With the year coming to an end, I have embarked on my usual activity of reflecting on the year that’s passed and identifying an intention to set for the year to come, in a form of a word. Over the past 4 years, the words have been rather clear and easy to identify. I started this journey in 2017 when I set the intention of patience, followed by risk in 2018, then trust in 2019 and finally hope for 2020. They have served as my daily anchors throughout the year, so that I can practice them and pay more attention to them.
But I can’t seem to figure out the right word and intention for 2021, I’m sure it will come to me in due course. I needed some inspiration so I started reading a couple of poems from Rupi Kaur’s new book Home Body (highly recommend it) and I opened up to a poem that completely expanded my heart and mind as it gave me such an obvious insight to something that I’ve been looking at for years and yet never really seen it from this perspective. The poem goes:
be here
in what needs to be done today
– that’s how you honour tomorrow
Rupi Kaur – Home Body p 172.
Such a simple and short message that really helped me align two competing parts of me 1) the part that wants to plan for the future and 2) the part of the me that knows being present is the key to truly living a fulfilling life. It’s as though This poem made me realise that it’s not about letting go of one perspective in order to fulfil the other, instead recognising that by being present I am already working towards the future that I want to create. This is a lesson that I need to sit with and practice until I can truly embrace it for what it is trying to so elegantly point out.
Maybe the intention for next year is to ‘be here’; yes its 2 words, but maybe that’s what’s needed. I’m going to sit with it and see how it feels and if it’s the right time to set this intention. It’s not about creating an expectation of something that I can’t truly practice, so I want to choose the intention that feels the most relevant for my Soul Journey.
In the meantime, I want to share with you the top 10 principles I learned about practicing Hope this year:
- Hope requires daily practice, when things are hard and everything seems impossible, that’s when you have to choose to be hopeful.
- Being hopeful doesn’t mean you’re not afraid and don’t have anxiety about the future, it just means that you are trusting the uncertainty and letting go of the fears.
- Hope reminds you that beautiful things can take place in the midst of chaos, tragedy and pain, you just need to maintain the perspective that there is always beauty around you, even if it doesn’t seem obvious at first glance
- It’s not over, until it is actually over and even then, is it over or is it just different to what you expected? If you decide to give into the pain and the grief then you won’t be able to manifest the high vibrations and energy that can create a ripple effect of good and optimism. Don’t quit when you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, use hope as your guiding torch.
- Hope doesn’t mean you get what you want, it just means you have the strength to accept what is meant to be.
- It’s a cycle, having hope and becoming optimistic. It’s like asking what came first, the chicken or the egg? Doesn’t matter, the important thing is that you recognise how they interplay with each other.
- Don’t be deterred if others don’t practice being hopeful. Just because they’re not hopeful doesn’t mean there is no hope.
- Hope is the fuel that keeps you going, when the depression and the anxiety want to crush you. You still have to go through the motions, there is no way out of pain except through it, but when you have hope, you have the will to keep on going.
- Some days you will have a clear vision of what it is you are hoping for, other days you just rely on the concept; both are necessary, both are ok.
- You can’t have hope, if you don’t trust that you are worthy of good things happening to you too. Love yourself.
Love Always,
M
Souloom™ 