It’s finally the Monday After (Christmas). My house is quiet while I work, checking emails, surveying the results of an intense five weeks, identifying what’s now ahead.

My kids are gone to their dad’s for the week, my husband is lost down an NPR rabbit hole and I’ve already put away and deep cleaned my way out of the holiday that threw up on my living room floor so I can focus on things that are new, and clean, and fresh.

 

Like my intentions. And my perspective. And my profound gratitude for my life.

 

Christmas Day was so different this year. Quiet, cozy, still. No loud houseful of people, no noisy dinner with glasses clinking, inappropriate jokes and deep belly laughs. No cousins running up and down the stairwell, and aunts and uncles pretending to scold them. No new bikes being ridden, skates being used, and long cold winter walks in new hats and scarves and mittens, not that I’ve had a Christmas like in that in a long long time anyway. 

Instead, we did gifts, then yoga in the morning. The kids and I practiced, my husband taught. By noon, I’d been hit by the flu and retreated to sleep on the couch so I could stay near the family. The kids played quietly played with their new toys nearby the entire afternoon, my daughter pausing now and again to check on me or offer help with dinner, which I had planned to cook and had now passed to my sweet husband.

It was strangely peaceful, and bonding, this quiet restful time with our family. It reminded me how very infrequently we take the time to do that, to rest together.  

I slept more on Christmas Day than I do on a regular night. My kids were nicer to each other, and to us, than on any other day of the year. My husband got to listen to more uninterrupted podcasts than he has since we got married.

 

It was different than our normal, but I loved it just as much.

 

I am reminded, again, and again, and again, that there is power in the pause. “Going” is great, until it’s not. “Doing” is productive, until it’s not. Plans are useful, until,

They’re not.

And so, I’m preparing to set myself up for a different year. One with more space, more grace, and more deeply connected to how I want to feel, and be, and show up in the world.

Moving forward, I commit to:

• Exercising and moving daily because it feels good, not because I have to.
• Maintaining sight of the long game, saying yes to the plays that help me stay on the field, and no to the ones that put me back on the bench.
• Being fully present and available, being on when I’m on, and off when I’m off. Multitasking is not a skill, it’s a distraction.
• Teaching, sharing and practicing yoga in a real, authentic, and wild way.
• Eating mindfully, while sitting down.
• Getting upside down, as many places and in as many ways as I can.
• Making space for quiet reflection— meditation, writing, rest.
• Protecting my family time.
• Connection, not correction.
• Writing. Because I can. Because I can’t not. Because I’m not me without it.
• Softening, in thought, in action, and in belief.
• Reminding myself, every day, I am strong, I am healthy, I am loving, I am loved.

This year, in every day, in each choice, I choose grace and space, light and love, and a new definition of success.

 

Wishing you all so very much of the same.

 

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