It’s funny the lessons that keep reoccurring when you try to avoid it, ignore it, push it aside to deal with later. For me, the signs came in an annoying technological error first on my camera and then on my laptop. A lack of memory from a never deleted and semi-organized hard drive forced me to confront an issue I’ve been avoiding for most of 2011. Letting go.

As I weeded through 3-year-old invoices and duplicates photos, I wavered between a feeling of complete defeat and relief. It felt good to go through and delete the files that were no longer serving my present life. But going through each one was painful. Not only was it time-consuming, but the process brought back happy and unhappy memories. Hours later I wondered why had I let this go on so long. Why did I continue to avoid dealing with the problem despite pop-up reminders that warned me I was running out of memory and time?

I realized that it was the same heavy burden we carry when we hold onto people and problems that don’t feel good to us. Because it’s uncomfortable, we endure it. Because what we know feels safer than the unknown, we hold onto what doesn’t work. And in the end, they clog up our system, drain our energy, slows us down, like it does our computer. Instead of taking the time to reflect on our lives, we live day to day just surviving. Not really living, but merely getting by.

I hope this post and the five ones below will be the wake up call you need to begin living again. Appropriate for the start of a new year, they will teach you how to live more authentically, find happiness and take more risks in your life.

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