As the Year and Decade Draw to a Close....

Making Mindful Transitions for Joyful Living

This year ends and the millennial decade is over – not just another year but a new decade begins. How will you be closing out the decade and the year? What baggage do you need to leave behind and what do you need to pick up for your journey ahead? Will this year that perhaps brought significant challenges and changes just come and go or will you be marking its end and the beginning of a new year in a way that invites presence, joy and a fresh start?

It is usually about the time that Christmas decorations appear in the mall and we start making plans for Thanksgiving that we wonder, “where did this year go? I had such plans and I feel as if I did not accomplish all I wanted to do.” Enter the holidays and the bustle and busyness involved. Before we know it, it’s Valentines or Easter. Days come and go in a blur of calendar pages flying past and the life we desire continues to be a dream or something accomplished in fits and starts.

Our ancestors marked the passage of time with feast days, festivals, ritual and celebration. Community was an important part of these events. They celebrated, played, danced and made music, conducted rituals and rites of passage, witnessed, and much more. Modern culture uses holidays as a way to take a rest from our over scheduled lives and jobs. We no longer have much time to celebrate, express gratitude, grieve and move consciously forward with purpose. We seldom venture into the public square to acknowledge the richness of our lives preferring to vacation away from that community and usually in relative isolation.

Tri-athletes know that races can be won or lost in the transitions. How we mark transitions in life and time is important. Too often we never really end things but drift into something new. The residue of the past clouds the joy and clarity to be found in the new. Baggage that should be left behind is schlepped into the future. Unrealized dreams and goals are part of that baggage even though those dreams and goals no longer fit our life. Accomplishments never sink in as they are part of the blur and not celebrated. As I work with coaching clients, I often see that many false starts are the result of unconscious, untidy endings.

As the year comes to a close I would invite you to consider the following as a way of consciously and powerfully moving into the New Year;

• Take inventory of what the past year and decade have been for you
• Identify what you no longer need and can leave behind
• Design/join in ritual and celebration to acknowledge, celebrate and complete
• Invite or join with others – your community - in marking the transition of the year/decade
• Find time to be present to what you really desire in your life – not someone else’s goals/standards but what is deep in your heart. Let this awareness come less from the mind and more from the body and the gut
• Take time to remember ancestors and invite spirit to assist and support you
• Life should be fun and playful so do not allow all of this to be only serious and ponderous.

New Year Visions is this and much more. I would invite you to join us at Wildwood to be supported in loving, naked community as you transition your year. We will join together to create play and ritual to assist us in imagining a more powerful and joyful future free from the elements of the past we no longer need/want.

Over the next few weeks I will be adding items to my website to assist you in closing and beginning new chapters in your life. Please check back often as I will update frequently between now and the end of the year.

Dave Allen is a Life and Erotic Coach specializing in creating safe space for men to build the bridge from the life they have to the life they desire; living in bodies they love, with joyful erotic expression, authentic spiritual connection and moving forward with power, play and joy. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . www.coach4men.com