Ongoing pandemic or not, we still have so much control over where we place our intention and our attention. What are you pointing yours toward as we move into this (symbolic but as meaningful as we decide it to be) fresh start of the new year?

So now here we are. Each of us in our own family units, our own communities, this country, and the world, together in this same wild situation. Reminded every day – every moment, in fact - how inextricably interwoven our cells and well-being and lives as beings on this planet are.

So it's not a question of whether we'll suffer. It's only a question of whether that suffering will feed our highest Selves and set more ripples of kindness and love into motion into the world, or feed our ego and unconscious patterns in ways that perpetuate the endless cycle of suffering.

You'll experience more of whatever you regularly focus on this year. So bring some kind, consistent attention to what you want to experience this coming year, starting right now by pausing to write what you most want to create or experience down.

What might shift for you if you were to act as if everything your heart most desires is already on its way? If you could relax and trust that you're right on track, how would you use this down time to weed your garden and prep the soil for the sweet new things about to blossom? What happens when you stop waiting and start preparing?

You might not understand why you've been called to do the thing you feel called to do, but you do it anyway because it just feels right. It's only in hindsight that you see how it all connects.

You don't have to believe it fully for the seeds of possibility to start to germinate. You just have to keep the door of possibility open, and acknowledge that even slightest sliver of what's possible.

When we align our actions in a committed way with our most sincerely heartfelt desires, the universe tends to step in to support us in some way, even if not in exactly the way we'd envisioned. But we have to meet the universe halfway.

You never know whose life you might be changing for the better right this second by just showing up. There's no different way, no "more” you need to be to positively impact someone's life right now.

Don't sweat the details at first. They'll clarify as you go. Start with just the ONE thing you know from deep in your being you want - and you see - in your ideal future day. Keep that one thing front and center in your vision; trust it and build on it.

You are not in your way. Only your judgments of yourself are. Let the self-judgment go and you're free.

But there's an alternative to this stress-inducing, actually counter-productive type of "time management": To tune into your inner energy in a given moment and let it guide you in the most appropriate-for-this-moment action to take next.

The ability of a consistent mindfulness practice to enhance our physical and emotional wellbeing, among a long list of other benefits, is truly profound. And ultimately most profound in its ability to open us up to the reality of how inextricably interconnected all beings are, and the love and compassion that gets uncorked with that clear seeing.