Personal Growth Planet Blog

We’ll reach the darkest day of the year on December 22nd. The winter solstice is a turning point in the year. For those of us who live in the northern hemisphere, we experience the fewest number of hours of direct sunlight on this day, but the shift toward more light begins.

Pagans celebrate the winter solstice, called Yule, as the return of the Sun. The shift from dark to light, and all that means both symbolically and literally, is what both ancient and present day pagans celebrate.

When I log into my Facebook page this time of year, I am especially inspired by my friends who post the things in their lives for which they are grateful. Many people declare their gratitude for their precious family and friends. Others share that they are grateful for a sunny day.

In a moment of calm, those aspects of our lives that make us feel so abundant, loved, cared for and happy are prominent and easy to see. It is such a powerful practice to shine a light of awareness on those people and things in our lives for which we are grateful.

What scares you?

Plenty of people love to be scared. They watch horror films and, especially this time of year, they seek out haunted houses and delight in being frightened by ghosts, ghouls and zombies.

It’s all fun…when it’s all fun.

Of course, I’m talking about that kind of fear that makes you jump and possibly even scream when you’re not actually in danger. It’s all pretend or it’s fiction you’re reading or watching on a movie screen.

This is NOT a blog post urging you to dream the impossible dream, fight the unbeatable foe and other such sage advice.

Of course, there’s something inspiring and amazing about a person having a vision for a desired future and, despite huge odds, he or she is able to manifest that dream. It becomes a reality.

Impossible dreams do come true. Your own impossible dreams may very well come true for you.

This is also NOT a blog post that attempts to tell you which of your dreams are possible and which are impossible. Actually, I believe that pretty much anything is possible and that any of us can live the kind of lives we envision for ourselves.

I’m 1 week ahead as my visiting father departs my home and my mother-in-law arrives for a visit. I bid farewell and welcome this flurry of guests.

Now, I’m 24 years in the past, with friends at a high school show choir performance. We are singing, dancing and having a great time together.

Next, I am a year from now at the beach with my husband and sons. The ocean swells and we play together in the surf and the sand.

All of that time travel happened for me in the span of about 15 minutes (more or less).

September 11th used to be a date of happy anticipation for me. It is the day before my wedding anniversary, so it is something I– previously– associated only with eagerness for the celebrating to come on the 12th.

After 2001, however, this all changed.

Yes, I still look forward to and do celebrate my wedding anniversary with my husband on September 12th each year. But, the day before is a more confusing experience now. For me, there is a sadness and a bit of anxiousness mixed in with my excitement to commemorate the love that my husband and I have shared over the years.

Every morning I do sit ups and supported back bends over a big plastic balance ball. After I’ve stretched and moved my body in this way, it feels so good. It’s an infusion to my system that helps me prepare for what’s ahead that day.

But, as I reach my hands backward, toward the floor, my balance is challenged. My body is gently pulled just a little bit more than it’s used to being pulled.

This is an uncomfortable feeling. Sometimes, I tumble right off the ball onto the floor. Other times, I notice myself holding back– not fully giving my all to the backward bending.

It can feel like a never-ending, dulling cycle.

Get up in the morning, eat, go to work, do your job, eat lunch, come home, care for pets/kids/house, eat dinner, go to bed. Of course, there is usually talking with other people, some degree of exercising and most likely an array of entertainment activities thrown in to that mix.

Life can become a drudgery at times– or even most of the time.

You might as if you are stuck in a holding pattern with the same people, doing the same things in the same way, basically forever.

By Amy Phillips-Gary

Recently, I re-watched the late 1980s movie “Field of Dreams.” In the film, Kevin Costner plays a somewhat new-to-the-vocation farmer in Iowa named Ray. One day, as he stands tending the corn in his fields, he hears a voice call to him: “If you build it, he will come.”

Ray ignores the voice, jokes with his wife and daughter about it and loses sleep over it. The voice doesn’t give up! Finally, a vision of a baseball field right in the middle of his corn crop accompanies the words.