Nourish a gift of your own

Happy New Year to All of You. I hope it was a lovely holiday with time for connection, rest, and recovery. Now we slide into a new year and our January theme of Nourish. 

It’s an exciting time of year, with that feeling of newness and many headlines reading New Year, New You. I believe in magical thinking and miracles; however, one calendar page flip cannot simply birth a new being called the NEW YOU. 

However, as I sat still over the holidays, I realized that, most likely, like you, I am a different person than I was on January 1st, 2023. Change happens in ebbs and flows, eddies, and avalanches, most precipitated by living a human life, not merely the turnings of time.  2023 brought breathtaking encounters with love and the experience of heartbreaking cruelty, too. And the question for many is how to keep going amidst the turmoil. How can we nourish our tender hearts and have hope for 2024?

In a recent conversation with a friend, I asked how and why he developed a meditation practice. “I wanted something of my own.” His answer struck me as profound. I like to say that life is a group project. So many other factors and people influence our lives, making life challenging, rich, and spectacularly uncertain.  It was a busy time in his life as an attorney with growing responsibilities.

When I came to meditation, it was a few years after 9/11. I had a young family, and I was running a busy architecture and exhibit design practice. I, too, needed something of my own to soothe my mind and heart. Something so that the fire of hope could stay lit within me. 

Can meditation really be that tiny light on the horizon? 

Sitting still, even for a few minutes daily, is a gift of finding your inner peace, even if it comes in infrequent shimmering slivers. It is time for you to begin this relationship with yourself. Yes, it’s hard to feel your pain and tears and sit with all that is horribly wrong with the world today. At the same time, there are people doing kind things, there is hope for new ways around the obstacles of your life, and there are close friends who are holding on to you through your grief. 

As this new year begins, my invitation is to say yes to exploring the practice of meditation as the most profound way of nurturing your own life. Begin with one minute a day, a tiny habit, for the next 30 days. Consider it a gift to yourself. Something of your very own.