Partying Like it’s My Birthday

Because it actually is my birthday. I’m having all the feels. 59. Holy fork. So I’m pondering, as one does on birthdays, on what 58 brought. A lot of contrast. (I just started listing it all. Um, no. Backspace, backspace, backspace…) The details of the “problems” are not the part that’s important. EVER. It’s what the problems made us want that counts.

Last year’s challenge was practicing what I preach. I mean, I always try to do that. My success varies. But last year, I struggled. You’ll see the ups and downs in this year’s annual, which I’m calling A Year of Bliss? Volume 3. Unless I come up with something better. We’re working on the cover this weekend. It’s only a couple of weeks away from release. It compiles all my spiritual writings of 2020. I wrote honestly about the challenges of the year. But in all that struggle, I am and have been ever aware of the powerful desires being born. Also, my focus got a helluva workout.

'Your focus needs more focus'

Being determined to find something to feel good about in the midst of chaos makes our focusing muscles stronger. Distracting ourselves from compelling noise to regain our alignment with Source makes our focus stronger because of those very conditions we’re focusing away from. Even if we only manage to achieve alignment from time to time, each time improves everything. Every time we managed to feel good anyway in all of 2020, we empowered ourselves.

The difficult times are the like Diana’s bowstring being drawn back and back and back. The arrow is our desire for the opposite of what we have been living, for solutions superior to anything so far lived, for well-being whatever that looks like to us, for our fondest wishes, hopes, and dreams coming true. For expansion.

Our bowstring has been drawn back far, my friends. My year of being 58 pulled that bowstring tremblingly tight. And I am well aware, I had a pretty good year in comparison to many.

When the contrast at last begins to fall away, as is happening from my perspective right now, the bowstring is released, and the arrow flies. I need to clean that statement up. When at last, I am able to align myself more with the solution than with the problem, the instant that balance tilts, twang–shhhhhhooooooshhhh, the arrow flies.

Well, my arrow was missile for me this year.

My 2021 Quest

As longtime readers know, I set a sort of a theme for every year. I meditate and mull over the year gone by during the time between Winter Solstice and year’s end. What did I learn? What do I now want, based on that new knowledge? That sort of thing. I decide my focus, my chief goal. And this year’s was huge.

This year, I vowed to follow my bliss. To me this means to do what most calls to me every minute of every day. But not just to do that, but to do it knowing beyond any doubt that following my Inner Voice will lead me rapidly toward my desires. It felt right, that theme. I had been implementing it now and then, here and there, and it had gone well, although I mostly noticed myself hitting walls and roadblocks and not feeling well when I wasn’t following that guidance. When I wasn’t aligned enough to follow it. This year, I vowed, I would follow it always, in absolute faith. The Fool Card in Tarot perfectly illustrates the energy. He looks at his paper, his list, his goals, his intent, and it seems he’s about to step off a cliff, but that’s a leap of faith. It’s going where his alignment calls him to go. This is the path of the Mystic. The path of the Shaman. The path of the Witch.

Where it has led me, is a place I never thought I would be. I stepped off the cliff.

Guidance through TV remote?

I was flipping channels one day, looking for something to watch while I decided which fun thing to do next, when I saw that a recording was in progress for Super Soul Sunday. I had not realized the O Network had been added to my streaming service. It was the one thing I had missed since switching a year or so ago and I was happy to see it back, so I clicked on it, in progress.

Suzy Amis Cameron was talking to Oprah about her book, The OMD Plan; Swap One Meal a Day to Save Your Health and Save the Planet. At the very moment I tuned in, Oprah was repeating something Suzy had said back to her, as a kind of amazed question. “You changed the very next day after seeing the film?” And Suzy said, “The very next day. We emptied the cupboards, the fridge, everything.”

I had to watch a little more to learn what the film was that had such an impact, and what kind of change Suzy and hubs James Cameron had made. They had switched to an entirely plant-based diet, and the health benefits she mentioned were astounding. I mean, to the point were you’d think it impossible. And the environmental stuff was equally compelling.

I had to watch the documentary that had changed her life. I mean, I kind of had a feeling it was going to tell me things I would rather not know, but I had to at least watch it. I had to. I was compelled, it was a moment of absolute guidance.

So after only 10 minutes of Super Soul Sunday, I switched to searching the streaming services until I found the documentary, Forks Over Knives on Amazon. It was not included in Prime, but I was feeling led, so I rented it for $3.99. I turned it on right then. Within minutes my jaw had dropped. When hubs came in, I said, “We have to watch this together,” and started it over.

It was a revelation

The next day, we, like the Camerons, changed our diets entirely. I’m not going to use this space to preach the benefits of a plant-based diet. If you want to know that you can watch the film like I did. It was like a missing puzzle piece that snapped into place for us both. (I’m so glad we are on the same page!) It was a moment of, well, duh. Obviously. Why aren’t we already doing this?

For us, this is the most direct path to the best health of our lives. And “for us” is the operative phrase there. We have followed our guidance to this pathway. It fits us so beautifully and we’re feeling so great that we have an inclination to tell everyone about it. But of course, it’s not going to be the perfect fit for everyone else. It fits us. That’s enough.

The food is not the point

The point isn’t WHAT our new path is. The point is THAT it is. I’ve been reclaiming my alignment, trusting my inner voice, following my bliss faithfully and consistently. I’m at a point in my life where I can do that easily, where it fits in naturally. I have two businesses that I love. Three, really, when our gorgeous Koi aren’t in torpor.

My shift was from doing what I felt I should be doing, into what I felt called to do. That’s what set everything else into motion. Caveat: I am doing what I feel called to do from a place of alignment. Which requires pretty steadily tending to my vibration. Not working at it, but allowing it. Shifting focus when it strays to nonsense, shifting back, steadily back to good.

So following my bliss led to a very dramatic, incredibly healthy lifestyle makeover that felt like it should have been really hard, a struggle, an effort. But instead, it couldn’t have been easier. We stepped into it easily and naturally. We aren’t missing anything or craving anything. We’re finding all the resources we need, we’re becoming amateur chefs together, adding a new layer to our relationship. My amazing spouse even found me a double chocolate plant-based birthday cake. (I tasted crumbles from the box, and it’s amazing. I would never know it was different from a cake made with animal products.) He had to have it shipped from NYC. What a treasure he is!

Results?

Pounds are falling off and I’m watching to make sure I get enough calories. Having been a serial dieter and WW Lifetime Member, I never in my wildest dreams would have predicted I would one day be counting to make sure I have enough. Lance and I both feel healthier than we have in years, and that’s changed my attitude about my birthday. I feel like this year is going to be a banner year for Lance and I, for my Bliss Business, for my health and well being, and for our family.

My Inner Being says, “Buckle up, Buttercup.” If just a month of following my bliss has brought on a shift this momentous, and made it feel like a cakewalk, I cannot even imagine what the rest of 2021 is going to be like. But I’m pretty sure it’s going to be huge, and positive, and fun, and aligned. I expect to be just this surprised and delighted over and over again.

Bring it on, 2021!

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