New Year’s Day

It’s a new day….

Michael Bublee says it best! A new life, a new day, and I’m feeling good! New Year’s Day is the first page in a blank book: Let’s write a phenomenal story!

I challenge you to pull out a piece of paper, take out your journal and write down at least 2 things you can change in the new year and at least 5 things or events you are grateful for from the past year! Remember make your new year resolutions achievable like “walking at least 5,000 steps each day!” Why? It keeps you motivated to do more…next day you might walk 10,000/day which is the achievable “secret” health goal. This year I ended my year walking 12,000 steps in a city I never traveled to before (oh yes, it was partially a Christmas gift so ”thank you” family) ….and it felt great!

2022 from Madrid

Everyone has hopes (or resolutions) on new year’s day and as we begin the year 2022 let’s think of what we have accomplished to date…. we are alive, breathing, and doing the BEST we can despite the last 2 years of a global pandemic, economic downfalls for many countries, and ecological disasters throughout the world. I put on my warm socks, drank my anti-oxidant tea 🍵, started to sort through leftover stuff to clear the space and the mind, keeping that lucky ”faux” pomegranate (its traditional for the first visitor Day 1, in the Greek home to take a pomegranate and smash it — in a bag of course — and the seeds to represent luck and prosperity for the year) fostering an attitude of gratitude, being kind! I made my list, and thinking about:

  • all the things I’m grateful for …. how about you?
  • all the things I accomplished (some against all odds!) or hoping to accomplish
  • doing my annual medical tests to stay healthy and necessary prevention
  • increasing cash “flow” & spiritual “glow”
  • guiding our children and youth in the best ways possible
  • being more creative

Make this year your most creative one yet!

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Smile 😊 it’s a NEW Year!

We are turning the “chapters” of our life pages, renewal and moving ahead. Smile it’s a new year 2021 — 365 new days for ideas and renewed hope and life chances!

One of the best “calendars” I have received and a great message “Smile” 😊 try new things and develop gratitude …. what 3 new things will you try? I’ve outlined a few ideas 💡 ….

Let’s shed light on things we’ve neglected
  1. Enrol in online classes with 365 quotes by Persian poet Rumi? OR some belly dance classes to shed pounds\kilos? There are many courses like DailyOm or sites like MindValley that are certainly interesting!
  2. Clean house, clean out old habits, particularly those bad ones that affect your health (body, mind, spirit), as well as your community’s well-being. (Respect your own body and build immunity, think about your ‘cave’ be less selfish, respect others & refresh cities).
  3. The calendar 📅 of happiness ? Check out this link (actionforhappiness).
Begin 2021 with new ideas & new energy
No it’s not the Covid virus 😆 ….they are Fireworks 🎇
Some guided meditations are useful instead of only passive breathing, tap into your active mind !

In with the new…. “cutting” the year ahead

IMG_1835This year started on the right foot …friends, family and rethinking modern time challenges. Traveling across continents helps one understand what younger and older people are influenced by and what brings the integenerations together! On New Year’s Eve I attended a smoke-free event, on New Year’s Day I read two popular magazines — one local and one national — a renowned national newspaper, learned about an odd game of “Cards Against Humanity”, and partook in some sing-a-long activities.

imageStarting with the last most unpolitically correct game I suppose the linguistic humorists make the “cut” here ….. personally not sure I like it but it got people off their mobile smartphones!

Regarding language, reading a great article in the local New England Magazine December 2018 issue (photo above) by clinical social worker Andrew Aaron I read a great term “emotional hibernation”. The focus was about how much people  don’t communicate and “in-pain partners look for a sign to be valued waiting for the cold winter of insensitivity to pass in the warm spring of love to arrive” (p. 55). Openess is indeed an essential aspect of love and what’s needed in the new year! And what about our over-indulgence and need for “likes” in social media creating anxiety and FOMO (fear of missing out)?!

We took about 45 minutes with the older generation singing around “Kostas” the bouzouki player giving me hope in inter-generation of community involvement with the power of music. It got the kids off their tablets and slowly young adults coming in. This should be a requirement of community health literacy.imageSpeaking of community living, many of us around the globe take for granted our hair and clothes not stinking from smoke as others abuse our rights for clean air.  Such a logical and simple thing! To think that many of us in the 1980s and 1990s lived the Big Tobacco fights to witnesss their ever ending expansion into the rest of the unsuspecting world.

What resolutions and good habits do you want to start in the new year ahead!? Food for thought no matter how you cut your New Year’s cake, well wishes & happy 2019 to all.

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