Since the new years day and my birthday are just a few weeks apart, the days in between have always seemed like a gestation period -- the time it takes to birth a new beginning.

To support this gestation, I've spent time doing inner work which included setting intentions, visualizing desirable outcomes, drawing pictures, writing affirmations and meditating on new possibilities. I'd get myself all mojotivated, and it helped each new year start off with a whoosh instead of a whimper.

But this year, as I tried to get into the swing of this intentional focusing, I got stuck. Very stuck. I could barely think of what I might want, and when I pushed myself to come up with something, I felt bored, blah and bummed. The whole process -- which used to feel so nourishing and inspiring -- now seemed somewhat doomed.

Not wanting to give up, hoping that if I persisted something good might happen, I kept on keeping on -- trying harder and harder -- but not getting anywhere.

Finally I decided to take a break and do something else. And then I caught a horrible cold (the worst cold I've ever had that wasn't a flu) and I was too wiped out even to think. I read a few light novels, I watched TV, I lay around acting like a cat. (My cats loved it!) During the rare moments when I had enough energy to even pretend I was thinking, I wondered where my mojotivity had gone.

And then, suddenly, it came to me!!!

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          The FOG of the
         Recent Past
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The thick, hazy fog which was encasing my brain cells and keeping me from getting excited about the year to come represented the pull of my recent past -- a recent past which had been full of impediments and challenges.

Last year had been something of a bummer.

It began with a severe allergic reaction to some prescription meds, and the symptoms -- including painful, swollen toes -- persisted even six months after I'd stopped the meds. Then came several unexpected losses, setbacks and expenses. The death of two friends. Costly car problems. A minor but upsetting auto accident. And, then some intense root canal surgery which instigated a bout of chronic fatigue.

Whew!

The thoughts, feelings, attitudes, beliefs, memories, images, aspects, patterns, habits and attitudes generated by all those difficulties had polluted my air space. I felt like I was living in a fog of frustration, wading through a residue of memory!

How could I possible navigate forward?

Even as I tried to just fuggedaboudit, to just start over fresh, I kept falling into back into the fog -- and my doldrums endured.

The word auspicious implies success in the future, a good omen, a promise of desirable things to come. The word propitious means that favorable conditions are present.

Sometimes the pull of the past can create what we might call unpropitious conditions:  a negative setup portending an unsuccessful or inauspicious future.

You might be thinking that knowing lots of different self-help techniques -- focusing,  energy therapies, hypnotherapy, art therapy, visualizations, role playing, journalling, questioning the mind techniques -- would give me a way out out of the fog.

You might be wondering ...

"Joan, couldn't you just work on every thought, feeling, attitude, belief, memory, image, aspect, pattern, habit or attitude that was keeping you frozen, calcified and stuck?"

"Joan, couldn't you just work on anything and everything that was messing with your mojotivity?"

Well, yes, except that I'd already dealt with the issues. I didn't actually have issues any more, what I had were the shadows of issues, the fingerprints of issues, the lingering residues of issues, the fossils of issues.

You know how it is when you've burned dinner and cleared up the mess, but two days later you can still smell charred roast beef?  It was like that!  So what I needed was something that would act like a memory deodorizer.  Something that would freshen up the spaces between my brain cells.

I needed a miasma zapper!

Luckily, I came up with the perfect activity. I created a new 20th century shamanic ritual for myself, something that has turned out to be so satisfying that I expect I'll do it every year (maybe even every season) and I'd like to invite you to do it along with me.

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         Mend Your Mojotivity:

        Joan's Past-Blaster Ritual
         __________________________

• Make a master list of every last thing that is hanging over you and keeping you stuck in 2010, when you really want to be moving joyfully into 2011.
  
  
• Include all those things that have happened to you in the last year or so that you wish hadn't happened:
• • Illnesses.
  • Losses.
  • Accidents.
  • Injuries.
  • Failures.
  • Arguments.
  • Risks taken that turned out badly.
  • Risks avoided that might have turned out well
• Add to that list all the emotional baggage that you are carrying around: grievances, resentments, disappointments, fears, worries.
  
  
• Write down all the beliefs, thoughts, and attitudes that you are holding that are keeping you back:
• • I can't do this.
  • It's too soon/late for me to do this.
  • I'm too old/young/fat/poor/bald to do this.
• Add all the bad habits that you have been trying to get rid of.
  
  
• Write down any other problems, situations, issues or concerns that are slowing you down.
  
  

Mojotivity Clue:

By now, if you're anything like me, you probably have a nice long list.

Now, go through your list and put a check next to each item that has any charge for you. Using a heavy marker, write down a phrase for that problem on an index card.

"Auto accident"

"Break-up with Sam"

"Credit card debt"

"Still smoking"

"My cat died"

You'll end up with a deck of problem cards.

And, here's what you are going to do now ...

Each day, or maybe twice a day, take a card into the bathroom, light the card on fire, say the problem phrase out loud three times, then say ... "Be Gone."

And drop the card into the toilet ... wait till the fire goes out ... and flush.

Mojotivity Clue:

If you're fire averse, or if you
have a hyperactive smoke alarm,
you can tear the card into tiny bits
and then flush ... but the mental image
of the fire wiping out the problem
phrase might be more powerful!

On the last day, burn the entire list ...
and flush it away.

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"Joan's work is like having an eraser that simply removes problems.

Once you work on a problem you can easily forget that it was a problem, because it's completely gone!"

Cathy Hedgecock,
journalist