The thing about men is that they need advice too…So Soapbox Therapy is going guy!

I’m proud to announce the SBT and Primer Magazine collaboration…A new Men’s advice column! Make sure the men in your life are getting the advice they need, want, and deserve…

Check out the announcement here , and forward it onto you-know-who.

Thank you for your ongoing support of Soapbox Therapy!

Love,

Happy New Year! This article was recently published with The IS Collection, , (with a few edits) a series of lifestyle based Web sites and gloss publications building community throughout the counties of Marin, Napa and Sonoma, CA. Once a month the publications are distributed to 37,000 San Francisco Chronicle subscribers…

Enjoy the article, and I look forward to getting back on my Soapbox in 2010!

So here we are, saying goodbye to 2009 and welcoming 2010 … another one bites the dust. Another year, another 365 days of trying, pushing, working to make this year, the year. This is the time of year we look back on how it went. Did we do it? Accomplish it? Meet the one? Go there? Conquer that? Finally fit into those jeans? Ah, New Year’s, the time of year we decide if we’re living the life we want, and if not, we judge and put ourselves down – coulda’ woulda’ shoulda’, then decide we need to, want to, have to … have another go at it. We crave another try. We get high off the reality we have, starting tomorrow, another chance to make this year, the year. For real this time.

We add moments and experiences and situations and feelings to our box labeled “Stuff from 2009: Do Not Open.” Then with fervor we shut it, secure it with cement and glue and gum, wrap it in chains … then throw it into the universe while holding onto the fantasy it will disintegrate, never to visit us again, especially in 2010. Ah, feel it drop away and float to the island of don’t worry about it, you get another chance. We’re so deliriously happy to leave it all behind and start over we get all glittered up and go out on the town to celebrate the past being in the past and the future being the only part of reality that matters … with champagne to boot.

There’s just a little problem with this way of moving into the new year … regardless of our most hopeful fantasy and our most glittery outfit, 2009 will not disintegrate nor be left behind. Sorry to disappoint you my loves. In fact, it will come with us for 2010, and 2011, and 2012 too. Yes, even for 2013. Don’t kick off your sequined stilettos in a fury just yet, this is good news my beautiful readers … actually, it’s great news. Let me explain…

The tradition of New Year’s is to create a resolution. To resolve or once again answer, explain, figure out … all of it. We ponder how to, yes, make this year, the year. We come up with new ideas and new routes to our destinations, but as we think over our resolutions with the smell of new and fresh joyfully camping out under our noses, we miss out on the best teacher and the best tool of them all … the past. The great news is … I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen, that you don’t miss a thing.

Instead of resolving and redoing and reacting, I offer you this challenge; consider holding onto your baggage like the gift it is. Rather then happily losing it on your journey in order to replace it with the bigger and the better – don’t let it out of your site for one moment. Lay it down, unzip it, unpack it, and look … for the first time really look, really notice, what it’s offering to you.

Before frantically moving into the new year waiting for change and transformation beginning the moment you wake up on Jan. 1, just sit in 2009. Sit in the moment you felt so much fear that you thought you would never come out of it … but you did. Sit in the moment you felt so hurt you thought the depth of the wounds would never let up … but they did. Drown yourself in the moment you thought you would never get through … but you did. Yes, you did. Rather than referring to 2009 as rough or difficult or just plain ugh … refer to it as the year you learned you can do anything … well, not anything, but that thing…oh ya, and that thing too.

You can move through that and get through that; you can sit with that and process that. You can feel that, and then feel that too. Sometimes with grace for days, and sometimes grace isn’t even part of the equation … love it both ways. Take your grace, and your lack-there-of … take it with you into 2010. Take it, the lessons and the joys and the ugh … take it all with you. Don’t let your past float away in vain. Use it. Build on it. Stand on it and let it hold you…like you mean it.

Consider a new way of doing the new year. Take 2009 with you. Take those moments that were delicious and fabulous – you were planning to take those with you anyway, and instead of sending your painful past into the glittery abyss of 2009, take it with you also. It doesn’t need to be heavy; it doesn’t want to be heavy. Just gently embellish it onto your memory and lightly dangle it from your heart, like a diamond you get to wear on the inside. Your rock, your heat, your time, your transformation … your inner-diamond. Embrace it, love it, take pride in it. Really, like you mean it.

The biggest mistake we make as we move into the future is forgetting the past. Instead of forgetting the past, thank it. Thank it with everything you have and everything you are for teaching you everything you know. Then, put on your glittery outfit, grab your champagne, and celebrate.

To the foundation of the past and the future yet to be built… Happy New Year.

 
Love,