Gratitude lifts our vibrational frequency and opens our eyes and heart to love and its movement of grace. When feeling out of step with life, gratitude can realign you with your inner truth. When struggling with narrow viewpoints of who did what to whom, gratitude brings a soft breath, a space, where your thoughts can pause if only for a few seconds. That is enough time for gratitude to open the door of your heart and mind to grace. We may not understand the ‘why’ of life. Yet, we always have a choice to recognize love at the core of life. Is this easy? Not always. Is it simple? Always.

The journey is the transformation. Our personal journey is a universal one. Our hearts are infinitely linked. Now it is time to manifest a bigger vision of love by linking our hands in united community as we walk together on the path of evolution and recognize ourselves in the eyes and heart of each other.

Most of us know what it feels like to spin wildly in mind activity. And we know what it feels like to be aligned with our heart. These feelings are very different and both are part of life as we learn and grow. A friend of mine once said that cancer made him face the fact that “he wasn’t going to get out of life alive”. In his vulnerable state he made a decision to live differently, with more presence and enjoyment. He stopped the struggle.

When our mind is cranking in craziness and creating drama inside and out, you can bet there is resistance and struggle. Instead of reacting to life this way, we have a choice to stop and make another choice. Just stop for a second or two. By doing this, a clear field of grace can arise. We can struggle or we can stop the struggle and access grace. Grace is always available; it’s just held back through struggle. The quality of our journey is influenced by this choice.

My experience demonstrates that even in the midst of confusion, clarity is present. During overwhelm, clarity is present. In the midst of trauma, anger, sadness, clarity is present.

Clarity is a quality of Love, of Presence. It shines through everything and is always available. By widening our attention to include the spacious field that perceptions and points of view come and go within, we access a consistent field of clarity that is simultaneously present with everything. Where we put our attention determines our experience. The question is, are we open to receive what is inherently present? Instead of narrowing our focus on what is in flux, or doesn’t feel good, can we open to all that is present? All of it.

When the egoic mind entertains ideas that happiness, joy, enlightenment or purpose are things for it to have, struggle persists. Have you ever searched everywhere to find your glasses that were on your head the whole time? This is not unlike looking for joy when it is what you already are. By turning the mind around to what is present, the hunt for happiness dissolves in a pool of inner peace. This pool is Self.

We tend to think we need a reason or purpose for what we do. There may even be an unconscious belief about needing a reason and purpose for being. It is normal to search for a purpose to focus our lives and hearts, to create meaning. This is a useful thing to do. When I realized that my egoic mind was the part of me that searched for purpose, I stopped the search to see what would occur. I discovered that the joy and wonder in each unfolding moment replaced a need for meaning. In that, I live and share through a natural arising of purposeful actions from somewhere deeper, more encompassing. Purpose: we can search for it and focus our life around it. Or, like a bird’s song, when we live as who we are, purpose bursts forth in clear expression, simply because it can. Both are useful. Both are part of life.

Life is being created actively. There is no longer much lag time between thoughts and manifestation. If we think a joyful thought and feel joyful, we will create more joy. If we think a happy thought while feeling troubled and out of sorts, our vibration may attract confusing circumstances. We are creators and we’re learning to create.

All of us have an open slate to create our lives in the manner we wish. And the energies of 2011 will completely support this. In fact, we will be launched into action. Get ready. Our job is to be clear about what we project into creation.

Clarity comes from letting go of attachments to the past and future. Clean up unfinished business that still affects you. This is the year for it. As we go forward, we will want to be grounded and clear to create a world we want to live in. Spirit is opening and integrating into life in larger ways. Integration is simpler when we are clear and living in alignment with our heart.

This is the year to bring your dreams to the table. Energize them with action. Move beyond the boundaries of your comfort zone and find out what is possible. Ride the waves of energy in equanimity. Use the dips for renewal and rest. In every moment, free your heart to guide the way as you bring forth your dreams to enliven the world as only you can.

To know what really serves our evolution we must have a vision. Not in the sense of ideals and future accomplishments. The vision I’m talking about is a deeper vision—one of understanding life as it is, which is not always the same as what we want it to be. This vision arises from a sense of knowing what we are and what we are doing now. This encompassing vision doesn’t need a new calendar to focus change. It celebrates its becomingness through continual renewal.

We are all visionaries. Our deeper vision arises when we open to the truth of our self. If you want to create intentions or resolutions for change this year, I invite you to consider this experiment. Write your resolutions as usual. Then drop deeper than your mind. Feel the essence of what you are and let the energy that moves from there provide a vision for your future. It’s fun to notice how life lines up.

Beyond thanks and appreciation, gratitude is a way of being in the world. For me, rather than gratitude being something I do, it is a sharing of what I am. I find that a daily gratitude practice is a powerful tool for transformation and continual expansion. When I originally started this practice, I wrote a list of things, experiences and people I appreciated. Before long, the practice opened an inner channel and gratitude poured out. My experience continues to demonstrate that gratitude is a natural expression of inner kindness recognizing itself. Gratitude flows simply because it can. There is great freedom in this.

Life is a series of ups, downs and sidelong journeys. If your life is shifting and inviting you to make key adjustments like Life continues to do for me, I invite you to listen for a deeper invitation. It is up to each of us individually and collectively to claim our life, take hold of it, shake out the cobwebs and build every new moment on a supportive inner framework where freedom and joy are the norm instead of the exception. By leaning into life, we are emptied of what no longer serves us and filled with the truth that is always present. In this, the movement of life is simply the movement of life.