Melodie Chrislock

The new year seems to be a time to reflect on our dreams and goals and the changes we’d like to make in our lives. But change has two faces. There are the changes we design and plan for and the changes that seem to descend on us from out of nowhere. The changes we make out of our conscious choice give us a sense that we are powerful creators in the scheme of life. We see our free will in action. But the changes that seem to come from circumstances and conditions beyond our control can be unsettling. These changes can make us feel that we are just the pawns of fate or karma with little choice in our own lives.

Most of us know both these realities. Sometimes our free will works and the changes we want come into our lives, but sometimes they don’t and we feel helpless. What has happened when life seems to have other plans and we can’t create the reality we want?

Many of us with spiritual understanding might say that when our dreams don’t work out, it’s because it is just not our dharma. We accept that our higher self has other plans for our growth and learning, and we may be right. But is this always the truth?

Others may feel that their goals fail because they are not in line with God’s specific plan for them, “Not my will, but thy will be done.” But this idea can also leave us looking to God or Guru to save us and take over our responsibility as a parent would. There is good reason some think of themselves as children of God.

We live in a culture that holds us responsible for ourselves physically and materially. We go to school and get a job and that’s supposed to be what responsibility looks like. But there is so much more to our lives that we don’t really know how to be responsible for. Many of us have come to believe that we create our own reality, but Creating Reality 101 was not offered in the schools most of us attended. And it may have been taught poorly at home by our well-meaning parents struggling to make their lives work. (continued)

Ann Elizabeth Grace

The key to recognizing your calling is to pay attention to the way you feel. This means becoming acquainted with your wise inner voice. The inner voice is different from society’s voice, the media’s voice, or even from the voices of well-meaning family and friends. It knows what is best for you at any given time because it operates within the broader picture of your life in ways your rational mind cannot understand. In fact, the directives of your inner voice might not make sense to your logical mind or to other people around you. Yet it is through this internal guidance that you will receive unfailing counsel about whether to turn left, right, or go straight ahead.

To hear your inner voice consistently and trust in its direction, carve out some quiet time each day to connect with your thoughts and feelings—even if it is only for five minutes while you are cooking, exercising, driving, lying in bed, or taking a shower. Quiet time is critical in our twenties because we are bombarded with endless stimuli from the outside, ranging from the demands of our work and relationships to the vast amounts of information available through the Internet and other means of technology. If we aren’t vigilant, these outer voices can drown out our inner guidance.

While I have chosen to use the term inner voice to refer to the intuitive self, you will not necessarily hear its messages like a literal voice. This wise part of your being communicates in countless ways, such as through intuitive hunches and desires, dream images (day dreams and night dreams), inspired thoughts, feelings of contentment and joy or of sadness and lethargy, irrational impulses, repeated urges to pursue something, uncanny synchronicities, or waking up in the night for no apparent reason. Its messages may also come through physical sensations such as gut feelings, butterflies in your stomach, a tight throat, goose bumps, or even a sudden headache. Following are numerous suggestions to help you hear your inner voice more clearly. (continued)

Doug Marman

With new years, it is the custom to think back over the last twelve months and to set down new goals for the future. Time for reflection and resolutions. However, there is another opportunity that is often overlooked.

Look closely at the transitions of time and you can see that with every start there is an ending. However, we tend to miss the end of things in our modern age, and in the process we overlook something more important than we realize.

Our whole culture seems to be focused on youth, the outflow of life, and the birth of new creations in the world. We avoid death. We don't like final moments. This comes from a common misunderstanding about the flow of life. We think it is continuous, but it is not. Gaze deeply and you will see that each moment is separated from the next by an instant.

Hidden in the flow of life are continuous endings, beginnings, and instantaneous rest points between them.

Most people are not conscious of the space between moments, yet this is where we can change life. This is where the little choices we make become far more powerful than the big plans we try to accomplish.

Understanding how to end things is the key to giving us what we need to move forward. If we cannot close the loop, we cannot let go, and all of our energies become tied up in things that no longer exist.

Some of the strangest ideas of our modern world revolve around the end of life. If you were an alien visiting this planet, you would find it bizarre. We hide almost all signs of death from public eyes. We become obsessed about safety. We restrain ourselves and others from living fully to push off death.

Therefore, when dying hits us, the experience of it is generally shocking and disturbing. The idea that it could be the end with nothing beyond truly frightens people to their core.

In previous eras, we cared for the sick and dying in our own homes. We raised and killed the animals we needed for food. We faced death every day and understood the meaning of it better than we do today.

Most primitive cultures treated the killing of animals as a sacred act. Food was accepted with thanks, knowing that another creature gave up their life for them to live. They were involved in such sacrifices every day and it gave them a meaning to life that we have forgotten. (continued)