The Year of Inspired Action
“Thank God for granting me this moment of clarity, this moment of honesty. The world’ll feel my truths…” — Jay Z, The Black Album
It’s been a while, I know, and I sincerely apologize for the delay in posting. At the beginning of each year, I tend to take time to reflect. I identify motivations, desires, and goals. I’m a list person and this process often ends with additions to my bucket list, updates to my values list, and, of course, a concrete list of goals for the new year. After all, things become much more achievable when they are better defined, right? Oh yeah, and I always buy a new planner. Oh joy, oh rapture!
“Thank God for granting me this moment of clarity, this moment of honesty. The world’ll feel my truths…”
It’s been a while, I know, and I sincerely apologize for the delay in posting. At the beginning of each year, I tend to take time to reflect. I identify motivations, desires, and goals. I’m a list person and this process often ends with additions to my bucket list, updates to my values list, and, of course, a concrete list of goals for the new year. After all, things become much more achievable when they are better defined, right? Oh yeah, and I always buy a new planner. Oh joy, oh rapture!
Laptop and planners by Aaron Clay
This year has been somewhat different, however. Aside from tackling the familiar obstacle of analysis paralysis, I noticed something during the process that I haven’t been faced with in years past. My list of concrete goals looked substantially the same as it did last year. And it wasn’t because I hadn’t done anything noteworthy in 2017 or before. I had started a business that I now had to grow and sustain. I had begun to write more and pursue more creativity and I wanted to cultivate those things. I had come to value my mental, emotional, spiritual and physical wellness and I wanted to continue. I had made a contribution in my volunteer efforts and wanted to see them through. I had a relationship with a good guy that I wanted to nurture. And I had a beautiful daughter with whom I wanted to strengthen a bond and help develop.
What gives? It seems all works were in progress. Now what? I quickly realized that it was less about the concrete goals for me this year but what was it about? How was I to continue to evolve? And then it hit me. I was gifted with one of those clear-as-a-bell, 30,000-foot, bigger picture perspectives (Arch Bishop Desmond Tutu refers to them as “God’s eye-views”…I love that). April, you must work on your attitude, I thought. This year is not about the what - the specific goals - but about the how - how I will get out of my own way and approach my life so I can actually bring all my dreams into fruition. I have all of the colors, the brushes in hand, and the perfect lighting to craft a beautiful masterpiece but my attitude is what needs work and the things that I want to accomplish hang in the balance. Whether I wield my brushes proactively or reactively or with positivity or negativity and whether I color my canvas with joy or anger, fear or love is up to me.
Paintbrushes and paint by Anna Kolosyuk
The ability to pursue my gifts with all the vigor I can muster, for example, depends on whether I let my morbid (and it is morbid) fear of failure get in the way. It shows up as procrastination, lack of forward movement, wishi-washiness and an inability to make decisions, and even obsessive perfectionism and, ironically, those very behaviors are almost sure to bring about the very failure I so desperately want to avoid. Similarly, whether or not I end up with a loving and supportive companionship with my husband depends greatly on whether I cultivate love and support and friendship or whether I hold grudges, overreact, and defend a sense of self that isn’t even real. The list goes on but one thing is clear - my attitude is my choice.
Tulips by Brigitte Tohm
I choose to be steady rather than to constantly react - letting every little set back, every traffic jam, every tantrum and tiny thing steal bits and pieces of my peace and joy and contentment. I resolve to remain on the path to self-mastery in the midst of highs and lows. I decide to preserve my energy and to use it as a precious resource on the things that matter most. I aim for a wide open heart. And I intend to act from that inspired place - a place of positivity and grace and compassion and honesty and gratitude and giving and ultimately of love. I ask the universe for the help to remember my decisions at each and every moment of each and every day so that I can move closer to the expression of my own soul. Amen. It’s February and the year is officially in full swing. I appreciate your support this year. I struggle, as I’m sure you do too but you guys are my sisters and I am humbled to serve you.
Love in all things,
April Eileen
UPDATE (1.12.25): Wow, so much has changed in the details here but the basics remain the same…I continue to be invited into evolution of character, shifts in ways of being. And I suspect that is really the point. Over the years, I have certainly asked myself what I want to do, but the most rewarding shifts tend to come when I ask who I want to be, or better when I recognize who I am becoming?
A Holiday Hindsight and a Look Ahead
“Beware the barrenness of a busy life” — Socrates
Christmas chaos. Hanukkah hustle. Kwanzaa confusion. Whatever your particular end of year commemoration, frenzy has become a generally accepted part of it. This holiday season, in particular, has been one of the busiest I’ve had in some time. The funny thing is I did everything right. I traveled to be with family. I baked and decorated cookies with my daughter. I took her to see every light and decoration in town. I threw a festive holiday party. I read the jolliest of short stories and watched classic Christmas movies. I wrapped gifts all evening to ensure our living room looked magical. I cut down my own friggin’ Christmas tree (and by me, I mean my husband…it still counts). And I did it all with the sounds of Pentatonix playing as my own personal soundtrack. We even woke up to a blustery white Christmas. And yet, even with all of that, the Christmas spirit eluded me. I got glimpses of the magic, but mostly I was exhausted.
“Beware the barrenness of a busy life”
Christmas chaos. Hanukkah hustle. Kwanzaa confusion. Whatever your particular end of year commemoration, frenzy has become a generally accepted part of it. This holiday season, in particular, has been one of the busiest I’ve had in some time. The funny thing is I did everything right. I traveled to be with family. I baked and decorated cookies with my daughter. I took her to see every light and decoration in town. I threw a festive holiday party. I read the jolliest of short stories and watched classic Christmas movies. I wrapped gifts all evening to ensure our living room looked magical. I cut down my own friggin’ Christmas tree (and by me, I mean my husband…it still counts). And I did it all with the sounds of Pentatonix playing as my own personal soundtrack. We even woke up to a blustery white Christmas. And yet, even with all of that, the Christmas spirit eluded me. I got glimpses of the magic, but mostly I was exhausted.
Christmas ornament by Element5Digital
I spent the last week of December holed up in an Airbnb sans kid gathering my wits about myself. Besides laying in bed until the early afternoon hours and brushing the occasional potato chip crumb out of the bed, I also did a good deal of thinking. While my holiday efforts may have seemed perfectly in order, I clearly missed the mark and an impending new year has a way of making one resolve to make changes.
In the fall, I posted a beautiful picture my husband took of our historic neighborhood. The photo inspired me because everything in it pointed to preparations for deep and replenishing rest. We were entering a season of inherent respite. The leaves did indeed fall, the squirrels undoubtedly reaped the benefits of burying and then digging up food in our front yard, and the snow brought on a kind of quiet. The juxtaposition of this calm natural environment and the chaotic one to which we were just about to expose ourselves became apparent. I began to think about our recent ancestors and what they may have been doing at this time in the past. Their year, revolving largely around agriculture, would have been over at the harvest. As the days became shorter, temperatures dropped, and there was less demanding work and probably also resources that needed to be conserved, they might have valued things like togetherness, safety, warmth, and light. Well, I must have forgotten my own sentiments because my days – filled with frenzy, as usual – did not mesh well at all with the ones just outside my door.
Squirrel in snow by Aaron Clay
As the last of the Amazon Prime boxes were delivered to my house, so conveniently and in only 2 days, gift giving seemed to be even less meaningful and the last twinkle of my holiday season morphed into total absurdity. What was I doing? My kid is three and can see the magic in just about everything. Why buy 50 gifts when she’d be just as pleased with that empty jar of peanut butter I just threw away? Why subject my husband to a frazzled wife or my family to a stressed out member? Do cookies even taste good when they’re baked begrudgingly?
I began to wonder, am I listening to the messages all around me? What are the cues from my world? What is my body telling me? What are my deepest inclinations? Am I in need of excitement or rest? Am I working with or against my environment and what is it requesting of me? What can I do to make this day more special? What does my soul need right now? More snuggles, a cup of tea and a woosaa, some candles and tunes, or simply a nap?
My energy is sacred and I allowed it to be zapped. Who knows how far the ripples of that permeate? As I go into 2018, it will be with an insistence upon expanding my own energy, an ultimate form of self-care and of care for others. I hope to hear the truth that blares constantly and from so many sources. I hope to act on those truths with fervor and commitment and without fear. I hope for more purposeful, more beautiful, more love infused days and holidays alike. Most of all, I’d love to see the effects of ripples like that. Happy New Year, everyone!
Ripples by Levi Xu
Love in all things,
April Eileen
ThanksGIVING
“Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds.” — Theodore Roosevelt
No one loves the dining experience more than me. It just makes me happy. Good food, flowing wine, laughing friends and the atmosphere that makes it all work have made for some of my most beautiful experiences. One would think Thanksgiving – the holiday that revolves around gastronomy – would register at the top of my list of annual jubilees. Nope. Not by a long shot. I’m actually more into Sweetest Day – you know, that made up holiday that just showed up as the ugly stepchild of Valentine’s Day and yet still manages to guilt couples into spending “love” money and to make singles feel generally inadequate.
“Let us remember that, as much has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds.”
Turkey by Alison Marras
No one loves the dining experience more than me. It just makes me happy. Good food, flowing wine, laughing friends and the atmosphere that makes it all work have made for some of my most beautiful experiences. One would think Thanksgiving – the holiday that revolves around gastronomy – would register at the top of my list of annual jubilees. Nope. Not by a long shot. I’m actually more into Sweetest Day – you know, that made up holiday that just showed up as the ugly stepchild of Valentine’s Day and yet still manages to guilt couples into spending “love” money and to make singles feel generally inadequate.
Seriously, as I sat down to write a seasonal post about Thanksgiving, I thought, “what the hell am I going to write?” We all know about gratitude. We all know it’s good and proper to be thankful for our many blessings. Everyone’s family goes around the feast-laden table, one member at a time, reciting gratitudes before glutiny ensues, right? Nothing new here.
Why do I travel and cook and sweat and cry and bleed (there was an incident involving a knife and a gizzard a few years back…almost took out a thumb)? Is it simply to say thank you? I do that daily anyway. Couldn’t this just be a speed bump on the way to Christmas? I mean gratitude fits right in there with peace on earth and goodwill toward men, right? Couldn’t we treat it like an extension of the larger holiday season rather than it’s own thing (i.e. Thanksgiving is to Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or Boxing Day what Akron is to Cleveland)?
I’ve glossed over it long enough. For the last 7 years or so, I’ve been on a mission to live authentically, changing things little by little to hopefully achieve a life that fits me a little better. So it is no surprise that I am probing into Thanksgiving to try to find some meaning, outside of pilgrims and Natives and turkey-hand crafts, that I can really latch onto so it’s real to me.
Give thanks by Simon Maage
It hit me as I was writing and I think I found something that I can love, folks. We call this holiday Thanksgiving, not simply Thanks, nor do we reference the state of Thankfulness or the latent quality of Gratitude. Thanksgiving is the moniker we’ve collectively chosen and I think the giving is important. It’s an action word. I recently heard gratitude described as a consciousness of prosperity. If that is so, then thanksgiving is the process of acting on that consciousness and that seems to open up a whole host of creative ideas! What do you do when you realize how much you have? How do you give thanks? Thanksgiving also implies process. The “give” kind of continues for a bit. Are you aware as you are of giving thanks? What does it feel like? Is it enjoyable? What are the responses? Thanksgiving also begs the question giving thanks to whom? We may reflect on our place in the universe. We may become aware of and love more deeply those in our lives that incite the very prosperity upon which we are asked to reflect during this holiday. Pondering the questions allows us to nurture an atmosphere of connection and togetherness.
Feeling thanks and tangibly expressing those feelings in real time creates a beautiful reciprocal relationship that does not come out of a sense of duty but from the authentic beats of our hearts. The cycle of receiving and giving, giving and receiving continues, now with an awareness that the two are inseparable and each contains the seeds of the other.
Giving a flower by Evan Kirby
Thanksgiving, like other holidays, gives us an opportunity to cultivate the best of our humanity so we can project it more fully all year. It is indeed a holiday worth celebrating and one for which it is certainly worth picking a fight with our modern, commerce-driven lives. I am moved and inspired, guys. I’m stoked to practice. And the gratitude-driven ideas are dancing in my head like sugar plums…oh wait, like cranberries.
Love in all things,
April Eileen
P.S. Check out my upcoming experience, Holiday Pancakes and Pajamas, for an opportunity to enjoy a bit of holiday magic!