Start with a bang ...

2012 has begun with vigor!

So far, the vigor has involved shedding responsibilities that are no longer serving me:

1. I'm transferring my half of my therapeutic massage partnership to my business partner.  I simply don't want to own that business anymore and don't want to go in those directions.  I want to steer my own ship now. 
2. I'm leaving a healing circle that was created by a Native American elder because of the ego, shadow and constant projections that come from its members.  When you haven't healed yourself, you can't heal others. 

I have spent time focusing on how I would feel at the end of my life, what I would consider my life to consist of were it deemed a success or failure.  When I did this meditation on New Year's day, a few aspects of my life came up wanting in this regard, so I've changed priorities a bit to include more energy and time toward the things that deeply matter to me.

Success to me in my lifetime means working out my life lessons, dealing with unfinished business of past lives and ancestors, and working out my own individual karmic accumulations.  For me it doesn't necessarily mean money and fame :-)  I really don't care about that very much, though I *would* like to have enough money income to be comfortable and have all of my needs met.  I'd LOVE to win a big, fat lottery and be able to take care of everyone I love!  I hope this happens, too, but either way, my "success" in this lifetime is not tied to that.  

Along with this refocusing, I've begun a few projects that astonish myself.  I'm writing fiction, some bawdy, some tame, and I'm also writing a couple of how-to's, one for the massage profession and one for the shamanic profession.  Such hubris I have to think that I can write books! :-)  As Marianne Williamson puts this quandary:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

If not us, then who?  Who am I not to be a voice in the world?  Why else am I here?

Cheers!