Some Final Thoughts

The year is almost over.  The world too?  Doesn't feel like the world is going to end today, but you never know.  It's constantly changing, that's for sure.  There's a never-ending life-death-life cycle.  Pema Chodron says to "...know we are always in transition, that the only time is now, and that the future is completely unpredictable and open."  I don't know about you, but that leaves me comforted/hopeful and scared at the same time.  Or comforted/hopeful sometimes and scared other times.  

This year I have focused on fear and fearlessness, "fearless" being my word of the year.  What I have come to realize is that we can move through and past many fears.  So many of them are bogus, based on false beliefs, but still there to deal with none-the-less.  We cannot ignore fear.  We can try, but it will keep coming up until we deal.  

"The only way to the Place beyond Fear is to do the thing you fear most.  This is how to surrender to your best destiny." ~Martha Beck

I have found it helpful to specifically determine my biggest, deepest fears.  To imagine them and envision how I would cope.  Not fun, painful in fact, but helpful.  And inevitably, by choosing a word of the year like fearless, I have actually had to face some of my biggest fears.  Not a fun word of the year!  Next year's will be less intense. 

Conclusion: I may never be fearless, but by goddess, I will be brave and determined.  Come hell or high water, end of the world or its sometimes tedious persistence...I am strong, I am woman, hear me howl!