.” I have all of January to brew the rituals that will support my vision. If I get off track, I can always start over. That’s what January is for!
We’re only 6 days into 2016. Have you taken time to relax after the flurry of holiday activities? If not, how about starting today? Will you reflect on the past year, seeking the thread that you must release in order to thrive in your aliveness? If not, how about starting today? Can you set into motion a dream or wish or vision through ritual and ceremony? If not today or tomorrow, then sometime in January? Because you can always January to….
START OVER!
Want to see the downside of starting over? Check out this spoof of a promo
for a fake movie titled “Starting Over.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLGYc_uLeLg
Starting Over with Brooke Shields