Ray of Sunshine: A New Year

Today’s the perfect day to dream big! Think about your hopes, dreams and aspirations for your life in this new year. Take the first step toward making them come true. 

Blessings for your day and week. Spread sunshine. Be the light.

Sunday Sunshine: Start Anew

Just as a blanket of new snow cleans and freshens the landscape, the new year offers a clean slate for you.

Spend some time this week reflecting on all that you experienced and learned over the past year. Express your gratitude for those moments.

Then, think about the new year and look with anticipation on the beginnings that will come with the turning of the calendar.

Be confident in yourself. Don't be afraid to start anew. Opportunities and invitations will lead to satisfying, new adventures if you're open to them. 

Look to the new year with joy. Be present and grateful for all of the good that will come.

Today, this week: Allow for the changing of the calendar to offer fresh starts for you. Look forward to glorious, new adventures in the new year. 

What Do You Wish for Your New Year?

The start of a new year is an exciting time, one to reflect on the previous 365 days and also to dream of what will take place in the next 365. What do you wish for your new year? 

I believe that our own positive energy has the power of attracting more positive energy into our lives. One way to stay positive is to engage in self-love and self-respect by speaking well of ourselves and to ourselves. I particularly like the use of affirmations. 

Here are twelve to consider using in this new year:

1.  I know with confidence what I consider to be achievement and success.

2.  My hopes and dreams that have been protected deep inside of me are now manifesting themselves in exciting and new ways.

3.  I assess as I go on this amazing journey, setting priorities and looking ahead.

4.  I embrace who I am with enthusiasm and love.

5.  I ensure that my relationships are healthy, trusting and nurturing.

6.  I radiate love from within and without. The more love I give, the more love I feel in return.

7.  My world is filled with generosity, goodness and kindness. My heart is blessed beyond measure.

8.  I take care of my mind, body and spirit as a high priority in my life. My well-being is important to me.

9.  I dedicate time to silence as a gift of renewal.

10. I take positive action with ease.

11. I'm calm and at peace.

12. I freely tune into my heart, and I like what I hear.

You might adopt one of these affirmations for each month of this new year, saying that affirmation aloud to yourself several times per day. You might also write them down, as one woman told me that she was going to do, place them in a jar, and then pull one out each day to say to yourself.

Use this new year as a time of exciting anticipation as you shower yourself with positive energy and then cast that positive energy out into the world. Happy New Year!

Affirmations excerpted from my book, Find Your Heart, Follow Your Heart: Get to the Heart of What Matters and Create Your Abundant, Authentic, Joyful Life, published in July 2017 by Balboa Press. Available in hardcover, softcover and e-book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Balboa Press and other fine retailers.

Fresh Thoughts for Your Monday: Clean Slate

Happy New Year! The turning of the calendar to a new year offers many new possibilities!

As something new in my new year, I'm starting Fresh Thoughts for Your Monday, a bloglet—a short blog post—that will post every Monday morning as a positive, pick-me-up for your new day and week. I'll share the link to each Fresh Thoughts for Your Monday installment on social media and will look for your feedback to see if the messages are contributing positively to your day and week.

Also, bookmark this blog and check back frequently for other little surprises throughout the year! You'll find Affirming Words, Seasonal Sprinkles and more. The goal of this blog is to provide uplifting, centering words to help you make time to be.

Blessings,
Keri Olson

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Just as the fallen snow tidies up the landscape, making everything pristine and bright, the new year offers us an opportunity to clean our own slates, think anew and look positively at the possibilities in our lives. 

What does this new year, new week and new day mean to you? What tidying up will you do in your life? What new adventures will you explore? What change in perspective will you adopt?

It's a new year! Clean the slate! Set the stage for good things to happen in your 2018!

Good Wishes for the New Year

As the calendar turns over to a new year, it gives me time to pause and reflect on what I would like this fresh, new time to look and feel like. The slate is clean, the opportunities vast. What will we do with them? In a time when news comes to us instantly and constantly, there seems to be a growing trend toward the negative. Such heightened negativity poured into our minds and hearts can only lead to increased stress, anxiety, divisiveness and a focus on lack and our differences. More than ever, I feel the need to focus my energies on joy, abundance, love, hope and kindness. I choose to see the abundance of blessing, rather than becoming drawn into the depths of fear and unhappiness. If each of us were to devote our hours to kind words, happy thoughts, loving gestures and respectful responses, I believe the world would be a more peaceful place and the turmoil and injustices that plague our society and world might be resolved with more creative, communal solutions. Through our differences of opinion and thought, consensus can be reached. However, the more we focus on our differences, the larger the chasm becomes. The less we see hope, the more we create despair. The more we focus on hatred and violence, the less energy we dedicate to lifting each other up. We live in a time of uncertainty, but those times have always been and likely always will be. What we, as individuals, do with today will have a ripple effect on the shaping of our collective tomorrows. May this new year be one of hope and kindness, where extraordinary joy comes from our ordinary moments and our affirmation of each other becomes the norm.

New Beginnings

"This is a Day of New Beginnings" is one of my favorite songs in the United Methodist hymnal. It is a fitting song, I believe, for this time of year, when the calendar turns over to a new month and a new year, and we begin anew. As the hymn's lyrics state, it's a "time to remember and move on." I like to ponder in early January about the year that has been, what I've experienced, what I've learned, what I've given and what I've received. I also like to devote time to thinking about the year to come, anticipating all that will be new and interesting. In the end, however, all we have is this day, this moment. One can dwell on the past or plan or fear the future, but we really only have today. We really only have Now. Every day is a new beginning -- a new chance to love, learn, grow and give of ourselves with gratitude for our many blessings. If there is one thing I hope to do in this new year, it will be to live fully in the present, trusting in my intuition and in my faith as each day unfolds, bringing with it new opportunities to better understand and give of myself. May your new year be filled with great days of new beginnings.

Peas for Peace

There appears to be a host of superstitions about black-eyed peas being the stuff of good luck for the new year.  I've also read that eating greens on the first day of the year promotes prosperity. Even the label on the can of Eden® Organic black-eyed peas on our pantry shelf reads, "Rice for riches, peas for peace."  So, Larry and I decided to eat a rice and black-eyed pea dish on January 1 to help set us on the right path for the new year.  My family didn't have any particular food or meal traditions on new year's day, so I decided that 2014 is the year to start.  Less for their supposed  luck, I like black-eyed peas for their looks.  The so-called black eyes look more like happy little faces to me. A great source of potassium and magnesium, black-eyed peas are also a healthy choice when making a new year's day menu.  Our meal may not bring us riches or luck during this new year, but the opportunity to find peace is will be with and within us all year long.

Elegance

It couldn't possibly be January 1 without tuning in to the Vienna Philharmonic's new year's celebration on PBS.  This musical tradition ushers in the new year with a grace and elegance that make all things seem possible and all efforts beautiful.  This year's presentation, hosted by Julie Andrews, did not disappoint. Over the years, I've come to know the lavishly decorated music hall with its gold leaf-covered surfaces, celestial ceiling murals, bountiful arrangements of roses, and chandeliers each featuring a thousand crystal pieces.  Josef Strauss was the featured composer this time, with a dazzling array of polkas and waltzes on the program. Dancers from the Vienna Ballet brought the elegance of movement to the music, swirling, twirling and pirouetting to the strains of several of the pieces.  The women were particularly beautifully attired in dresses of subtle gold, ice gray-blue and white. One quick polka was illustrated by a couple of dancers in a sketch of black and white.  Another piece was whimsically brought to life by four dancers who livened up the stage with their humorous antics and their costumes that made them resemble kilted jesters, complete with plumed hats, grotesque makeup and argyle socks that went up to the tops of their thighs.  Several of the musical selections were accompanied by video of the Austrian countryside that made me feel as if, any second, I'd be twirling in the Alps alongside Julie Andrews in "The Sound of Music."  The hall may have been glittering and grand, the dancers lithe and graceful, the costuming the stuff of fairy tales and the Austrian scenery majestic, but it was the music that took one's breath away.  From Johann Strauss II's lyrical "On the Beautiful Blue Danube" waltz to Johann Strauss, Sr.'s rousing "Radetzky March," this traditional concert was once again a wonderful way to ring in the new year.

A New Leaf

There is an air of expectancy and anticipation as one turns over the calendar and sees not only a new month, but a new year.  What will the year bring?  What will I make of the new year?   I tend to take to heart the words of Robert Frost and find myself taking more and more the road less traveled, exploring my dreams and desires, and taking leaps of faith in order to fulfill them.  Might the new year contain yet another fork in the road or will it be a slow, steady slope without too many forks or hills?  A new year is a clean slate, an opportunity to start anew, a chance to turn over a new leaf.  In truth, every day is a clean slate, an opportunity to start a new, a chance to turn over a new leaf.  What will the new year hold?  I don't know. But, on this January 1st, I'll look at the newness of the year, recognizing that it will be made up of 365 opportunities to start over, find peace, harmony and joy, seek ways to serve others, and do so with a grateful heart.  May we all feel blessed. Happy New Year!

Value in the Past

As we sing "Auld Lang Syne" and say farewell to another year, I think of the value of memories and how mysterious the act of remembering can be.  Some memories appear as if they will stay with me forever, while others just float on by, not being stored in any particular place for me to easily retrieve them.  I seem to collect an odd assortment of memories in my head, sometimes for occasions that don't seem very remarkable on the surface, so I have made it a growing practice over the past few years to pay very close attention to as much as I can each day, carving special places for my life's moments so that I can replay them whenever I need a lift or a reminder of my blessings.  For instance, over the past year, I remember vividly the evening that Larry and I sat outside of the Chateau at Devil's Lake State Park, listening to big band music as we gazed up at the stars on a clear night.  I hear the sound of joyful voices resonating throughout our church's sanctuary as they sang a cappella hymns at a friend's funeral.  I think of the cheery call of the first red-winged black birds of the year.  I see the card my husband gave me to celebrate the publication of my e-book and the start of my new job, two things that happened within the same week. I recall the scent of the first lilacs blooming outside of our kitchen window last May and the taste of the season's first apple in September.  I hear the laughter of good friends around the table as we shared potluck supper.  There is indeed value in the past.  On this last day of 2013, I reflect on the many special moments of the past year, even those moments that weren't especially easy or joyful, while also anticipating the good that will happen in the new year to come.  May you have a happy, healthy new year.

A Beginning of a New Time

I've just finished reading Country Chronicle by Gladys Taber (1976, American Reprint Company, ISBN#0-89190-596-0).  I had been invited to be the first patron of our local public library to read the book when it arrived because it had been ordered as one of several in memory of my mother.  When asked how I would like the plate inside the book to read, I requested the following dedication: "In memory of Barbara Naidl - A library volunteer who loved the words of Gladys Taber."  And as Mom loved Mrs. Taber's words, so do I.  I see our mutual admiration for her writing as yet another aspect of Mom that remains alive in me.  With the end of the year approaching in just hours and the fresh face of a new year holding promise and opportunity, I think of Gladys Taber's closing thoughts in Country Chronicle:  "It is not an ending as a season draws to a close but only a beginning of a new time."  And so it is indeed with the passing of seasons or years or of someone we have loved so dearly.  The beginning of a new time.  Many thanks to you for reading this blog and for providing such supportive comments and encouragement.  You make my little experiment just that much more fun and rewarding. I look forward to our continued communication in the new year.  A toast to new beginnings and new times.  Happy New Year!