The Year of Getting Better

Despair. Shame. Illness. Stress. We have all been known to walk down the halls of misery from time to time. Sometimes we are seemingly more enmeshed in anguish than not. If we look at our past experiences, however, one might take note that they all lead to better things—a new way of thinking or perhaps a new way of being. And that is a good thing. 

I began deeply pondering this notion when a new acquaintance recently told me that she had had cancer and that last year was the year of being sick. As though a light bulb immediately switched on in my head, I countered her words with my own.

“You mean, it was the year of getting better,” I offered.

“Yes,” she agreed. “It was the year of getting better.”

She changed her thought process right then and there and moved on with her conversation. She walked through the darkness last year, but with each step she took she was getting better. Now, she is healthy.

Her story of chaos was cancer, but my story and your story may be about something else. Whether the ailment we have is a physical illness, or a mental or spiritual one—even if it’s simply just stress, we have an opportunity to shift our awareness from one of languishing in loss, to recognizing that the Universe is shaking things up for us so that we can make a change.

I read on a Facebook meme today, how when a seed is buried under the weight of the earth, it doesn’t just stay there waiting in limbo forever. Eventually, it cracks open. It breaks. It reaches for the light and in the process it grows. This may be viewed as a metaphor for our own cracking up and breaking open. It’s through this process where we may have an enriching growth spurt, as well—leaving our old paradigm behind, while reaching for a new and exciting endeavor. Whether that means, a new way of living, or a new way of thinking, we are all striving to open that gateway into new realities—and it’s the cracks that help us to make it there.

When I went through my divorce several years ago, I thought it was the end of the world, but without that experience, I would have never left my job to live in Paris for two years. I would have never had the experiences that followed, including my Spiritual Awakening. It’s not that I couldn’t have had my Awakening while married, but the same set of circumstances would not have happened to initiate that process for me—leading me to this moment of now. When I look at my divorce today, I am grateful and send my ex only Love and Light.

Even when we are steeped in the emotions of chaos, where it feels we are lost in a subterranean mine filled with despair, where the light at the end of the tunnel is seemingly nowhere in sight, we are still getting better. Last year was the year of getting better—just as this year is—as will all the years ahead that will follow.

The word “January” comes from the Roman god of doors. It was he who opened new doors of possibilities for us. So, in this first month of the year, I invite us all to think of new ways of shifting our old thought processes so we may too see the Light of opportunity and change.

This is yet another year of getting better.

And so it is.

Thank you for reading and Namaste. (The Light in me recognizes the Light in you.)

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