 Oh, I probably should have like fancied myself up a bit. Hi, good morning. Hey, it's Bridget, nice to see you. All right. Welcome to Above Life Channel. The purpose here is to, oh, wait a minute. It is Sunday morning coffee. Hi, good morning. Okay, so I am live and on location and I just took Tylenol and it's January 1st. 2023, uh-huh, oh yes, oh yes. Yes, okay, so I have coffee this morning and I would love to be the first person, although I'm sure I'm not, I hope I'm not the first person to say to you, happy new year, happy, happy new year. So let's cheers to that. Mm, I spent the night, I'm on location, I'm someplace else, I'm in a hotel and I had just a really great day yesterday, a really fun day and yeah, it was just awesome and I'm tired right now. I'm tired, I'm like, I'm tired and I participated in some adult beverging. I had some, I had a few drinks last night, which was nice and yeah, and I feel okay, I have a little bit of a slight headache-y thing, but I think that's just because I didn't sleep much. So I hope you can hear me okay, can you hear me okay with this? I just hooked up my mic, hi. Yeah, I apologize, I'm just gonna apologize because I did not record Sunday morning coffee earlier, I was thinking about recording it earlier for you guys and I just didn't get around to it. Just a minute, let me just see if I can, I can't even see this, just see if I, good audio, okay, thank you. I'm like, I can't see, my eyes are not awake yet. Oh my gosh, I went to a bookstore yesterday, I did so many fun things yesterday and went roller skating, oh yeah, roller skating. It was so much fun, my thighs though are like, I used muscles, I haven't used in like 100 years and it was fun, the music was great, it was really loud, but it was fun and there was so many little kids, they were like, it was like family time when we were there during the afternoon, it was so much fun. There was little kids like slipping and sliding all over and it was kind of like an obstacle course sometimes and I think that's why my legs, man, for legs are sore, I'm like, oh, use muscles I didn't know I had, but that's okay because I started a yoga, a 30 day yoga thing this morning, so I'll start that soon, but my muscles need that anyway. And then I went to a bookstore, I did one of the things I did yesterday was I went to this bookstore and I've been really feeling into, I do this thing word of the year, word of the year, and I actually have a friend who's a writer, Rebecca Cavender, and she, actually I just saw on her social media, I think Rebecca Cavender, it's spelled like lavender but with a C, Rebecca Cavender, and she is, she has this offer on her, I think she's on, I think it's on Facebook and it's probably on her Instagram page, again, Rebecca Cavender spelled like lavender with a C, writer, and she has an offer right now for word of the year and it's this massive workbook that she created and for a few years she would offer it and it was, it's just, she has this really great deal on it right now because usually it's like when I've done it in the past it's been like this big, I mean it's a big deal, it's a super good value, it's super, super cheap right now so I, go get it, go get it. I think it's only like $25 or 30, it's like so cheap, I'm like, oh my gosh. Anyway, my point is the word of the year thing is a big deal for me and so I planned to, like I brought my beautiful journal, I'll show you my journal. These are good tools for you for 2023. See my journal, The Kiss, I brought that with me last night and today for the new year and I was gonna work on my word of the year and I thought I knew what it was but now I'm like, oh, I think I might have a couple words of the year and they're kind of surprising a little bit, right? So we'll have to see, I have to do more meditation about it but I've already written a lot about, I mean, it's just such a cool thing but anyway, so I went to this great bookstore, super cool bookstore and I found a book of poetry and it's by Atticus and it's Love, look at the covers, it's just so cool too, look at that, Love. Should I read you something? Okay, I just randomly turned to a page and I'm gonna read this to you. So, love may or may not be a good word of the year for you but I just, I mean, why not have that be a good way to step into 2023 together, right? Even if you're like, not in a good place with that, doesn't matter, okay? Because this may be an invitation for you to feel into that and what that means for you because love, we were talking about this yesterday that there's a lot of different, like love is like, there's so many different types, forms, expressions and meanings of love and connections of love, not just ways that love is given, received, it's not just a commodity, it's like this array, it's like a gradation of not just emotion either and it's not just a thing, it's all of this, like it transcends, it's such a big deal, right? So, I wanna read you something I just randomly picked for you, okay? So this might be some kind of message for you as you step into the new year on this Sunday Morning Coffee podcast today, okay? May or may not be, you decide. Okay, all right, I'm like, oh, can I read because, okay. All right, love isn't, I haven't read that yet, I just randomly, you just saw me, I literally just opened the book in the middle, right? Okay, love is not something to be found, it is something to be built. Brick by careful brick and the more carefully it is built, the stronger it will be for when life's winds blow and storms shake the walls, okay? So, if you had your journal handy or if you were watching this another time, when I read this, it feels like there's more to be written. And I think the rest, the more to be written is yours and that's an invitation for you. Like how do you wanna write your story into the new year? How do you wanna do that? Without pressure, just what naturally flows. So I'm gonna read it again and then that will give you an opportunity to maybe grab on the journal and then finish it for yourself. So then just pause this or let me ramble on while you just write, okay? All right, so here we go. We're writing about love and we're using that as an invitation as we step into a new year, okay? Forget about what you think you know about it, forget it, okay? This is like what's present here now for you, okay? Now remember, so as I stop, you start writing, okay? Love is not something to be found, it is something to be built. Brick by careful brick and the more carefully it is built, the stronger it will be for when life's winds blow and the storms shake the walls, continue writing the story. What's next? What's next? That's how we step in for this new year. The question of what's next can be daunting. It can be a very big thing. It can be a feeling of pressure to know what's next or this internal expectation of being on some kind of a timeline or like your life is a project plan and you have to check the boxes of the milestones as you move through life. When the truth is, is you as this incredible energetic being are constantly in a state of movement, of flow, of change. Even if it's not overtly obvious externally or even to yourself, you are constantly evolving. Every part of you, you are changing every single day and it's not always dramatic but over time you can notice it, right? So this process of living is really about subtle, gentle changes that are happening steadily and consistently but they're not always obvious and we don't always notice each individual step or evolution of the flow of the change that we're in. But like what they say with overnight success, like you've heard that before, like people on YouTube, for example, it's like, yeah, I was an overnight success but I've been doing my business for 10 years and it looks like I'm an overnight success, like that kind of thing. Like where were all you people 10 years ago? That kind of thing, right? They're all like, oh, they're new. They're new on the scene. It's like, not new. You just notice, right? So that happens through a series of steps, of actions, of thoughts put into action, of ideas, of intention, of feeling, of values that kind of work together to create eventually what you look at and go, wow, you know? So what's next? Isn't a proclamation or a declaration? It doesn't have to be like a New Year's resolution. What's next? What are you gonna do? It doesn't have to be a goal even, but it's perhaps an invitation. What's next? To be curious and open with one unfold for you in this coming year. And it's just another reminder here as we are at the doorstep, the beginning of something. Whether it be the beginning of a month, it could be any month, the beginning of a week, any week, or the beginning of the year. You have this invitation to move with those subtle undercurrents that are happening anyway and to really let life carry you forward. You don't have to push, you don't have to force. Let's this year, let's not do that. Let's not set these unbelievably high expectations of ourselves that we got maybe when we were in the fourth grade when we thought this is what I'm supposed to do with my job or this is what I'm supposed to do with my life or this is what I'm supposed to do as a mother or this is what I'm supposed to do X, Y, or Z. Fill in the blank for you. How about instead of all those pressure, that pressure, we think about how we can gently just naturally and organically flow and move with life as it is unfolding in us, within us, because there is. That's where the change is happening, my friends. It's happening inside you and the thing is is you won't notice it until it gets to be a big deal, until there's such a friction or resistance or such a contrast between how you feel inside about a person, a place, a thing, a situation, a circumstance yourself versus what you're seeing on the outside and the difference between the two. The contrast is what gets your attention. You don't have to wait until you have friction or resistance or a pressure point or a trigger. You don't have to do that this year, okay? Let's just set the whole concept of triggers aside. We don't even need that terminology anymore. We just get to be aware of how we are subtly and constantly changing or shifting or evolving organically and naturally and maybe just maybe what's next for us, for you, for me, is to just trust that natural rhythmic nature of life. Maybe we are making this way too hard and complicated. Maybe we are. Maybe the only thing you owe anybody or anything or life itself is your presence. You being right here right now in the moment. Maybe the only thing that you should be accountable for is the awareness and recognition of the gift that your breath is right now in this moment. You are breathing, you are alive, you are here and you are now. And if you have not learned from the past three years of the massive shift in change and the threat to your health with pandemic, I don't know if you're ever gonna learn how special and sacred you are because you're breathing, because you're here. Not for what you lack or for what you're missing or what you've lost, life should not be counted and valued like compensation based upon what you've lost. It should be yours to work with, to interpret, to play in like a freaking sandbox, to be curious about, to be open to. Yeah, it should be like that. So maybe what's next is for you not to take life so intensely. Don't put high expectations on 2023. Don't do it. Don't be like, this is gonna be the best year ever because these last years suck, don't do that. That kind of comparison is not healthy. It focuses on lack and what you didn't have and it steps you in at a place where you're already behind. No, that's not the part of the cycle you wanna feel into. That's not the part of the rhythm of the flow of change that you wanna be in. Sometimes you are gonna be in places where you feel like crap when you've had devastating blows in your personal life and losses and unexpected events. It could be a health thing. It could be a job change. It could be a relationship ending. Things that are hard. Yes, you're gonna have that. You are. But you get the opportunity to recognize that there's always something next. It's not permanent. What is consistent and constant is change. And you will have the opportunity to in a moment or in a day, feel differently. You might not feel magically better and then it's gone. You don't feel sad anymore or you're not stressed anymore. It's just magically gone. Everything's better. It's not necessarily like that. But you can know, you can be assured that everything is truly temporary. And because of that, it's special. Like it's like every day is like a holiday. It's like that. And I don't mean that in a cheesy way at all. I mean that in a very like matter of fact. Matter of fact kind of way. Don't live your life this year with this need to take stock of what you have because you know you could lose it. Or you know eventually it's gonna change. So oh my gosh, I better appreciate. I better have gratitude. That seems like an awful lot of heavy weighted expectation and it feels like a lot of gratitude, appreciation feels like a lot of comparison. Unless it's an energetic feeling that comes really truthfully from inside of you that just has this feeling of goodness, this lightness about it. If you feel gratitude because you just feel good, blissful, light, just a general connection to life in a way that isn't hard or intense or heavy, then yeah, that's what gratitude and appreciation is for sure. But it's not a way to beat yourself into submission to accept life that is less than what you truly are meant to be. And again, that's not a goal, that's not an expectation, that's just this truthful awareness that what's next for you doesn't have to be this big massive life plan. It can be getting a great cup of coffee. It can be that simple. It can be going to a cool bookstore, such a cool bookstore and getting a new poetry book. It can be that simple. And maybe it should be. Maybe we should try that in 2023. Maybe we should. How are you feeling this morning, my friends? Hydrate. That's what I'm gonna say. I did not hydrate that. My skin is dry. My lips are dry. My throat is dry. I woke up with a really dry throat this morning. I need to drink way more water, I'm sure. I must have been that roller skater and I did that to me. Okay, I will share with you that this morning I did a card. You know I like to use cards, Oracle cards because I think it's just another tool. It's another great visual to connect with energy. It's just, I'm super visual, you know that, right? So I pulled a card from the 13 Moon Oracle deck. And you know I love that deck. It's an archetypal deck by Ariel Spillsbury. You can find it online. Actually, when this is posted, when this Sunday Morning Coffee is posted on my YouTube channel, you'll see if you scroll down in the description, there's a link to getting it if you wanna get that. It's on my card deck list. So the one I pulled this morning is heart-knowing. Look at the black and the white. The contrast. It's very balanced, isn't it? Yeah, the past, the present. This is the archetype of the wise woman. This one is, I believe. Yeah, this is the wise woman. It says no drama or neutrality, both and. Humor, laughter, and lighten up. That pretty much sums up what we shared this morning on Sunday Morning Coffee. And I think if I titled this one, it would be, what's next? What's next? She stepped into this new year. Heart-knowing, wise woman archetypal energy. So this is Bridgette. Thank you so much for listening to Sunday Morning Coffee with Bridgette, my weekly podcast that you can find here on above-life channel on Sundays. There's a huge playlist. So if you need some inspiration in the days and the weeks to come, take a look at the playlist here of Sunday Morning Coffee. I don't even know, is there 80 of them up now? There's a lot of them. So maybe you need some extra inspiration on a specific topic area. And remember, use writing as a tool. Grab your journal because that helps your brain understand intuitive energy. It helps your brain understand emotion, okay? It helps your brain. It's really, words are really the connection to allowing the brain into your healing process. I truly believe that. Oh, happy new year. Happy new year.