Looking back on the past year and the gifts it brought is always easier than looking head-on into the unknown for answers. It is easier to understand what has been more often than to understand what lessons are to come. I wish to take a moment and reflect on what life for the past year has revealed.

It has been a year of feeling stuck! At times the seasons appeared to be unraveling and at times there was glue in the air with so much pushing and pulling—a real tug-o-war. What a year indeed! If you ever felt bi-polar this was a year of bringing a forced balance into your being whether you wanted it or not.

But more importantly it was a year of consolidation and a time of discovering what commitment and stability are all about. These are not easy efforts on our part to exam because for most of us, being practical and taking the sojourn of a Saturnal spin in life takes a great deal of patience and I must state for the record: I personally have never been very patient with my own self examinations!

There are no birds in last year’s nest ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

What is perhaps the hardest cycle in a decade has at least finally come to impasse and if you have processed all that has been required of you then 2012 will be a time of letting go and feeling freedom, or at least a breath of fresh air.

What 2011 asked of all of us was to get the things done that we have ignored or overlooked. I use the word consolidate because this is what we were feeling we needed to do—clean out closets, the garage, and our storage units! Of course this is the more physical aspect of it yet, there were also the mental and emotional inspections as well. It is one thing to clean out closets but it is an entirely different proposition when it comes to also taking time to reflect on relationships. But this was another side of the cube we were expected to consolidate as well.

This past year was also a time of taking a deeper look at what our relationships were giving and most importantly taking from us. Not to mention understanding the role of the hall monitor, or enabler or perhaps the emotional vampire still energetically absorbing all that we had to offer. So this being said, it perhaps was the hardest part of this past year — understanding why we needed to let go of all those people in our life that were no longer part of the shift that is still happening to us.

The year 2011 positioned us to realize that if there are people in our life who are not present to support joy and love then why are we holding on to them? Is it not time to open up to those who want only the best for themselves and for us? Do we really want to continue enabling relationships that hold us back? Well the answer is simply and absolutely no.  That is where the push-pull came into effect because it is very emotional to let go of those who we feel we have invested too much for so long.

This past year saw the end of many relationships of marriage, friendship and professional partnership that needed to happen in order for all parties involved to move into a deeper understanding of commitment to oneself and to establishing a commitment to honoring a journey that was beginning to feel like a burden instead of an act of being a fully realized human being.

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice ~ T.S. Eliot

Between the emotional and physical desire to either stick to what you have created and affirming that the change required making it something wonderful is the key. Or, examining whether it is working in a positive and healthy way for a better life, the pushing and pulling also placed many of us in a standoff and a resolve to just see what happens by standing still.

I personally decided to let the universe take the wheel and guide me through it all. My resolve came from years of studying, meditating, praying and faith to finally live by example and let go and let God do the driving – very much like the Carrie Underwood song Jesus Take the Wheel.

I know my body is the vehicle and my mind is the passenger and that there is something more profound that is driving both. I realize that my journey is to sit in the back seat and enjoy the ride. And this is exactly what I have done this past year. Not to say that I am not always making decisions or moving in a direction made by choices, but it is to say that when it came to decisions of the heart I released my will and let the river take me where I needed to go. It helped a lot in 2011 because there were so many moments of just feeling I would have been stuck on the side of the road in a broken down car without a spare tire. And that feeling is the worst especially in the middle of the night all alone in the dark. This is how many folks felt this past year.

Yes here we are, still moving forward into what promises to be a New Year of great change and a realization of how liquid truth really can be. Fasten your seat belts!

With all this ‘feng shuing’ going on the past year, all the cleaning and ridding oneself of unhappy relationships and cluttered houses, cars and desks at work it was also a year of clearing out all the mental garbage in the mind. Yes, it was a time of getting those unhealthy programs in the garbage bin. You know which ones I am talking about, the ones that kept beating you up for not being good enough, or loving enough, or kind enough, or healthy enough to live a sustainable joyful life.

It was a year of finally realizing the bat by the door, that is kept near to beat ourselves up with, is no longer an item we need in our inventory. The year 2011 was a year of finally putting down the bat and stop beating our own brains out for all that we are not! Every time there was a moment of low self-esteem or worrying about what wasn’t healthy thoughts we were able to also reflect on how thinking about how things are not working for us is really the plan being implemented to make the great changes we need in our mental state.

The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year ~ John Foster Dulles

Think about all the times you have beat yourself up for not being fully committed to happiness. Whether you felt unappreciated, unloved, unfulfilled or any other ‘un’. These thoughts were there to prepare you for all the changes you are finally resolved and committed to making in 2012! We all are beginning to realize that life is about faith and trust and wisdom and love.

This year has shown us all that no matter how bad it appears to be, no matter how nasty the politicians and bankers and theologians tell us it is, we have been able to get up every day and take one step at a time in the direction we are being guided whether we felt like it or not. This is growth on a profound level, preparing each one of us to step into deserving a better tomorrow through the understanding and wisdom we have acquired from our past experiences.

Hallelujah! We are no longer stuck! The river has taken us out of the slow waters and now we get to embrace the rapids that are just up ahead. Life is getting exciting again!

If we have done the work we have been called into action to do this past year, if we have cleared out the negative energies (programs) in our lives and made a commitment to changing what isn’t working for us in our lives, 2012 will be a time of action, change and excitement.

If you haven’t yet fully resolved to commit to new ideas and a new way of thinking and living it is still not too late to resolve to be open, willing and courageous about your future.  It is never too late to make the changes in the mind that will create the changes in the outer world of living.

The year 2011 asked each of us to let go of the things that are not supporting love and happiness. As hard as it sometimes felt to just take a back seat and let go it really was easier than beating our heads against the wall of stubbornness and determination to keep things the way they have always been.  Self-determination worked when it was about moving ahead, but it stopped working when it turned into driving willfully our past mistakes into our future.

Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past.  Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go ~ Brooks Atkinson

It was a year that taught us that being a backseat driver is not a healthy or positive lifestyle and in the end it only stresses everyone out more. We know better. We know that there is more to life than being a slave to debt, to dysfunctional relationships and to intolerance. And the universe has invested a great deal into helping us figure out what doesn’t work in life so that we can discover what does work what really will make us happy.

The year 2011 perhaps felt more like a sinking ship, or a stick-in-the-mud, but what it was really is important to our future. It was a time of consolidation, of commitment and of knowing that each one of us is building our life plan into fruition…into something wonderful!

For those of us who already valued practicality, commitment and strong foundation we supported those who struggled. For those who were learning to be more solid, fixed yet less stubborn it was a time to receive graciously in the yin and yang, the give and take not the push and pull of outer conflict or inner despair but of cooperation and community.

I am glad I have survived 2011 and hopefully have become more aware of my place in the cosmos. Well, at least in my life. I am also thrilled that 2011 has come to an end! Ha! It felt at times like a test or examination that I am sure I studied for and know I will pass, but nevertheless the stress of it was at times, well, stressful. I am looking ahead into the possibilities, happy that I passed, happy that we all passed and happier that we will all be together in this new age of light.

The year 2011 has shown us all that we have a courageous heart. A heart that is listening to the universe from the back seat of our vehicle, and a mind that is able to look out the window of the world and once again enjoy the ride.