In the morning, I go to my spiritual space, a repurposed section of my formal living room, and open the blinds which I closed the night before as the darkness approached. No half-mast to for me. I pull them to the top of the six-foot windows. My mother did the same in our row house outside of Philadelphia. At 4pm in the winter, she closed the shutters she had installed on the windows facing the street to ensure our privacy. In the morning she opened them the let in the light of day.
As I opened the blinds today, one day before the New Year, it occurred to me that I was intentionally seeking light after two years of the darkness and oppression of the Covid virus, in preparation for the New Year. I could feel a glimmer of hope for the first time in a long time based on the predictions that the pandemic will become and endemic in 2022 and eventually fade to become a virus we treat in a comparable way to the flue. I’m not expecting these changes soon. However, just the possibility that I won’t spend all the last years of my life in the darkness and constraints of Covid has given me hope.
It seems important, especially during this pandemic to take hope where we can find it. Just two days ago I posted on Facebook that I was looking for things to do in the New Year that excite me and although I could find activities that interest me, nothing got me excited. I wondered if I’ve become repressed over the las two years of while reducing my life to a microscopic space. Will it take me time to open again and feel the excitement for life that I used to?
I decided to be intentional about bringing light, laughter, and hope to my life in the New Year. Intention + attention = miracles. Here are my thoughts:
- Make seeking light and laughter the theme of my New Year. Write this on the cover of my spiritual notebook I see first thing each morning. Download a screen saver to remind me each day of that I seek light and laughter.
- Plan travel with my husband, my daughter, or my girlfriends, the lights of my life, even if it must be local.
- Take rides with my husband in his new 1952 MG convertible around the beautiful countryside where we live as soon as the weather is good enough and notice the light around us as we drive.
- Make a list of friends who I can laugh with and intentionally schedule time with them in person if possible – at least one person per week. Put this in my schedule.
- Call my former coach friends, those who embody light and laugh easily – at least once every two weeks. Put this in my schedule.
- Identify those people I know who embody darkness for whatever reason and minimize my time or eliminate my time with them. I’m not say I will abandon those who are having a tough time. I am saying too much time spent with those who are stuck in their own darkness distracts us from our own light.
- Reframe the content of the book I’m writing and my blog as “lightwork” or reflections that illuminate which I hope they do.
- Take my own “light temperature” each morning. Am I a ten meaning I am filled with light flowing through me, my Spirit is alive, and I have energy, or am I a three meaning, I should stop and do an exercise to focus on bringing light to me, or explore what may be dimming my light and plan to deal with the situation or person impacting me.
- Ask for guidance on what I can do each day to brighten my own light so I can lighten the lives of others or lighten their burdens.
Each of us can metaphorically throw open the blinds on our eyes each morning and ask God, our Spirit, the Creator, the Universe, the Source, etc., to grant us the light to see more clearly, to brighten the day for others, and enable positive change in the world.
Wishing you light, laughter, and hope in the New Year!
Sincerely,
Barrie
