completion Archives — Magnolias West

Darkness, goals, and your inner curmudgeon

December 16, 2017 Leave a Comment

The Solstice is just a few days away. And we’re lighting candles on the menorah in the darkness.

It’s dark, just a few short hours of bright light every day, and then the darkness descends, with its invitation to connect to your inner light.

The year-end time whispers its invitation to get complete with the year that’s ending and then look ahead to plan and create goals that will guide you to the full expression of your purpose and passion.

You’ve probably done it before — it’s a natural inclination to feel into a theme for the new year, and step into the vision that theme can bring.

How your plans unfold depend largely on your mindset.

When you create a plan or theme for the new year, you’re capturing your thoughts and wishes and creative spark in that moment. [Read more…]

In the darkness, take time to review, complete, release the year that’s ending

December 2, 2017 6 Comments

Are you feeling that impulse to plan?

As the darkness deepens, as we head toward the Solstice and the return of the light in the north, a natural impulse arises to get complete with the year that’s ending and look toward the coming year to map out visions, plans, and goals.

I learned a long time ago that “resolutions” — those year-end declarations of what you’ll do differently or better in the new year — are hard to sustain. Picture your gym or a 12-step meeting in January — much more crowded than usual with enthusiastic people full of resolve.

Picture the same room in late February or early March — back to normal, right? You’re surrounded now with folks who have found a way to make a sustainable and supportive commitment. [Read more…]

The year is winding down. Are you feeling the pull to review and set intentions?

November 24, 2015 19 Comments

It’s getting darker and darker here in the north in this last month before the Solstice.

This is the time when your thoughts and your heart may turn to setting intentions for the year to come.

I’ve always thought that it’s more than just “resolutions” that are needed to make effective and lasting changes. I’ve written about resolutions and how by themselves they just don’t have enough energy attached to do the job. As you can see when you compare the crowds in the gym or at your local 12-step meeting in early January and a month later. Yup, resolutions in action. You can read a few of the articles I’ve written about this very thing here and here and here.

There’s so much to see every time you look back

You see and celebrate the good stuff: everything you completed and every risk you took.
Then you can assess what didn’t get completed: What needs to change to make this happen?
What needs to be released?

Once you have done this completion and release work, then your intentions (and resolutions) have a much stronger foundation and a much better chance of sustained success.

I created this Year-End Completion and Release workbook a few years ago, and this year instead of selling it I’m giving it away. Because my birthday. Because I’m grateful. Because of you!

Every subscriber to my weekly loveletter will receive a free download link to the updated and revised workbook starting this week and going until the end of December. I’ve given a lot of gifts away this birthday month, and I’m closing it out with this gift from my heart to yours. It’s a beautiful and useful book. Set aside an hour or so and do some work that will help you set the foundation for changes for the coming year.

Look for the link in your copy of my loveletter in the coming weeks, and if you are not yet a subscriber, you can opt in right here.

I’m turning to three quotes from Mary Oliver to close this post. Because she really says it:

“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”

“Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.”

I’d love it if you’d chime in in the comments; how’s your year-end ritual shaping up?

Solstice image courtesy Danny Pivato from NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day website

What’s waiting for you on the other side of the stillness point?

December 14, 2014 10 Comments

Sunday, December 21st

New Moon in Capricorn

0º06′ Capricorn
5:36 pm PST, 8:36 pm EST

Sun enters Capricorn

The Solstice
3:03 pm PST, 6:03 pm EST

Right before all the change, take some time in the stillness

Yes, change is coming on Sunday. If you haven’t been feeling the year-end bustle yet, you certainly should be by then. On Sunday, we have another in the series of zero-degree New Moons, the third of four. How have you been moving through these? Have they been landing like clean sweeps? Have the changes taken you by surprise, because you didn’t get any time to feel the energy of the Sun in the sign before the New Moon arrived? That’s how it’s felt for me.

Before all the changes on Sunday, you have a celestial, spiritual invitation to be still

Accept the invitation. Set aside some time on Saturday the 20th, and reflect. Have you downloaded my 2014 Completion and Release workbook yet? If you haven’t, Saturday is the ideal day to do this stillness point working. If you have gone through the workbook already, bring it with you into your stillness point time and review it, you may get some new and deep insights that didn’t show up the first time you looked at this.

Suggestions for you — what you can do to make the most of this stillness point

Take some time alone. I will do this working in darkness, which makes sense here in California, since we have so much darkness right now, and since Sunday is the turn of the wheel, and the beginning of the return of the light. In the Southern Hemisphere, you might want to do this working in bright daylight.
Create an altar. Whether inside or outside, all you need is intention and maybe a sacred object or two to make a space sacred.
Get quiet. Invite the stillness. Allow the stillness to help you to turn away from the world, from your thoughts, and from your worries. Sink instead into your heart.
Take some time to look back at the year that’s almost ended now. Accept what was challenging, give thanks for what worked. And here’s the big magic: give thanks even for what didn’t work out as you hoped it would. The more you can get grateful for everything, the better. On every level. Accept it all, get complete with it, give thanks for it, and release it. Now you are ready to move on.
After some time in this deep and sacred reflection, end your stillness time with celebration. Celebrate the New Moon that is coming, and the New Sun, and the New You!!!

Now you are ready to start looking at your goals, intentions, and visions for the year ahead.

I’d love to know how the stillness point lands for you. Please talk to me in the comments below.

Stop! Wait! Before you start visioning and writing goals, do the completion and release work first

December 7, 2014 16 Comments

This post was originally published in December of 2012. It’s been completely updated and brought up-to-date.

This is the time of year when your thoughts start to turn to your visions, goals, and intentions for the year ahead

It’s December, a natural time to start thinking about plans, and set intentions, to get clear about your visions for the coming year. You may even be thinking about those things right now.

But before you start writing those goals for the coming year…Stop and breathe. There’s work to do first!

Honor yourself in the most sacred way and allow for closure for all the beautiful actions you took in 2014. Take the time to look back, and acknowledge your magnificent accomplishments of this past year. Give yourself the gift of completing and releasing the year that’s coming to an end before you begin looking ahead — when you do, you’ll be creating a firmer loving foundation for your intentions and visions.

Introducing the Magnolias West 2014 Completion and Release Workbook.

Here’s how to create a strong, workable, sustainable foundation for your vision, goals and intentions for an amazing 2014! In this workbook you can make note of what challenged you, and what may still be incomplete. Celebrate yourself for all the new, audacious, brave, risky things you’ve taken on, tried, and manifested. The actions that worked out as planned (or better!) and the ones that didn’t. Everything that was wonderful, everything that was challenging, and everything in between. When you get to gratitude for all of it, you are lovingly cutting the ties to what may hold you back from your magnificence in the New Year.

Read what a client, Christine Scudder, has to say about the Completion & Release Workbook

“When I started the workbook, I was feeling pretty down on my year that was ending, but in the process of reviewing the questions, I found that I actually took more risks — and some significant ones at that — in the past year, and that each risk, each action, was deserving of my mindful attention and gratitude. I found the overall “taking stock” to be helpful. The language was at once direct and empowering, serving as an invitation to reflect upon this year in a way that was forthright, yet kind to myself. This is new for me — previously I’ve found “year in review” type activities to bring out a serious amount of harsh, critical self-judgment. I left this activity with a sense of clear renewal.” —Christine Scudder, MSW.”

Even when your efforts fail, gorgeous, as long as you’re trying, you’re making progress.

They call it failing forward. I promise you, taking the time to do this completion work will remove the weeds and undergrowth from your path, so that your new start —the goals, visions, blessings, and miracles you will bring to 2015 — will germinate, root, and flower beautifully for you.

How to buy the 2014 Year-End Completion and Release Workbook

It’s easy! All the information you need is right here.

Pricing, purchase links, more information, more testimonials, the whole megillah (yup, that’s Yiddish again — means the whole story). Check it out. Put yourself high on your gift list.
[Read more…]

Solstice blessings…

December 18, 2012 4 Comments

The Solstice is Friday, and as I always feel, not a moment too soon. I am enjoying every moment of sunlight these days, and getting ready to slowly shrug off the mantle of darkness as the light begins to return. Here’s how much I crave, yearn for the light in this season of contraction that’s blessedly almost ended.

A solstice poem

Every glint in your smile Every spark in a kiss Every moment of heat that we generate when we touch

The light that shines in your heart that radiates and pulses with every beat that glows through your shining eyes

We carry the light inside us even in the darkness

Our need for each other Our desire to enlighten The heat of our passion

We’re calling the Sun around to come back Come back!

Blessed be.

[Read more…]

Gratitude challenge week 49

December 7, 2012 Leave a Comment

“Who does not thank for little will not thank for much.” —Estonian Proverb

Oh, I’m starting to feel this in my heart, gorgeous!

Our year-long Gratitude Challenge is coming to an end, just three weeks to go. It’s been so powerful, so loving, so sacred, to read your gratitudes every week, to share mine with you, to spread gratitude in our worlds.

I am so grateful for this work we’ve done together. For the new people I’ve gotten to meet. For how some of the connections that have been made have deepened over the course of the year.

My own connection to my business has transformed in such a potent way this last year. I’ve been refining, clarifying and expanding my brand and offers, so that I can be of even better service to each and every one of you. I know you! I know you’re committed and passionate about integrating your most sacred heart’s mission and soul’s purpose with every action you take for your business, and I’m thrilled about our collaborations and co-creations.

I feel like I’ve been showered with wonderfulness!

I have love and gratitude for you that fill me with joy. Dancing in the gratitude space with you has made me a better woman! Hooray for authenticity, transparency, love and connection.
I want to personally invite you to stay connected with me, even after the year turns, because there’s so much new, juicy and sacred stuff I’m working on that I’m excited to be sharing with you. You’ll soon see the new website (woot!), which will launch as close to the first of the year as possible. And there’s more to come after that… Stay tuned!
Speaking of which, here’s something that I know you’ll love that’s ready for you right now! (The first product with my new branding: new logo, new colors, and the beautiful set of watercolors painted for me by Jennybach.) Ta da! Introducing…