Juicy

                 

Happy New Year to all of you! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season and are ready for this New Year. So… it’s a New Year!! For you, does that mean new goals? Intentions? Perfect health? Clutter clearing? Doing nothing? More fun? What is it for you?

 

I’ll tell you what 2017 is for me.

One word.

One intention.

One commitment.

 

JUICY

 What does the word juicy mean for me? It means asking myself these questions: Where does my real passion lie (or where is the juice)? What makes me feel alive? What lights me up? What gets me excited about doing something? Reminding myself that it’s up to me to keep things “juicy” helps me as a motivator when I get off track and just want to eat bon bons and whine and complain that nothing is working in my life!

 

One of my favorite exercises that I learned from my friend and mentor, Alan Cohen, is the exercise of “It/Not It.” It’s really an opportunity to look at what I am doing, how I am spending my time, who I’m hanging out with, and to ask the question: “Is this it? Or not it?”  Does what I am doing fill me up or deplete me? Do I have energy or feel drained? Am I living life in full color or in shades of grey? Is it juicy and exciting or blah and mind-numbing?

 

I was talking with my friend Jennifer about this and she shared how she needs to really feel the “juice” before she says yes to something. For her, if there is no juice there will be no desire. When she said that I got the visual of squeezing an orange and watching all that sweet juice of desire coming out into a glass. That visual also helps me realize that when I don’t fill up my own soul-tank, or if I don’t pay attention to my “not it” voice, no juice will come out because there is nothing in there. 

 

Living juicy also means practicing radical self-care so that I have juice to give to the world. If my commitment to myself is being authentic, kind, and compassionate, then I need to first practice loving kindness to myself so I can authentically show that to everyone I meet. Easy to do? Not always – but that’s why it’s called a “practice.” It’s also a practice to say “No” when something is not juicy. In one of my songs, “N-O is my new Yes!” I wrote: “How good is my giving how authentic how true if I cheat me just to please you?” So this is my practice this year – living juicy, feeling the passion and having a darn good time! Will you join me?

 

Happy Juicy New Year!