A Year of Daily Practices

With only three full days left in the year, I feel compelled to look back at 2014 and find the gems and lessons in the changes and challenges life brought me this year. It is easy sometimes to just assume that the whole year was rough with what happened to my dear mom in August, but when I take time to reflect and live in gratitude, I see each month and what I learned and how I grew and I see how much progress my mom has made in her healing only 4 and a half months since her cerebral hemorrhage. And I know how incredibly lucky she is to be alive and how extremely fortunate I am to have my wonderful mom here in my life.

When major events happen, it's sometimes easy to forget about all the prior good fortunes and all the blessings within the major event. Through reviewing my daily practice posts from each month this year on this blog, I am reminded of my 12 focuses this year which each helped me create positive habits everyday in unique ways and helped me grow into who I am today.

After what I've been through this year, I probably would be in a very different place emotionally had I not practiced positive habits almost everyday this year. And I fell into the business of daily practices almost by accident. I had the intention to meditate every morning which I did and I had already created a vision board in the previous year, but late last year I was invited by a friend to participate in a Fun-A-Day challenge by doing something creative every day in January, and this began my daily posts on my blog. And when January ended, I felt so great from focusing on creativity every day of the month that I decided to continue a daily post and practice in February. As each month came to a close this year, I enjoyed brainstorming different topics of self-development that I'd been meaning to learn more about and focus on. 

In all, even when I wasn't able to post every day, I learned that as part of the practice of self-love and compassion, I could go back and post for the days I missed without feeling like I'd failed or like I should give up for not following the "rules" correctly. After all, it was my uniquely created daily (or almost daily) practice and I wasn't doing it for anyone else but myself. I could make up my own rules and show myself the utmost kindness and respect for taking on this kind of challenge to improve my wellness.

It's been a great way to practice being imperfect and vulnerable and own my goodness just as I am, because I learned and affirmed that I'm enough and my rules and unique ways of doing things are just fine. And I'm okay with just fine. I'll take fine over perfect any day if it means I'm healthier, calmer, less stressed, more peaceful, having more fun, and overall happier.

I plan to create a collage or piece of art or photography for each monthly focus from this year and share it here on my blog, both as a sort of virtual keepsake visual of what I learned this year and to share with you and maybe even inspire others to commit to one thing everyday for a whole week/month/year--you make the rules so it has to work for you. (Isn't that liberating?)

For now, I'm going to review each month with a quick phrase or sentence about the area I focused my independent studies on.

2014: My Year of Daily Practices

January - It all began with a commitment and intention to be more creative and do something creative to share with others everyday!

February -Then came a more inside job of studying abundance and learning that abundance comes from within, from our viewpoints, from our beliefs.

March - Focusing on loving myself and showing myself compassion set the tone for the rest of the year and freed me from the chains of perfectionism.

April - I focused on really figuring out what grace means to me and how to live a grace-filled life.

May - Without even knowing it, I set out to let go and release this month and by the end of the month, I was moving onto a new job after almost 7 years at my last job. (Excellent serendipitous preparation!)

June - I decided to really explore my goodness so I could recognize it and own it more freely and feel better about myself and more confident.

July - I explored having more fun by adding more zest and zeal in my life, which had been one of my intentions for the year and something I was struggling with still.

August - Again without knowing what would happen midway through the month, I focused on forging faith and boy did I need all the faith I could get this month. (One of the hardest months of my life.)

September - Once the scariest part was past me with my mom's emergency brain surgery came the beginning of the recovery--for both my mom and for me, so I chose to focus on soulful soothing which I was craving to my core.

October - As the weather got colder and the days began to shorten, I focused on adding more coziness to my days in a creative way.

November - In theme with Thanksgiving and with all that was happening in my life, I decided to write about gifts of gratitude this month.

December - And finally, last but not least, I've been focusing this month on being more deliberate in my dreaming, more specific and more honest and delighting in the process.

What a year! A year filled with challenging times but also with so much inner strength and wisdom gained--creativity, abundance, self-love, grace, surrender, goodness, zeal, faith, soothing the soul, coziness, gratefulness, and dreaming--oh my!

Making Art From the Bits and Pieces

I feel like expressing myself through art. Creating a collage seems to exude a certain quality of ease and grace that I don't know if I can recreate in words. I'm thinking of the many life lessons from this past year, although my collages tend to have a life of their own, as I let the words and images I find lead me to creating a unique piece. Let's see what happens.

That felt good. I realized in looking at my collage book today that I hadn't created a collage in it since October. No wonder I've been out of sorts. Never mind stress and some chaos in my life. No matter what, I need to create! It's where my inspiration for new ideas ignites. It's where I find relaxation. It's where I feel most comfortable. It's where I feel I'm in the flow of life.

Is there something you've been neglecting that you love to do? Is there any way you can do that thing for just a few minutes today? Trust me, it'll be worth it.

Here are some of my other collages on health, wellness, and creativity from this past year of making art from the bits and pieces.

Looking back at the pictures I've taken from this year, it reminds me of how I started my collaging craze. Ironically I had already been collecting pieces of paper with words and images that I liked to add to a collage someday when I started collaging, and I created a vision board a year and a half ago which is a similar style to my collages. But I think it started first, after participating in the Fun-A-Day challenge in January where I created something everyday, but also after going to the Edmonds Art Walk and discovering that collage art is a recognized art form even in galleries, called mixed media art. I have been a fan of Kelly Rae Roberts' mixed media art for some time now. But I guess I never really thought I could create art in that same realm. It has been so rewarding to not only create a book of different collages that I've added to throughout the year but also inspire others to start their own collaging craze. One good friend started collaging her closet door! I have absolutely loved sharing space and time with friends and colleagues to create art together. I feel so blessed to have had the opportunity to lead collage sessions at two different colleges on professional development days also.  

This year has definitely been one of creating and sharing! I wonder what 2015 will hold for us. :)