Make 2017 your year for greatness

As much as you try to live in the moment - be in the Christmas spirit - your mind may still race ahead to next year, to 2017, and those old fearful habits kick in: what will happen, how will you manage, will you ever find work, find love. That old drum beat starts and you are on the treadmill of fear, peddling faster and faster and faster....racing ahead, worried about things that may happen, watching a scary movie called the future in your head. 
But not this year.
No, not this year.
Not 2017.
We've been through too much.
This year, make your goal, you resolution to triumph over those fearful thoughts. That movie may start to play, but do not stay and watch it. Do not allow fear to immobilize you or to predict your future. When you see and feel those old habits creeping in, THAT is the signal to get up and get out and get another movie, a joyous triumphant movie starring you.
Yes, there is an old neural pathway that makes fear so familiar and that is why it's time to make new neural pathways, to new thoughts. Yes, you are stronger and you are not giving in. 
This year, replace fear with courage. 
Make this your year.
Make decisions based on what you want to do, what you really really really want to do, not what fear will allow you to do.
That is my mission for 2017. 
Will you join me?
These past few years, I have waded through some tough stuff, felt pain and loss and humiliation and been touched by kindness and goodness and held up by human connection in ways I never could have imagined before. I can proudly say, I have learned to crawl and been grateful for every inch that I've moved forward. I am stronger, so much stronger. I am here. Oh Lord, I am here. And I am so grateful to be here....and I now I want to keep on going. Stronger still. 
I am tired of feeling afraid, weak, broken. This is the year that I do not want to crawl any more, I am walking, and I am determined to run - into the bright side, into the good stuff. 
I want to break so many old habits this year - of fear, of shrinking back, holding back, second-guessing, hiding my bright light by accommodating the limits of what fear will allow me to do, using everyone else's needs as a really good-sounding excuse to hold back. 
Oh, no, and I know it sounds harsh, it sounds selfish, but it's not selfish, it's honoring what makes me - what makes you - unique, it's honoring why you are here. 
You are not here to assume some cramped, smaller-than, oh-just-little-old-me position. 
No, you are here with unique gifts and talents and love and this is the year - your year - to let those shine forth.
So, please join me. I know I'm starting early, it's not even Christmas yet!, but my mind is on the horizon, on 2017, on the future and I want to make this my year - and I want you to make this your year - so let's start planning ahead for greatness.
Oh yes, GREATNESS. 
Together, in 2017, in courage, in faith, in love.