The New Year brings loads of positivity and hope. How can you make the most of it and ride the waves of positivity? The mind, body, and thoughts are connected like a web. You cannot have one radiate light without the other. We are beings designed to perceive our environment and have autobiographical memories embedded in our senses and our hippocampus. But how can we cultivate positivity and move into our highest self? It begins with our mind and thoughts.
As a realist, I tend to move in the direction of imagining the positive. Actually, a new study found that imagination squashes fear. Hands down we all have fear, particularly a fear of failure. However, I believe that the more you fail this year is actually better for you. It will teach you to imagine how to pave a new road to be becoming better and being your best!
On my vision board two years ago, I wrote the goal to have a book contract with an advance. Although I did not get a contract for the book I was actually writing, I was offered a book contract for another book a publisher asked me to write. And I took it. It felt like I won the lottery even though an advance was not offered. I was getting to do something I loved for a living, something my father always told me, “Nikki, do what you love and the rest will follow.” I gained a mentor, a friend, a colleague, and I interviewed twenty incredible people for my book, Feeling Color: A Field Guide to Diverse Minds. Each of these interviews endowed me with how to be present and connected, how to listen, and how to see people.
Out of the blue in the heat of the summer while playing in the waves on a Mexican beach, my publisher Jim passed away suddenly from a heart attack. At the time, we were in the final months of completing my book. Today, I am in waiting. Rebirthing. In a place of patience. I am becoming. The road ahead forecasts that my book will be published in time. It is not how I imagined. Jim and I planned to edit the final chapters during a dive trip to Cabo San Lucas. I still dove on that trip and swam with sea lions and stingrays but a presence was missing: James T. Webb. I am learning to adapt to my new reality. I share with you that still publishing Feeling Color is on my vision board. Even in the midst of the tragedy of losing a dear friend, I have learned to be open with what is ahead for me. It is the leap of faith and even in the salt eyes of pain I find ways to cultivate the power of positive intention through mindfully understanding my reality and taking the steps to get back up again and write, write, write because it is what I love to do.
Life throws us curve balls. It is when we decide to swing and open to the possibility of a home run that we discover our freedom. Surrender to the unknown. Believe and know as you move ahead things will not be how you imagined, but it is what you do with your imagination to grow and learn from your experiences. When creating your New Year visions anything is possible.
Your pain does not define you. You can always write a new story. In the midst of pain, you rise to the extraordinary. Continue to imagine. I wish you a year full of growth, abundance, and laughter.