This is YOUR story and YOU are in charge of each chapter!

Another year has past and we now find ourselves at the beginning of a new year, a blank slate, endless opportunities, hopes, dreams, personal and/or career aspirations or maybe nothing at all. Maybe, it’s just another day and you are happy to be alive and to have made it through another year. There are no rules, we are all uniquely individual!

As we close off 2021, it’s so easy to get caught in the trap of demeaning and degrading ourselves, of feeling a sense of failure or disappointment, as perhaps we didn’t quite achieve or carry out some of the things that we would have liked to during the year. This sense of failure and inadequacy can set a really challenging tone and presence as we try to move forward and in being able to feel motivated, empowered and excited to be starting into a fresh new year ahead.

But one of things I love and we can forget is that ‘we are all in charge of our own story, the content of its chapters and the ending’. No matter what has happened to us in the past, or whatever might happen to us in the future, we ultimately have the power to choose how we want to live our lives and how we want to respond to any life stressors. We have so much more influence and insight into our own life stories and of how we want them to play out than we may realise. In the words of quotesgram.com:

“At any moment, you have the POWER to say this is NOT how the story is going to END”

I feel that by allowing ourselves to carry our hurts, pains or grievances forward, we are allowing ourselves to dampen the creativity, light and love in our hearts and souls. If you stop and think about it, when we breathe, it is not possible to take another breath in before letting the last breath go! It is physically impossible!

So in terms of our thinking, why do we find it so hard to ‘LET GO’? One reason may be that we don’t know how to actually allow or help our mind and body to do this. We may not know how to give ourselves permission to set ourselves free of our burdens and to allow ourselves to live more happily, safely and peaceful in the present moment.

So why not make a commitment to yourself TODAY that you will ‘let go’ of anything that is not serving you well, anything that is not aligned with ‘your story’? Why not embrace your individuality, your uniqueness, everything that makes you the person that you are today?

Not the person that you were yesterday and not the person that you want to be tomorrow, just the person you are NOW in this very moment. Why not take ownership of how you want your story to be written this new year ahead? Don’t let anyone else hold the pen, be in charge of what you want to put into your life story and what you would like to take out of it!

Make a commitment to yourself to surround yourself with only people who will help you to raise your vibrational level, that will help to lift you higher than you could lift yourself and that will not pull you down!!

HOW TO TAKE OWNERSHIP OF YOUR OWN STORY

Here are some tips on how you can take ownership of your ‘own story’ and how you can ‘let go’ of anything that you do not want to see in its chapters:

Every morning, upon wakening, express thankfulness for being alive and for everything that you DO have in your life. Focus on your blessings rather than on the things that you don’t have.
As thoughts, worries or negativities arise in your day, ask yourself, “is this thought, worry or negativity helpful in this exact moment?” 99% of the time, the answer will be NO! Then affirm to yourself, “I give myself permission to disconnect from this thought, worry or negativity NOW and I WILL NOT ALLOW myself to become consumed by it”.
Bring your attention to your breath and consciously take three nourishing self-care breaths, in and out. If you find it difficult to focus on your breath, bring your attention to your feet and where they connect to the earth beneath you. Feel yourself becoming anchored and increasingly present in your moment.
Take a few moments after doing this practice and notice how the intensity of the original stressor has subsided and how you chose not to let it catapult itself into the writing of your story!

We are all beautifully unique and individual

Thank you as always to Brian O’Loughlin at The Westmeath Examiner and his team at Celtic Media Group (https://www.anglocelt.ie/, https://www.con-telegraph.ie/, https://www.meathchronicle.ie/, https://www.offalyindependent.ie/, https://www.westmeathexaminer.ie/ and https://www.westmeathindependent.ie/ for all their wonderful help!

As published by The Celtic Media Group w/c 01/01/2022

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Leona McDonnell

Hi, I’m Leona McDonnell and I am a Mindfulness Teacher. I empower the children, teenagers and adults that I work with through Mindfulness, Meditation and Wellness with the belief that they already have all of the resources they need inside themselves to be the best version of themselves possible …. they just need to learn how to connect to and utilise these internal resources. I teach those I work with how to experience calm, peace and serenity in their everyday lives and I teach people how to reduce the everyday chatter in their minds. Having always being a very nervous and anxious child and teenager, from being afraid of my own breath, my own heartbeat, my own shadow, from undergoing numerous emergency medical surgeries with complicated recoveries, ICU admission, from anxiety, trauma and post natal depression to getting glandular fever in my mid 30’s, with 2 young children at home, working outside the home and also running my own Healing Practice, I hit breaking point in my own life some years back. I was stuck in a state of ‘Flight’, in a state of continuous panic. I had a broken mind, a broken body and a depleted soul. I didn’t know what to do, where to go, how to fix things. It was the toughest time and recovery of my life…. I then stumbled upon a local Yoga class and I decided to join it to see if I could create some calmness into my invasive mind and thoughts. I can remember not being able to even change my own natural breathing rhythm for the first few weeks, as I was in such a panicked state. As time went on, I grew to love Yoga as it made me reconnect with my body and my breath. It made me learn to trust my breath again. I then went on and sought out Mindfulness tools and techniques that I could introduce into my daily life. I slowly learned how to become more present in my life. I learned how to stop ruminating in my past and how to stop worrying about my future and just be present and accept the only moment I could change, which is the present moment, the most important moment. I learned how to ‘Train my Brain’ using Mindfulness tools and techniques. Coupled with Gratitude Journaling, Meditation and with a lot of time spent outdoors in nature, I began to feel much better. I began to feel much more centered in myself, more grounded, calmer and more present. After a number of years of my own daily Mindfulness, Meditation and Yoga practice, I felt amazing and had a zest for life! At this point, I decided that I needed to share with and help as many children and adults as I could with what helped me to transform my life! So I went on and did my Mindfulness training and here I am today!