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My resolutions for 2009

By Rosie Molinary on January 2, 2009

Do your dishes as soon as you’re done with them. That’s the resolution BF has for me. I asked him the other day to come up with a couple resolutions he would like for me to consider implementing in the new year. Doing my dishes pronto was tops on his list. Here’s the deal. I often eat my breakfast (a bowl of cereal or oatmeal almost 90% of the time) and then put my bowl in the sink, fill it with water, and deal with it at lunch time with my lunch dishes. BF is self-employed, too– though he has an office away from the house– and he is in and out of the house all day long (hmm, perhaps my resolution for him should be not to come home every hour so I can actually write uninterrupted and so that Lola doesn’t lose her composure every time he leaves causing me to take ten minutes to put her back together again over and over), and he will come in at 10 am and very dramatically do my breakfast dishes (which means rinsing and putting them in the dishwasher). So, his resolution for me is to immediately put my dishes in the dishwasher. I am trying it. So far, so good. We’ll see if I can make it stick.

My resolution for BF is to cut off the lights (and close the door behind him when he walks outside– even if he is only going outside for a few minutes). I often walk behind him and cut off no less than 6 lights that he has left on as he moved through the house. And we have a six room house. The door? If he’s outside, it is inevitably left open, and this house- with its 1926 insulation- is cold enough without the blast of winter air. So, we’ll see if he can make either of those stick.

Other than that, I have goals for 2009— most of which I came up with when I wrote my birthday list.

In December, I scratched two things off the list: throwing a giving party and remodeling the guest bathroom. I am wild about the bathroom. We painted it this great bluish purple color, put in this checked black and white floor, and lots of bead board. We also had this nifty cabinet built in it that will work as a changing table one day and also has a build in laundry basket (that hinged top lifts to reveal a canvas, easy to pull out clothes hamper) and lots of drawers for storage. We still have to put the finishing touches on it (the art for this room is unbelievable– we pick it up from the framing place in mid-January) but the construction is done and that’s a great feeling.

In January, I think I’ll be able to scratch off a few more: update our will, take a personal retreat, strictly work from a budget, start teaching workshops again locally, develop and maintain a personal style separate from workout clothes girl.

Other than that, I am also hoping to knock out the drafts of three books this year (and, hopefully, get a book contract for at least one of them). I’d like to be able to run for a straight hour. I have an income goal that I’d like to achieve. And that’s plenty given that there are big changes in store at the little cottage under the oaks that will elicit all sorts of new goals for us soon enough. Cheers to productivity and the joys of just being in 2009.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged birthday lists, Resolutions | 4 Responses

Three Resolutions to Consider for 2009

By Rosie Molinary on January 1, 2009

The journey of embracing one’s self for who you really are isn’t just an item on the to do list that gets checked off all neat and tidy one day and you never have to look back. Embracing your self, finding and engaging in your passion, raising your voice, these things take time, focus, energy, gumption. Last year, I encouraged you to try on five resolutions for 2008. This year, I asking you to add 3 more tools to your repertoire.

Enjoy some body work. I was an overworked and exhausted second year teacher and coach when I scheduled my first massage. I didn’t know how I could afford $60 for an hour of work but my body hurt so much that I didn’t know what else to do. That hour did more than just restore my muscles. It restored me. Now, massage is a regular feature of my self-care regimen, and I encourage you to make it part of yours, too. A study done by the University of Miami School of Medicine’s Touch Research Institute revealed that a 30 minute massage every other week boosts overall body satisfaction, no matter your shape or size. Resolve to: schedule a massage. If it’s too expensive for your budget, consider asking for a gift certificate as a gift, booking a thirty minute session instead of an hour, or calling a local massage school to ask about their practice sessions which can often run a third of the average price for an hour massage.

Invest in someone else. Sometimes we get so absorbed in our own world that we lose perspective. We become consumed with our bad haircut, acne, uninspired wardrobe, or whatever else is plaguing us and lose sight of the world outside of us. Sometimes I think self-consciousness is almost a luxury, an extravagance we get to plague ourselves with when life isn’t filling up our attention otherwise. But, everywhere, everyday, there are so many people who do not have the luxury of time or energy to become absorbed with their bad haircut because their lives are faced with challenges that we will never know. Micro-lending allows everyday citizens to make a loan to someone in the developing world to support his or her small business. As a micro-loan, when the entrepreneur pays back their loan to the sponsoring organization, the lender receives her money back to transfer back to her own bank account or to reinvest. Kiva is one of the companies uniting people from around the world with one another as lenders and entrepreneurs. On its site, you can find photos of entrepreneurs, descriptions of their businesses, and their plans for their loans. Partnered with microfinance institutions in each participating country, there is significant expertise in the field and assurance that investments are handled responsibly. Sometimes it is helpful to get away from the little thing that is bothering us to take a look at something bigger. Resolve to: visit Kiva.org and review the profiles of entrepreneurs from around the world. Make a $25 investment in one whose story particularly strikes you. Print out the story so that you can be revisit it whenever you like, return to the web-site periodically to monitor your entrepreneur’s progress, and enjoy the satisfaction of having grown your connection to the world.

Find your theme. I have had many theme songs, poems, etc over the years– slices of words put out there by someone before me that capture who I was and where I was at the time I discovered it. In high school, my themes were songs by Tracy Chapman, the Indigo Girls, and REM. In college, my theme was Desiderata, written by Max Ehrmann in 1952. It began…

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans...

For some of my twenties, my theme was The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer.

An excerpt…

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

Having a theme or song can be a touch stone. A place to return to when you need centering and grounding. What’s your theme? Find it, enjoy it, embrace it, bringing it out when you need to put your feet to the ground and rememember who you are.

Cheers to loving your body, investing in others, and remembering your truth. Happy New Year!

Posted in Food for Thought, Note to Self, Revolution, What We Must Do | Tagged body image, micro-lending, poems, Resolutions, social change, social justice, theme songs, themes | 4 Responses

Five Resolutions to Consider for 2008

By Rosie Molinary on December 31, 2007

I’m a resolver. A lister. A planner. A dreamer. A must do better-er. And I am also a supporter of women, a cheerleader (in the theoretical sense. I tried out for cheerleading against my better judgment just once in 6^th grade. I did it because I am a supporter of women—was so even then—and one of my good friends REALLY wanted to be a cheerleader but wouldn’t try out alone. So, I attended all the practices and then promptly ran into the judge’s table as I finished up my cartwheel, cartwheel, round-off during the first leg of the tryouts. Needless to say, I wasn’t invited back. My friend, however, made the team and was a cheerleader for the rest of her public education career.), an activist, and an advocate. So with the New Year upon us, I decided to take advantage of that desire in all of us to want to be better to throw out some resolutions for your consideration. Let’s vow to up our game in 2008—bringing out the best in each other while becoming our best selves.

Now, for the resolutions…

Ditch the fat chat. A study published in the journal Body Image showed that women echoed what they heard others say. When actresses, recruited by the researchers, said negative, neutral, or positive thing about their bodies to 88 unsuspecting women, the subjects tended to speak the same way the actresses did—even if they had just rated their body image as positive or high before the conversation. Sure, there are all sorts of reasons that a woman might do this—to build camaraderie, to be polite, etc—but because those statements might end up add to having a significant impact on one’s self perception, why not just stop? When a woman criticizes herself in front of you, don’t join in. Instead, celebrate what you love about her or tell her just how wrong she is. We do ourselves and others no good when we allow these critiques to carry on.

Love yourself. We too often invest in self-loathing—from our weight, to our hair, to our body shape, to our skin color. And the energy we put into all of this hating, tweaking, complaining, erasing just takes away from the energy we have to engage in our world. Luminous, shiny hair doesn’t make you a better mother. A tan does not make you a better teacher. These things don’t change the world. What you have in you—in your soul— is what has the makings of an everyday miracle. Want to feel better about yourself? Invest your time in doing esteemable acts rather than measuring your esteem by a beauty standard that exists on a slippery slope.

Continue reading “Five Resolutions to Consider for 2008”

Posted in Food for Thought, What We Must Do | Tagged beauty standards, body image, marketing, New Year's, Resolutions, Women's Issues | 4 Responses

How Yoga and Body Acceptance Could Guide Your New Year

By Rosie Molinary on January 9, 2017

One of my greatest inspirations in the self-acceptance space is Anna Guest-Jelley, the founder of Curvy Yoga. Anna is not just profound light, a gentle truth teller, and an honest reflector, she’s an inspired teacher– both in yoga class and in life. With this new year, I was eager to share some of Anna’s wisdom with you and invited her to share here about her thoughts on yoga and self-acceptance. I hope you get as much from her wisdom as I always do!

Photo Credit: Andrea Scher

Like many people, and maybe even you, I’ve spent many Januarys in the throes of this or that New Year’s resolution related to changing my body in some way. I’d be hell-bent on making a change, last about 2.5 weeks, something would intervene (since the expectations I set were never realistic for my actual life in the first place), and then I’d give up. Defeated.

Once again.

Probably not too surprisingly, once I started to shift from resolutions to choosing a Word of the Year, and from constantly berating my body to learning how to be in an affirming relationship with it, I was much happier.

But one thing kept nagging at me for a long time: how to bring my intention for the year and my body acceptance practice together. This mattered to me because an intention, or word, for the year permeates every area of life, including your body and how you relate to it, and I was interested to see what I could learn — if only I could find a way into it.

What I started to discover is that intentions benefit from embodiment, particularly within an adaptable and unique-to-you container. Here’s what I mean by that: when our intentions stay solely in our heads, they’re easy to forget, philosophize/daydream about but not take action on, keep as a lingering “should” that makes us feel worse and worse about ourselves, etc.

But when you find a way to loop your body into the process, things can start to move from the realm of “sounds like a good idea, but I’ll never get it done” to “I’m doing it.”

Now, how does all of this start (and continue)? Through an ongoing conversation with your body.

The best way I know to reliably begin or grow a conversation with your body is through yoga. And no, that’s not because the farther forward you bend, the more wonderful your life is and the more committed you are to both your intention for the year and your relationship to body acceptance. Not at all.

The reason I see yoga as a key way into body acceptance, which is just another way of saying having an ongoing conversation with your body, is because it asks you to engage with your actual body. By asking you to notice what your foot is doing in a pose, what is happening with your breath, or how a yoga prop might support you, the practice of yoga is a concrete way to learn to connect with your body as it is today. Because as you know if you’ve ever tried any balance pose in yoga, your experience definitely changes from day to day!

It doesn’t matter what style of yoga you practice, or what you can or cannot do. It’s not any individual pose on its own that makes the difference, but rather the overall process of being with your body. And all of the physical, mental, and emotional benefits of yoga certainly don’t hurt, either!

While you’re on your yoga mat and in this conversation with your body, it can also be a great time to reconnect with your intention for the year. Here are some ways you might do that:

Inhale and repeat your Word of the Year; exhale and let go of anything that doesn’t serve it
Ask yourself before your practice what it would be like to bring your intention into your practice. For example, in 2016, my word was Rooted, so I often asked myself this before practice and found ways to get grounded, or rooted, while on my mat.
Let the final relaxation at the end of class be a time to first notice how you feel, then ask yourself to notice what it feels like in your body when you connect with your intention, then let yourself rest with that sensation.
Anything else that comes to mind for you!

If you want to learn more about a body-affirming approach to yoga, including pose options for bodies of all shapes/sizes that you can use to support your body in any class, you might like to check out my new book, Curvy Yoga: Love Yourself & Your Body a Little More Each Day. And if you’re a yoga teacher and would like to share about yoga and self-acceptance with your students, check out whole~hearted, a curriculum that Rosie and I created just for yoga teachers.

Here’s to seeing how your intention unfolds in the new year!

A little more about Anna:

Anna Guest-Jelley is the founder of Curvy Yoga, an online yoga studio and teacher training center that helps people of all sizes find true acceptance and freedom, both on and off the mat.
Anna is the author of Curvy Yoga: Love Yourself & Your Body a Little More Each Day and the co-editor of Yoga and Body Image: 25 Personal Stories About Beauty, Bravery & Loving Your Body. To learn more about Curvy Yoga, visit www.CurvyYoga.com

Posted in Food for Thought | 2 Responses

Summiting 2017

By Rosie Molinary on December 28, 2016

One of the very last things I do each year is sit down for a personal New Year Summit (this is a great bookend to the End of Year Personal Summit). Why a personal summit at the New Year? Because the first step to getting the life we imagine is having clarity about who and how you want to be in the world. The thing that matters most in our growth is articulating how we want our lives to feel, how we want to feel, really assessing who and how we want to be in the world. Because when we know that, we can build a life that allows us that feeling and then every day feels like we are living in our true calling.

A New Year Personal Summit is about getting clear about what you want for yourself which may or may not, ultimately, end up having something to do with resolutions or goals. A New Year Personal Summit gets you quiet at the beginning of each year so you can get clear on what intention you want to have in the new year– what focus, truth you want to guide you actions.

Here are the details of the process in case you want to do the same for yourself.

Step 1. Figure out what you want to feel in 2017.

Intention is about having an internal resolve, a desire to move towards something that will serve you better as you move forward. It is claiming the desire to live your life in a certain way so that things happen on purpose rather than by accident. After setting an intention, you can claim your vision, and then it is after that vision has been formed that you can begin to move into action.

What feeling do you want to have most regularly in 2017? What feeling does your life most need right now?

What would feeling like this add to your life?

How would your life change with this feeling? What would your life look like if you were living with this feeling?

What behaviors are needed to live this feeling?

Get as clear as possible about what feeling you want in your life and what intention you most need to focus on for that to become real. Then, if the idea speaks to you, you can choose your word for the year- the one word that will be a grounding and inspiration guide to you as you move through the year and embrace your possibilities (I will be sharing more about words for the year next week if you want more perspective on that).

Step 2. Figure out your yeses and your nos.

Now, that you have a sense of your intention, it is time to captures your vision for the year and one way to get started with that is by getting clear about your yeses and nos.

How will your life be different at the end of 2017 if you are able to make the concept from step one more present in your life throughout the year?

What do you want or need your life to feel and look like to live that concept/feeling?

What do you need more of in your life to bring this concept and feeling into clarity? This is your test list– the things you should be doing more often in your daily life.

What do you need less of in your life to realize this feeling? What are the experiences, interactions, and responsibilities that strip you of what you need? This is your no list– the things you should stop doing or do less of in order to realize the life that you imagine.

Compile your yes and no lists for a guide to your new year.

Step 3 Name your priorities. Design your action plan.

I have several areas where I would like to devote some intention and attention this year. And I could try to do them all starting today but then that is a whole lot of action all at once and is more likely to lead me to feeling overwhelmed.. So I like to look at my intentions and the actions they suggest and then prioritize future success in living my intention and vision

If an all-or-nothing approach to resolutions, goals, and/or intentions has been your downfall, loosen your grips on the absolutes. Instead, give yourself a range. Aim to make the choices you wish to make for 80 or 90 percent of the time, for example. Or aim to do one thing at a time– just for this week, I will go to bed at 10:30 and then next week you can add the sixty ounces of water a day and the next week you can add the fifteen minutes of reading daily (or whatever is on your mind). Then, you have built grace into your experience of life. Knowing you don’t have to be perfect (and you know how I feel about perfect) can often be the impetus you need to move you closer to the life you desire. Your resolutions, intentions, dreams, desires do not have to look like anyone else’s.

What first step are you ready to take?

What do you need to begin?

What is the scope and reality of taking that step?

When can you begin and how?

What is your next step?

And, as a gentle and motivating reminder, what do you want to be manifested for yourself because of actions you have taken?

Posted in Beautiful You | Leave a response

Word up

By Rosie Molinary on January 11, 2016

It happens every year.

The new year comes and we feel compelled to write a long list of goals for the year (or resolutions, if you will).

Week 1 brings great satisfaction. We are OWNING this task.

Week 2 sees some tempering off of the excitement but we are certain that as soon as we get over this little hump, we’ll be right back to it (whatever it is: juicing, training for a marathon, being supremely organized, etc.).

Week 3 comes and we are trying but, boy, does this juicing, marathon training, supreme organization not delivering what I thought it would.

Week 4 is a big ole’ shame bath. How did we let this happen again? How come we cannot complete anything?

I’ll tell you why. Because resolutions are too often focused on what we think we should be doing. And shoulds operate in our mindset like some authority figure bossing us around. They don’t feel like an opportunity. They don’t feel like a desire. They feel like expansive. And feeling (or not) like that is always going to backfire.

The real question to ask ourselves at the new year is what feeling do we want to have more of in our life? Once you hone in on what you most desire from deep within, you can start thinking about what means you wish to do but our dos- our goals, our actions- should always be driven by the most essential question: for what does our soul hunger?

What’s in a word?

Ready to choose your own word for the year to guide you? Start by asking yourself some introspective questions.

What do I want more of in my life?

What do I want less of if my life?

What do I need right now more than anything else?

What feeling do I most want to have (and why)?

Once you have a sense of what feeling you want, try to capture that feeling in just one word. You want it to be broad enough to encompass many different aspects of your life yet specific enough to really inspire meaningful growth for you. I also want to encourage you to think about the “dark side” of the word. For example, maybe you are thinking about boundless for the word. Are you okay if that ends up translating to boundary-less for you?

As you consider words, feel free to look up definitions and synonyms to help you land on what touchstone you most need right now.

Put that word to work

Your word is going to serve as a guide for you. When you wake up in the morning, answer the question, “What can I do today to help me feel like I am X (whatever your word is)?” Then, meet that need.

When you are presented with an opportunity, ask yourself if it is an opportunity that will help you feel whatever the word is.

Finally, use the word to come up with your goals. If you want to feel a sense of peace, what actions can you choose this year (as long term goals) to help you feel that (reconcile with your sister, let other people’s opinions go, etc). Our to do lists should always be driven not by shoulds but by our deepest desires so rooted in how we want to feel.

What I am looking for in 2016

It took me a while to get to my word for 2016 but, boy, have I found the perfect word for my 2016.

For the longest time, I thought my word would be delight. I wanted a lightness to my being and so much more joy after a year that was filled with heart break, deep grief, challenges, anxiety and more. I wanted to feel vibrant again and to glow, but I also just wanted to reacquaint myself with the deep happiness that I used to emit more effortlessly before life got so. damn. hard (as life does when you have kids and parents and partners and friends whose wellbeing greatly affects you while balancing work and volunteering and laundry and, well, you know the whole entire drill here).

But there were two other things speaking to me, too, for the new year. In addition to wanting more delight, I also wanted to accomplish more of the things that my own heart had been calling me to do. If you know me in real life, you know that I am a completer. I complete whatever you ask of me before the deadline and, I hope, at a nice quality level. But my desire to not leave anyone else hanging means that I leave myself, my ideas, and my desires hanging A LOT more than I care to admit. I wanted to accomplish things that have been on my personal to do list for a long time—not because they will make a difference to anyone else necessarily but because they will make a difference to me. So completion and accomplishment were speaking to me, too.

Finally, I found myself wanting to channel that desire for delight and completion into sprucing up the daily-ness of living. I am the kind of person how ‘makes do’ always. Why get the thing you really want if this thing over here that only kinda speaks to you over sorta works? I am sure it’s a scarcity mindset leftover from growing up lower middle class and also from being so invested in the community that I would just rather invest those resources back, but, seriously, sometimes a girl just needs to get new underwear. And I wanted to quit denying myself those things— new underwear, a $10 candle, a rug for the kitchen. I literally have splinters in my bum because our thatch dining room chairs are so old they are disintegrating and, yet, it feels too extravagant to get new chairs. If I am honest with myself, I want super simple luxuries that probably wouldn’t be all that fancy to anyone else but would feel like heaven to me. And so there was that truth, too, swirling around my head as I considered my 2016 word for the year.

So delight, accomplished, and luxury were Word for the Year fight-clubbing when a friend and I got to talking about my word for the year. In trying to summarize all of these thoughts, I said, “Basically, I just want a life upgrade. I want my feelings upgraded, my work upgraded (because I was completing these dreams of mine), and my house upgraded (goodbye splinters! hello rug on the kitchen floor so it’s not so cold in there).”

And though upgrade wasn’t the right word, it was the feeling and so I played with that feeling until I arrived at my word for 2016 which is lift. I want to aim high, elevate my professional and personal presence, soar beyond my own expectations, and live with light and optimism. I want a lightness to my life this year—of spirit, yes, but also of brightness.

What about you?

What is your word for 2016 and how does it capture what you are most seeking?

Posted in Beautiful You, Food for Thought | 2 Responses

Setting up 2016 to be the year of answered questions

By Rosie Molinary on January 4, 2016

2015. It was a year that posed so many questions for me.

How will I live without my mother? How do I honor her legacy?

What will I do for good health (I battled an unending, debilitating sinus infection for 10 straight months that has led me on a long overdue journey to better physical health)?

What will I do to stop useless cycles in my life?

When does sacrifice become too sacrificial?

What am I willing to do to live the way I intend?

What would it be like to not do X or to do Y?

How can I be true to each of my intentions today?

If there are indeed years that ask question and years that answer them, then my intention is for 2016 to be filled with answers, answers that I deliberately seek and enthusiastically embrace so that they may serve me and those around me well.

Creating a 2016 that provides answers starts with me doing the work of asking and answering some deep questions for myself.

While last week, we focused on looking back at 2015, this week, I want to encourage you to look forward in a New Year Personal Summit. A New Year Personal Summit is about getting quiet enough to discern what you most desire, so that your intention for the year is articulated and you can build your focus and actions from that deep soul direction.

Ready to get started? Here you go.

Identify your intention for 2016.

Intention setting is about naming an internal resolve, a desire to move towards something that will serve who you are and how you wish to be as you move forward. It is claiming the desire to live your life in a certain way so that things happen on purpose rather than by accident. After setting an intention, you can claim your vision, and then it is after that vision has been formed that you can begin to move into action.

What feeling do you want to have most regularly in 2015? What feeling does your life most need right now?

What would feeling like this add to your life?

How would your life change with this feeling? What would your life look like if

you were living this feeling regularly?

What behaviors are needed to live this feeling?

Get as clear as possible about what feeling you want in your life and what intention you most need to focus on for that to become real. Then, if the idea speaks to you, you can choose your word for the year- the one word that will be a grounding and inspiration guide to you as you move through the year and embrace your possibilities (I will be blogging about words for the year on Monday, January 11th if you want more perspective on that).

Figure out your yeses and your nos.

Now, that you have a sense of your intention, it is time to captures your vision for the year and one way to get started with that is by getting clear about your yeses and nos.

How will your life be different at the end of 2016 if you are able to make your above intention more present in your life throughout the year?

What do you want or need your life to feel and look like to live that concept/feeling?

What do you need more of in your life to bring this concept and feeling into clarity?

What do you wish to be doing more often in your life?

What do you need less of in your life to realize this feeling? What are the experiences, interactions, and responsibilities that strip you of what you need?

Let your yeses and nos from this exercise be a guide for your new year. For more thoughts on saying yes and no, check out The Wholehearted Continuum.

Design your action plan.

What are your biggest dreams for 2016 (think in terms of all areas of your life: professionally, relationships, sense of wellbeing, personal development, spirituality, etc)?

How do these dreams align with how you want to feel in life? Do they take you closer to what you feel will bring you happiness and congruence in your life?

What growth opportunities do you need to explore?

What beliefs or behaviors might need revision to lead you closer to your dream?

How ready are you for this dream? How do you know this?

What first step are you ready to take?

What do you need to begin (this could be resources, training, support, time, etc)?

What is the scope and reality of taking that step?

When can you begin and how?

What is your next step?

And, as a gentle and motivating reminder, what do you want to be manifested for yourself because of actions you have taken?

Some thoughts about action plans: I have several areas where I would like to devote some intention and attention this year. And I could try to do them all starting January 1st but then that is a whole lot of action all at once and is more likely to lead me to feeling overwhelmed. So I like to look at my intentions and the actions they suggest and then prioritize when each should happen.

If an all-or-nothing approach to resolutions, goals, and/or intentions has been your downfall, loosen your grips on the absolutes. Instead, give yourself a range. Aim to make the choices you wish to make for 80 or 90 percent of the time, for example. Or aim to do one thing at a time (This week, go to bed at 10:30. Next week, you can add the 60 ounces of water a day and the next week you can add the fifteen minutes of reading daily). This way, you build grace into how you experience and create your life. Knowing you don’t have to be perfect (and you know how I feel about perfect) can often be the impetus you need to move you closer to the life you desire. Your resolutions, intentions, dreams, desires do not have to look like anyone else’s.

Celebrate. The New Year isn’t a time to make yourself feel bad or to shame yourself. It’s an opportunity to remember that all of life is journey and we can choose our journey any time.

Want even more support as you reflect on 2015 and plan for 2016? Join me this Friday or Saturday for visionSPARK or re:NEW.

Posted in Beautiful You | Leave a response

Making 2015 Your Own

By Rosie Molinary on December 28, 2014

Sweet 2014. It had plenty of lessons for me. It offered me some great growth opportunities and it allowed me to get more clear about what I am meant to be doing moving forward. All good things that I tried to capture and better understand in my end of year personal summit recently.

Now, that I’ve looked back, though, I want to look forward and really consider what I want out of 2015 in a New Year Personal Summit. Why a personal summit at the New Year? Because the first step to getting the life we imagine is having clarity about who and how you want to be in the world. The thing that matters most in our growth is articulating how we want our lives to feel, how we want to feel, really assessing who and how we want to be in the world. Because when we know that, we can build a life that allows us that feeling and then every day feels like we are living in our true calling. A New Year Personal Summit is about getting clear about what you want for yourself which may or may not, ultimately, end up having something to do with resolutions or goals. A New Year Personal Summit gets you quiet at the beginning of each year so you can get clear on what intention you want to have in the new year– what focus, truth you want to guide you actions.

Here are the details of the process in case you want to do the same for yourself.

Step 1. Figure out what you want to feel in 2015.

What feeling do you want to have most regularly in 2014? What feeling does your life most need right now?

What would feeling like this add to your life?

How would your life change with this feeling? What would your life look like if you were living with this feeling?

What behaviors are needed to live this feeling?

Get as clear as possible about what feeling you want in your life and what intention you most need to focus on for that to become real. Then, if the idea speaks to you, you can choose your word for the year- the one word that will be a grounding and inspiration guide to you as you move through the year and embrace your possibilities (I will be blogging about words for the year on Monday, January 5th if you want more perspective on that).

Step 2. Figure out your yeses and your nos.

Now, that you have a sense of your intention, it is time to captures your vision for the year and one way to get started with that is by getting clear about your yeses and nos.

How will your life be different at the end of 2015 if you are able to make the concept from step one more present in your life throughout the year?

What do you want or need your life to feel and look like to live that concept/feeling?

What do you need more of in your life to bring this concept and feeling into clarity?

What do you wish to be doing more often in your life?

What do you need less of in your life to realize this feeling? What are the experiences, interactions, and responsibilities that strip you of what you need?

Let your yeses and nos from this exercise be a guide for your new year.

Step 3 Name your priorities. Design your action plan.

What is your biggest dream for 2015 (think in terms of all areas of your life: professionally, relationships, sense of wellbeing, personal development, spirituality, etc)?

How do these dreams align with how you want to feel in life? Do they take you closer to what you feel will bring you happiness and congruence in your life?

What growth opportunities do you need to explore? What beliefs or behaviors might need revision to lead you closer to your dream?

How ready are you for this dream?

What first step are you ready to take?

What do you need to begin (this could be resources, training, support, time, etc)?

What is the scope and reality of taking that step?

When can you begin and how?

What is your next step?

And, as a gentle and motivating reminder, what do you want to be manifested for yourself because of actions you have taken?

If an all-or-nothing approach to resolutions, goals, and/or intentions has been your downfall, loosen your grips on the absolutes. Instead, give yourself a range. Aim to make the choices you wish to make for 80 or 90 percent of the time, for example. Or aim to do one thing at a time– just for this week, I will go to bed at 10:30 and then next week you can add the sixty ounces of water a day and the next week you can add the fifteen minutes of reading daily (or whatever is on your mind). Then, you have built grace into how you experience and create your life. Knowing you don’t have to be perfect (and you know how I feel about perfect) can often be the impetus you need to move you closer to the life you desire. Your resolutions, intentions, dreams, desires do not have to look like anyone else’s.

Step 4: Celebrate. A New Year isn’t a tool to make yourself feel bad or to shame yourself. It’s an opportunity to remember that all of life is journey and we can choose our journey.

♥

Wishing you all good things as you say good-bye to 2014 and welcome 2015.

Posted in Beautiful You | Leave a response

Celebrate the New Year with a New Year Personal Summit

By Rosie Molinary on January 1, 2014

It is the last day of 2013 (but likely the first day of 2014 when you read this), and I am taking a little time while B is running errands and Happy is tucked into quiet time to have my own little quiet, contemplative time and imagine all sorts of possibilities for 2014. Because, let me tell you, 2013, especially the end, wasn’t my favorite (ill fathers, highly sensory times for a little one who struggles with sensations and, thus, plenty of meltdowns to navigate, a gnarly sinus infection, and a scary mammogram situation that turned out to be fine in the end), and I am eager for a reset button and what button is more prominent than the one that lets down that crystal-covered apple in New York City?

So, what exactly am I doing in my quiet, contemplative time? I am hosting my own personal New Year Summit (this is a great bookend to the End of Year Personal Summit. Why a personal summit at the New Year? Because the first step to getting the life we imagine is having clarity about who and how you want to be in the world. The thing that matters most in our growth is articulating how we want our lives to feel, how we want to feel, really assessing who and how we want to be in the world. Because when we know that, we can build a life that allows us that feeling and then every day feels like we are living in our true calling. A New Year Personal Summit is about getting clear about what you want for yourself which may or may not, ultimately, end up having something to do with resolutions or goals. A New Year Personal Summit gets you quiet at the beginning of each year so you can get clear on what intention you want to have in the new year– what focus, truth you want to guide you actions.

Here are the details of the process in case you want to do the same for yourself.

Step 1. Figure out what you want to feel in 2014.

What feeling do you want to have most regularly in 2014? What feeling does your life most need right now?

What would feeling like this add to your life?

How would your life change with this feeling? What would your life look like if you were living with this feeling?

What behaviors are needed to live this feeling?

Get as clear as possible about what feeling you want in your life and what intention you most need to focus on for that to become real. Then, if the idea speaks to you, you can choose your word for the year- the one word that will be a grounding and inspiration guide to you as you move through the year and embrace your possibilities (I will be blogging about words for the year on Monday, January 6th if you want more perspective on that).

Step 2. Figure out your yeses and your nos.

Now, that you have a sense of your intention, it is time to captures your vision for the year and one way to get started with that is by getting clear about your yeses and nos.

How will your life be different at the end of 2014 if you are able to make the concept from step one more present in your life throughout the year?

What do you want or need your life to feel and look like to live that concept/feeling?

What do you need more of in your life to bring this concept and feeling into clarity? This is your test list– the things you should be doing more often in your daily life.

Compile your yes and no lists for a guide to your new year.

Step 3 Name your priorities. Design your action plan.

What first step are you ready to take?

What do you need to begin?

What is the scope and reality of taking that step?

When can you begin and how?

What is your next step?

And, as a gentle and motivating reminder, what do you want to be manifested for yourself because of actions you have taken?

Excited about really embracing 2014 in a way that makes it more about creating the life you want? Join me, starting January 6th, for Spark: Practices to Nourish this New Beginning, a daily blog guide that will detail what steps I am taking to live my intention in 2014 and offer you a step, tool, or inspiration daily through January 2014 in case you want to walk the same journey with me (or part of it). I will be back tomorrow to share more with you about Spark but, in the meantime, I hope you will share what you discovered in your personal summit, what you want out of 2014, and/or what made it to your yes or no lists?

Posted in Beautiful You, Weekly Spark | Leave a response

Host your own personal New Year Summit

By Rosie Molinary on January 1, 2013

It is the first day of the New Year and even the rain and the cold can’t put a damper on my anticipation of what’s to come. The lavender candle is lit, the preschooler is tucked away in quiet time, BF is getting a work out in, and I am left with my yellow pad and favorite pen to imagine all sorts of possibilities. This, this is my personal Super Bowl, people.

But what fun is a personal Super Bowl if you can’t share it with friends? So, today, I want to give you a peak at how I host my own personal New Year Summit and invite you to do the same for yourself. Now, because I must write this post and host my own ~~super bowl~~ Summit all in the span of Quiet Time, this post will get into every single nitty gritty thing I do or all of my answers (I am sure I will share those at some point). What I will do is give you a very good sense of how to guide yourself through your own summit in hopes that it gives you as as much as a charge as it gives me and that you finish the summit with a real sense of possibility (and probability) for the year. So light your candle (or not), get your yellow notepad (or whatever you want to write on), tuck your people away, and let’s begin.

First, an explanation as you might be wondering what in the world a personal New Year Summit is. First, it is the book end to the End of Year Personal Summit I shared a few weeks ago. If you didn’t do the end of year summit, you can now or you can start fresh with the New year, whatever works for you.

A New Year Personal Summit is about getting clear about what you want for yourself which may or may not, ultimately, end up having something to do with resolutions.

But as I mentioned in Monday’s Word for the Year post, the first step to getting the life we imagine is having clarity about who and how you want to be in the world. The thing that matters most in our growth is articulating how we want our lives to feel, how we want to feel, really assessing who and how we want to be in the world. Because when we know that, we can build a life that allows us that feeling and then every day feels like we are living in our true calling.

So before I can write any list, I have to know what yearnings I really have, what desire is driving the list. A New Year Personal Summit gets you quiet at the beginning of each year so you can get clear on what intention you want to have in the new year– what focus, truth you want to guide you actions.

Step 1. Figure out what you want to feel in 2013.

What feeling do you want to have most regularly in 2013? What do you want to be manifested for yourself because of actions you have taken? What feeling does your life most need right now?

Step 2. Figure out your yeses.

Now, that you have a sense of your intention, it is time to captures your vision for the year and one way to get started with that is by writing a yes list (you can also make a vision board which will be January 7th’s blog post).

What will the feeling that you chose give to you?

How will your life change if you are able to embody this feeling on a regular basis?

How will your life be different at the end of 2013 with this concept more present in your life throughout the year?

What do you want your life to feel and look like? And what – if you had more of it- would give you that? Here, write down all the things you could incorporate into your life to give you more of what you want. This is your “yes” list- the things you should be doing more often in your daily life.

This being said, you may also want to write a parallel no list. What are the experiences, interactions, and responsibilities that strip you of what you need? What do you need to do less of or not at all in 2013?

Step # 3 Name your priorities. Design your action plan.

I came up with several categories of where I would like to devote some intention and attention this year. And I could try to do them all right starting today but then that just means I’ll get pooped and worn down and give up. So I like to look at my list, prioritize, and then come up with an actin plan for intention and vision.

If an all-or-nothing approach to resolutions has been your downfall, loosen your grips on the absolutes. Instead, give yourself a ratio. I am going to make these choices 80 or 90 percent of the time. Then, you have grace for not always hitting the mark. Knowing you don’t have to be perfect can often be the impetus you need to move you closer to the life you desire. Your resolutions, dreams, desires do not have to look like anyone else’s. There are other ways you can approach improvement without being so absolute about them.

Options:

Set Monthly Goals. Make 3-4 monthly goals on the first day of each month and then prioritize those for the four weeks ahead of you. When the month is done, you can figure out what worked for you and if it’s a continuous opportunity (say: take 2 yoga classes each week vs. organize the kitchen junk drawer), you may know that it added enough to your life that you are wish to continue it while focusing on your new monthly goals.

Set a weekly or bimonthly focus. I’ll turn 40 in mid-November and, for whatever reason, the idea of choosing 40 focuses between now and November 18th is appealing to me (a week with no sugar, a week of writing thank you notes to significant people who helped shape my life, a week of going to bed early and really cultivating and adhering to a bedtime ritual, a week of doing yoga everyday, etc). I need to finish my own personal summit to see if that might work but that is one distinct possibility I am seeing. Perhaps something like that might work for you. too.

Try a monthly challenge. Maybe there are three areas that you want to address in the new year—your relationship, professional life, and wellness habits. Maybe every month you choose one of those areas and prioritize behaviors that you are really going to concentrate on in that area for those thirty days. If that kind of focused thinking works for you, then handle your resolutions that way.

What did you discover in your personal summit? What do you want to say yes to in 2013? What do you want to say no to in 2013?

Posted in Beautiful You, Food for Thought, Resolutions, Revolution | 2 Responses

Blog

My resolutions for 2009

Five Resolutions to Consider for 2008

How Yoga and Body Acceptance Could Guide Your New Year

Summiting 2017

Word up

Setting up 2016 to be the year of answered questions

Making 2015 Your Own

Celebrate the New Year with a New Year Personal Summit

Host your own personal New Year Summit

Books

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