Friends and I were recently discussing the annual craziness of the December festive season and New Year. We were questioning why we, as a society, endorse this annual madness, why we allow the seasonal push and stress and, behind that, what is orchestrating it all.
How strange that so many of us engage in the craziness of the festive season and yet few question either its origin or purpose other than to party hard and perhaps, articulate a couple of New Year resolutions, which are oftentimes broken within a few weeks of making them.
What are we avoiding by participating in this dysfunctional way of celebrating the passing of the old year and the bringing in of the new? What are we creating for ourselves?
As we shared our experiences, I was aware of an image constantly presenting itself for my consideration. The image was of a board game that I, and many others, played in childhood, often during the festive season: the game of Snakes and Ladders.
This is a competitive game of chance and ends when the first person reaches the finish, creating a strong desire to win and beat your opponents by climbing as many ladders as you can, while hoping that you can avoid the snakes.
When seen in this light, the game appears to be ethically rather questionable as a game for children. As a preparation for adulthood, it unfortunately brings a rather too accurate mirror of life of many segments of our society, and has a particular relevance to what happens at the start of each New Year.
The energy of competitive pushing, of winners and losers, of climbing ‘lucky’ ladders to beat opponents and avoiding ‘unlucky’ snakes for oneself, while hoping that opponents are caught by them instead, the adrenalin rush, the competitive edge – it’s all there! So exciting… so ugly.
Is this ugliness what we avoid being aware of as we claim to be letting go of the old and bringing in the new? That we have lived another year and we, in ourselves, have changed not a jot and that, in effect, we are ringing out the old and ringing in the… old, so it’s all… old?
Does our maladaptive end of year behaviour simply set us up for yet another annual game of Snakes and Ladders? Could our New Year greeting be more accurately articulated as “Happy Old Year?”
A common image of the turn of the year is often that of a seriously stooped over old man with a walking stick, giving way to a newborn baby, a symbol of hope. But by the end of the year, the baby always looks the same and has become the seriously stooped over old man again. Evidently, hope changes nothing.
Letting go of the old… and ringing in the new.
So what would make a lasting change?
What would make a change where we could honestly look ourselves in the eye and know for sure that we have evolved, that we are entering a new year cycle and that, in truth, not only as Einstein asserted “God does not play dice with the Universe”, we do not have to either.
The only true source for change and evolution I have found in the five decades of my life is that presented by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
Universal Medicine presents that each year is an opportunity for us to acknowledge where we are as a marker, a reference point if you will, of our energetic development as a loving human being. It is a time to reflect on how we have deepened in our expression of love for ourselves and for others.
How much more of myself have I expressed this year and shared this expression with everyone, so that we are all more? To what extent have I accepted the expressions of love offered to me by others? These are questions I choose to ask myself.
Moreover, Universal Medicine presents that each year has its own specific quality of energy to which we can align, if that is our choice.
The choice to align with this energy places one’s personal rhythms within a larger context, which encompasses us all.
I feel a strong sense of purpose with this. I feel in this a connection with my fellow human beings, all seven billion of us, a connection that is decidedly absent in competitive situations where there has to be a winner and many, many losers.
In the Universal Medicine paradigm, we are all offered the same choices in complete equality.
As I see it, the choices for me are quite simple:
- “Snakes and Ladders,” or a continued expansion of myself in love.
- A game of apparent chance, with snakes, or a life with purpose and connection with everyone.
- Celebrating a new inclusive, expansive cycle, while building upon the passing cycle, or “Happy Old Year.”
In a very literal sense, this is for me definitely a ‘no brainer.’
For me, the only way worthy of my consideration is the way set forth by Universal Medicine and its main presenter, Serge Benhayon.
So… Snakes and Ladders or Evolution? Happy New Year!
By Coleen
The Truth about Universal Medicine 
Parties are supposed to be our greatest moments of expression. Yet, they are simply an explosion of relief from life. A relieving expression though, cannot relieve us from where we are energetically. Moreover, the relief/party usually brigs self-harm our way.
Reading the title of your blog Coleen got me thinking of all those New Year’s resolutions that by this time of the year had usually vanished into thin air accompanied by some self-berating that I was unable to fulfill them; that I ostensibly had failed. How refreshing it is these days to simply look at the year that has passed with total honesty and ask myself – have I evolved in the last cycle around the sun or do I find myself in exactly the same place? The more honest I am the clearer I become about the life that I choose to live in the next cycle and all those to come.
Snakes and Ladders or any game in fact gives the illusion of getting to a final goal and possible victory in completing a challenge. But life does not need to be a challenge and not does it need to be lived with a goal to get somewhere. The victory is short lived before we play the game again and hence the only true joy in life can be had in the enjoyment of the life itself and not of just the end result.
Snakes and ladders is a great analogy for how we currently play life, the ups and downs, competition and false belief it’s all ‘just luck’ how our lives pan out.
“The energy of competitive pushing, of winners and losers, of climbing ‘lucky’ ladders to beat opponents and avoiding ‘unlucky’ snakes for oneself, while hoping that opponents are caught by them instead, the adrenalin rush, the competitive edge – it’s all there! So exciting… so ugly.” mmm a very uncomfortable passage to read as I know this way of being well. Thank you for bringing this topic to light.
“hope changes nothing” in the board game of life but we have a choice in our every movement to evolve back to the Divineness of our innate essence of where we come from and the turn of each calendar year offers a fresh opportunity to take those steps.
Thinking about childhood games, as a family we used to play Trivial Pursuit where it was all about testing your knowledge against someone else. From my recollections, we ended up banning us all from playing it as a unit as we just fought too much. So many of these games are divisive, as they are all about one person or team doing better than another. Could you imagine a series of boardgames, that are about working together? And that one does not cross the finish line until we all cross the finish line?
We are offered in each cycle (be that a year or otherwise) an opportunity to review to see where we are and to feel our next steps for both us and all, and that’s just it, we’re not alone and evolution for each of us is within the wider whole of all of us and the cycles offered by the Universe of which we are all a part. The old way is obviously not working so why not look at another one, one that is in fact infinitely ancient, the wisdom we all come from, and see each ‘new year’ as an opportunity to assess, to see our growth in love and to consider those places where we can grow further. Now that is a new year I can get behind.
We honestly are offered every opportunity to evolve and it is awe-inspiring to feel just how supported we are if we are open to it. With every year that passes we are presented a marker offering us the opportunity to reflect on the way we have live, what we have aligned to and honor the truth of whether this has support us to live all that we are here to live. As it is only through saying ‘yes’ to evolution that we are able to discard what is not us, in order to embrace and bring more of who we are to life.
It is great to consider, ponder or reflect on things that we have just taken on as being ‘life’ and not really essentially made a choice on what we would like to see, or more so not clearly felt, where we are needing to be. We could put the end and start of the year into this box. We often follow what those have done before without questioning the quality it was done in. This period is an important one to look at because it does give us the forever chance to bring something new into the new year and leave something old in the old year. It’s not that truly anything is old or new but it’s the quality of choice we carry as a momentum into the phase of ‘life’ that I am talking about. When I read articles like this it turns my awareness on of how I am looking at things and reflect on my choices, which is a great thing.
What really stood out for me in this blog is to deeply consider what it is to be connected to 7 billion of humanity – our brothers. How does that feel? It’s my responsibility to know what that feels like. How do I remain open to everyone no matter what their choice is? How do you let them in and know their equalness and what they align to is the only difference.
The New Year has been seen as a marker of advancing time, the next step along the line. Taken like this it’s quite easy to forget that actually nothing is really changing except perhaps the wrinkles on our faces and other superficial markers we use to place ourselves. But if we consider that time is cyclical and that January 1st marks the return to the same point we were at 12 months ago, we can start to feel that we don’t go anywhere in time, but that time comes to us. Every new day offers us a point of reflection as to how we were the last time it came around and we can align to the support the quality of energy each date brings to support our commitment to evolve – spherically.
When looked at in this way, our own successes are based on the comparison with others. Did we win the game because others got more snakes than us and less ladders and therefore we are doing ok? When it comes to evolution, it is not a game of comparison but is something deeply personal.
I could say even as a child I was not into Christmas. Yes I did like my toys and I did like the time of year but it wasn’t because it was Christmas, it was because I loved being with people and Christmas was an opportunity for this to happen. So why do we have to have an excuse to celebrate one another? Why can’t we celebrate each other throughout the year and not in particular at Christmas time?
“Happy old year” is a great way to put it as we prepare to do the same behaviours and habits and actions as we’ve done for aeons in a new cycle. Our yearly cycle is very much reflective of our daily life, every day we have the option to evolve, learn and grow, it’s whether we approach each day knowing it’s a golden opportunity or whether we just approach it as another day.
So many people focus on making new year’s resolutions and within a few weeks they have been broken or forgotten about. If more began to be aware of the cycles we live in and took more responsibility with this we can begin to make more true and lasting changes that evolve us instead of stunting us.
You raise some great points to reflect on Coleen. It’s so very true just how unprepared we are to really consider moving forward with the opportunity we get to re-imprint a new cycle each new year. We make it look like we are doing ‘new things’, but we are inevitably just band-aiding things that we don’t want to look at, without actually letting anything go, hence New Years resolutions – that if we were really honest about, we’d acknowledge just how purposeless they are.
Someone from my family recently said to me I must have hope in life. I firmly and strongly said No. There was a slight reaction in my answer because of the discomfort felt in knowing that hope is false, it feels like a soothing over what we do not want to take responsibility for, but also because it hurts to see others believe and rely so strongly on hope, and would that not be lying to themselves all their lives? The reaction comes from being sympathetic which is not love, with certain people in my life. There needs not be any sympathy when we simply express the truth honestly and equally to all people, I cannot change how another choose, but I can deal with the reflection of not lying to myself any longer and choose to live truth, with blood family and beyond.
New Year resolutions are very difficult to accomplish. They are generated by someone who is engaged in a specific pattern of movements who ends up defeating them as it keeps moving in the same way.
Very true Eduardo. It certainly is a game changer when we bring our awareness to our connection to the love we are within, and to feel and discern whether the quality of our movements are of this love or of another energy.
As the new year begins there is a sense of a new start, new year resolution are often made only to fall by the wayside as habits and patterns come back into play, the ending of the year offers us an opportunity to review the past year and with self responsibility we have the power to make true and lasting changes leaving ways of being that are no longer who we are, behind, this actually is offered on a daily basis as well as each moment.
Exactly what I was feeling as I read this blog Jill. We have an opportunity to start afresh at the end of any cycle, and in truth, we do not have to wait more than a moment to choose to re imprint what we are doing. A year is a great time though to have a stocktake and see how much we have allowed ourselves to evolve.
I agree – in most (if not all) “games” we entertain ourselves with in various forms, be it board game, video game, sport – it is all about beating another. How did we end up calling that formula ‘fun’?
I vaguely remember playing the game or snakes and ladders as a kid. You defiantly took more from it than I did though, haha. I am pretty into games when I am in the mood, I enjoy playing them with my kids, chess, cards, checkers, especially around the holidays, in saying that though I still take each year to reflect, grow and evolve thanks to my involvement in Universal Medicine.
Your blog highlights the normal inconsistency of ups and downs many of us call “human life”. This inconsistency is considered normal but does it have to be so? There is never any true enjoyment of life in general when we have said yes to the ups and downs because there are issues and problems that we have accepted are part and parcel of the package life brings. It was not until I met Serge Benhayon that it was soon evident there was in fact a true and consistent way of life that could be lived if we are willing to be deeply and responsible with our choices.
Life is so pitched in this way of constantly pushing and trying to ‘improve’ or make things better. Sometimes the greatest blessings in life come when the slate is cleared and you are given the space to truly let go of past patterns, of drive and to return to a greater truth within you.
Yeah Snakes and Ladders feels like the big game we play with each other and ourselves to keep us in a cycle – a rollercoaster of getting somewhere and then taking a few steps back rather than seeing what is next all of the time.
Our daily lives are full of opportunities or ladders to step up our evolution or, the slippery slope of the snake that drops us down.
I have often pondered on what creates the “silly season”. Every year it is the same thing in the construction industry – a mad panic leading up to Xmas, where the world is going to end if we don’t complete something, and then, suddenly it is all over, the new year arrives, and it is all back to normal as though nothing happened. It is almost as though we need to complete certain things in order to feel like we have earned a break, or as though we need to rush at the end of the year to make up for the loss of productivity during the rest of the year. After all, if Xmas is a truly important deadline for whatever reason, then why not plan for that earlier and work steadily towards it. That, unfortunately, does not seem to be the way of things, preferring as we do the anxious rush of the hare, rather than the methodical and rhythmic gait of the tortoise.
I have not seen the image of the New Year as the old stooped man bringing in the baby. It does conjure up the idea that we have a fresh start each year, which in some ways is true, but we need to be aware that we still carry the old man with us. Whatever is undealt with comes through with us each year. The baby might appear to be fresh and new but its really just the old man reincarnating again, bound to make the same choices over and over until we choose a deeper awareness and self-responsibility
The way I see snakes and ladders relates to life is that we give our power away to life and let it govern us rather than being empowered and taking charge of our lives. It’s not a lucky chance if we go up a ladder or down a snake, it’s down to our choices before hand. And why wait to randomly land on a ladder? Why not set about building your own ladder?
I feel the reason why people keep getting continue to be sucked into to the Christmas celebration is their desperate craving to fill the emptiness in their life, which does not get filled and hence the ever more excessive indulgence in distraction. The evolution offered by Universal Medicine and all that Serge Benhayon presents is an alternative that does eliminates the emptiness and every day becomes a celebration.
Thank you for the invitation to reflect on the way to ensure evolution rather than an automatic replay of the old cycle. How absurd is it that we spend so much time and effort in working out how to beat others and become the winners in life, whilst we could focus on living differently. We have the opportunity to wisely observe, acknowledge and learn from our experiences, keep deepenening our love and awareness and to constantly evolve.
As humans we appear to be very good at putting things behind us and not looking back at them in the sense that we do not carefully tie any loose ends. It seems that rather than learn from our mistakes, we would rather leave them behind dangling in the wind and hope that if we do not see them, they will simply go away. This is why we all go a bit loopy at the end of the year because we know that what we have left unresolved will only come back at twice the intensity the next loop around and we are hoping that our chosen ignorance will alleviate us of this occurring, which it does not.
Great awareness about ‘loopy’ Liane. We live in loops or cycles as you say, and therefore in every loop we are confronted with our choices, which, even if we are desperately trying not to feel, our sensitivity cannot fail to feel them. If we are not prepared to be honest with ourselves and accept there are different choices to be made for most of us, the strength of force we need to call in to resist our sensitivity is enough to send anyone loopy.
Thank you Coleen, New year for me is a time to reflect on the year gone by and note where I am at, and at the same time knowing that I am ready for whatever the new year brings, because if we are living with our awareness we are already preparing for what is coming in the future.
Within humanity not everybody celebrates the New year on December 31, January 1 (the Muslims, the Jews, the Chinese – maybe more that I am not aware of- celebrate it on a different date and have their own year number). The way of celebrating the new year is by no means universal either. In spite of that, there is no restriction for anybody to live the new year as a marker of a cycle that starts, which offers particular opportunities for evolution.
While cleaning my house the other day I was thinking how this is a forever job that never stops. Feeling very open and content to be cleaning my house I pondered on how this isn’t always the case, and in this how I miss the point of what is offered by it being a never ending job that continually comes back around offering me the opportunity to move and be with the job differently. Cycles are incredible when we take what they offer and that is to continually evolve.
Reading this on “Valentine’s Day”. Exactly the same relevance. Why one day when we love more than others – which is basically saying that for 364 days a year, I’m going to be less than who I truly am.
Thank you Coleen, we always have a choice. We have the opportunity with each cycle to expand or continue the game of Snakes and Ladders.
Universal Medicine brings along a new way of ‘reading’ the passage of year that gives us the opportunity of adhering to a particular offer in terms of evolution.
Snakes and ladders or evolution? The choice is simple really and the choice is always ours. I love what you have exposed here Coleen, thank you.
How different life would be for us all if we were taught from a young age about the 2 different energies and how we can either align to spirit or Soul. The choice we make to align to Soul allows us the space to truly evolve whereas the other energy we get caught in the game of life and the many traps that can come with this that offers no true healing or evolution whatsoever.
So wisely shared Coleen. Being aware of the cycles that we are intrinsically all a part of it is not only empowering abut also very healing. For if we are willing to be honest with ourselves and embrace truth, we will discover that the end and beginning of each year offers us a great opportunity to take stock of the quality of the momentums in which we have lived for ourselves and with others, and what is and what is not supporting us to live all that we truly and Soulfully are. A powerful opportunity to consolidate all that is love, and let go of that which does not belong to love.
If we would truly enjoy the end of a cycle starting a new cycle and choose evolution in our lives, why everyone is telling me they are so happy that everything is back to normal..has anything truly changed? True change is a choice from within to evolve and let love into our lives.
After pondering and appreciating the wisdom in your blog I felt to share this quote by Eleanor Roosevelt “Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be.”
I as enter this new year it is a time for me to look back with appreciation at how far I have come, and the choices I have made and did not make, I now look forward to embracing the new year and what is on offer for me to evolve, choosing to go deeper with the possibility of bringing more of the true me into my life as a reflection to all mankind.
The problem with this annual game of ‘snakes and ladders’ is that it’s a trick and there is no winner and no end point. It’s more of a hamster wheel than a true game. It has the promise of amazing outcomes but cannot truly deliver them. We are the ones who can deliver with our choice to be all that we are – and that is in the choice of energy we make.
Evolution please. Snakes and ladders is a game I have played for way, way too long – going round and round (or up and down) the game of life. We are trying to win a game that we are not even meant to be playing.
Exactly ottobathurst, when we get lost in the game of creation we literally go around in circles endlessly. Evolution offers us an expanded view, and brings true purpose to life. There is love in evolution.
Sure is. Just look at the first four letters!
Yes, I had those letters in capitols, EVOL ution, yet the message was still received. Interesting I see there is also a message in the order of the letters, that to EVOLve is a return to LOVE …not a forward movement.
God works in the simplest of ways.
Christmas Day here and my reflection is of that word ‘hope’. Hope for a better future, hope for humanity, hope for ‘peace on Earth and goodwill to all men’. I guess it is true to say that being hopeful feels better than being hopeless. But something I have learned from Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine is that in truth we do not need hope but to embrace our power to choose a different way at the most fundamental of levels. Yesterday I watched a version of ‘A Christmas Carol’ where Scrooge undergoes a transformation of sorts from a bitter old miser to a born again ‘philanthropist’. It is a profound message that we can all change our ways and create a better life. But is creating a better life what we are here for – or are we here to reconnect to the love in our hearts, to live that love and to be love in the world? For me it is the latter – for without love, there is nothing. Jesus reflected to the world that we can reconnect to the love in our hearts and thereby be our own ‘saviours’ – rather than giving our power away to him and to God – we are to claim our own God given power to be the love we were born to be in this life – and know the truth of who we are.
Looking back over my adult life I know that every New Year I would commit to “letting go of the old and bringing in the new”, but I get a strong sense of the fact that the old was let go with some strings still attached, so no wonder it didn’t take long for those resolutions to be cast aside.
I love the idea of taking the time to cast my eyes back over the year in a most loving and non-judgemental way, simply observing what unfolded and how much I committed to myself, to others, to the world and to love, and to know that the coming year, that is simply another cycle, will once again offer me the opportunity to evolve even more; but of course that will be my choice.
The fact we are offered the opportunity to evolve constantly blows me away… it shows the magnitude of what we are a part of. To even begin to contemplate what it takes to constellate this for every person on the planet, in every moment… is beyond comprehension. There can be no doubt to me that God exists with this simple example alone.
Awesome observation Coleen, I too feel that the board game of ‘snakes and ladder’ does reflect where our current society is at. There is so much focus on winning, beating other people at the game (in life) and celebrating one winner. But this way of living clearly shows us that we are not truly evolving because this way is completely void of love and anything that is loveless simply takes us further away from our true path. Evolution is always about brotherhood and competitiveness crushes this.
Evolution isn’t about going up or down its about going inwards
“We were questioning why we, as a society, endorse this annual madness, why we allow the seasonal push and stress and, behind that, what is orchestrating it all.” A good discussion to be having at this time of year – as we circle once more around the sun – going nowhere.
New year is the return to a point where a cycle ends for all and a new one starts with a totally different imprint. It is a moment to regather and reimprint our movements to adjust to what is required. Why the usual relief associated with new years eve? Because we all know that we are not living in a true way and the tension that we can feel in our bodies increases incessantly.
Could we not say this about every day, about every moment – for they are all points at which a new cycle starts – they are all opportunities to break the cyclical patterns of some of our anti-evolutionary patterns.
Well said Otto!
I remember playing snakes and ladders as a child and the grown ups emphasising the highs and lows of emotion when either climbing a ladder to get ahead or the disappointing slippery backward move down the ladder. In life these ups and downs are what make us tired and reaching for a stimulus to keep us going which of course in the long run actually exhaust us even more. Living life with energetic awareness we can see the potential ups and downs and do not need to react to them. We can handle each day at a time and stay steady and build a solid foundation for ourselves that does not require feeding from the outside world. We gain in strength and appreciation and bring more joy back into our lives. It means continually changing things in our lives that we can honestly say no longer support us and reflecting on this when we feel to, even daily’ rather than waiting till the end of the year. The purple ‘Our Cycles App’ for iPhone gives us a great way to keep tabs on where we are at. It also shows us what we have been choosing over 3 or 6 monthly periods. Fascinating and illuminating.
What if we had an equal opportunity on the 1st of October as the 1st of January? In society we use the lineal benchmarks to delay and postpone our own evolution
Yes Coleen, a very worthy contemplation… if the New Year does indeed offer an opportunity for a fresh start, then there is the inevitable necessity to self-reflect on all that has led to that point. It is a very effective way to obliterate any awareness of what has passed, and hence ensures no true ‘adjustment’ can be made in order to not repeat a version of the same year again.
Well said Jenny. I now see New Year as a point to reflect on my choices and appreciate all that was loving to support me to take it deeper and let go of the things that are not loving without perfection but with more awareness and commitment.
Yes, quite a contrast for end of year Xmas festivities…. it is no wonder we get to 65 and 70 years of age and are entrenched in our ways. We have been practising the same habits for a lifetime, not stopping to take stock and re-asses what is working and what is not. What a different culture we would live in if we all did that.
I never understood why the holiday season was so crazy. Everyone was more exhausted at the end of the season and was just waiting for the next holiday. I felt the celebration had nothing to do with what we were supposed to be celebrating, it was just an excuse to party. The new year was about something new, but it seemed to me nothing changed. Thank you Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for presenting another way of looking at the new year celebration that makes sense to me.
Thank you Coleen for great sharing, when I entered this year at the beginning of it I decided there were things that I want to change, it took some months for them to become a part of my life, and as I now approach the ending of this year I can celebrate those changes and look forward to not just yearly but daily living “ a continued expansion of myself in love.”
“a life with purpose and connection with everyone.”
“Celebrating a new inclusive, expansive cycle, while building upon the passing cycle,”
We are indeed setting ourselves up to not check in to what has changed and to feel the expansion, but keep us small, in expectation of the same that was last year. But we can make the choice to take stock and get on with life, taking on what is presented to us.
Aligning to the purpose of connecting to others and expressing from there brings not only evolution but the joy of brotherhood and gets my vote every time.
‘How much more of myself have I expressed this year and shared this expression with everyone, so that we are all more? To what extent have I accepted the expressions of love offered to me by others? These are questions I choose to ask myself.’ Me too Coleen because I feel they far more accurately map my evolution in my relationship with God, myself and others. For several years I used to write myself a goals list on New Year’s Day but eventually realised that nothing changed when I just put vague things like improve my communication or even have more fun, and it was my increasing recognition that I was stuck in a revolving cycle where nothing much changed in my life that eventually led me to Universal Medicine where I started to make sense of my past behaviour, and was also offered the opportunity to make different choices, and thus change lifelong patterns.
A very inspiring way to look at New Year and our choices – do we live in good vs bad or do we live in truth and evolution vs. staying still. We don’t need to keep getting trapped by the same old cycle if we are willing to see that we are choosing that cycle and we have the option to choose differently.
Wow, just how much of life do we see through this lens Coleen? In this board game way we see that ‘snakes’ in life as a backward step where we fall down and have to make up ground. But what feels more accurate to me about the snakes in life, is that every moment and situation where we role the dice, allows us an opportunity to shed our skin of past hurts and ‘mistakes’ to remember who we truly are and evolve. If we see and understand this is actually what is happening in our day there is no ladder that we would need because we would be on the highway to heaven naturally.
The turn of the year is a time to reflect on choices made and the consequences and an opportunity to feel ‘What next?’ Always having an awareness of the snakes that lurk and the ladders of choice we have to evolve.
Thank you for unraveling how easily we get caught up in the same old old simply by choosing this same old old.
As we orbit around the sun, an end to the year and the start of another could be at any given point. Days and years are but mere numbers on a calendar, as we endlessly go round and round in circles, marking each revolution with a number that increases each time, perhaps to give ourselves the image that we are getting somewhere, perhaps to distract ourselves from the fact that we are not going anywhere but around, passing over the same spot again and again.
By this view evolution takes on a new meaning and we are asked what is the purpose of life.
For myself, life is about relationships and the deepening and the evolution of them. This includes my relationship with myself and with God and with every single person on earth. But I am aware that there can be no end or fixed point of achievement, that it is an ever deepening journey that evolution has to offer. And the mark of time that each new year gives me is a gift to see how much I have allowed people in, in relation to where I was at the new year before, and this gives me a gauge for what needs to be worked on for the year ahead – or the next 365 day revolution around the sun until I reach the same point again and can look back and see what changes I have made in the relationships that I have.
I really like this expose of the ‘Happy New Year’ phenomenon. For sure it is far more accurate to say ‘Happy Old Year’ as the vast majority of us do simply head off full tilt to repeat the same cycle over again. Consciously aligning to the quality and energy of each year though is a completely different kettle of fish and opens us up to the potential there is on offer. That’s not to say we have to know what this energy is in our heads – we don’t need to if we let ourselves tune into our bodies and let them lead the way for our body feels it.
I am feeling to choose Evolution with . . .”a continued expansion of myself in love” . . .”a life with purpose and connection with everyone.” and “Celebrating a new inclusive, expansive cycle, while building upon the passing cycle,” These points you have made Coleen are all are well worth working toward.
I loved imagining the true magnificence of living aligned to the energy you speak of permanently and of our personal rhythms being held within the larger context, holding and guiding us throughout our life. This is truly stunning to imagine and even more gorgeous i’m sure to live.
This is so true Coleen, ‘Could our New Year greeting be more accurately articulated as “Happy Old Year?” When we reflect on our current behaviours and choices collectively, I definitely agree that this sentence highlighted is very accurate. Your blog inspires us to question our choices and to understand why they are not supporting us to evolve. Competitiveness is anti-evolutionary and this is what society celebrates the most, we champion ‘the winners’ but in truth we are all winners and it is time we celebrate all of humanity instead of the selected few.
Our society values winning so highly and that is what many aspire to do in both their personal and professional lives. But the winning brings an emptiness with it because as soon as you have ‘win’ there is the constant fear of losing the next thing and any moment of euphoria is quickly lost. What a difference it makes to our lives if we let ourselves step back from this pressure to compete and just get on with living with the love and expansion you speak of Coleen. Some may scoff at such a notion but I would suggest that those that willing to experiment with building inner connections which then flow to the exterior, find a much richer life for themselves.
Thank you for an insightful sharing Coleen. Life is about love not winning or losing, something we all need to recognise and live by example. With the Olympic Games coming up this is going to be a big reflection to us all.
Coleen, I like the way you have drawn together how our personal lives and rhythms connect into the larger context and all of humanity. When we consider it this way it certainly makes the day to day problems we tend to grapple with quite insignificant and makes me question why we allow them to take up so much energy and space in our lives.
I agree Meg, yes to all the amazing opportunities life offers us constantly.
I couldn’t agree more, when I actually stop and feel how amazing what life is offering us non-stop – it blows me away.
Never did like the game of snakes and ladders, someone always ended up crying when I was a kid. It felt horrible having to go down a snake and start again, the anxiety that competition built wasn’t much fun either.
There are a lot of games that invite frustration, upset at losing, anger and arguing. I know that in our family whenever we played any of those games in my childhood someone always ended up in tears or angry and hurt. They teach an adversarial approach to life, dog eat dog, win-lose etc. Some might say this is good ‘life preparation’, but it is not, it just adds further to the mess we are already in.
The teachings of Serge Benhayon andUniversal Medicine has supported me in understanding that the choices I make influence my evolution and commitment to life.
I agree that Universal Medicine offers a real purpose to the consideration of a New Year, one that encompasses all 7 billion earthly inhabitants and gives us a sense of perspective, along with clarity on our own responsibility and a regular marker of our own growth. A way more fulfilling and comprehensive offering than that which is so embedded in society’s ‘maladaptive end of year behaviour’.
For me there is only one choice a choice of commitment to life with purpose there is no space for chance and a game of snakes and ladders. In my commitment I am committed to reflect to others the same, we all have a purpose, a purpose to connect to the love we are from.
There are some great points to reflect on as another end of a year comes to us. The new year does feel like a time to reflect and take stock of life and this is possible if there is a willingness to stop and feel one’s choices, not with criticism but with honesty, and I am learning how important this is daily, monthly and yearly if we are to truly grow. Thank you Coleen and I love how you have used the image of ‘snakes and ladders’!
Life moves in cycles, what we don’t accept as humans is that every year is just the same as the last. Maybe there were different personal details and altered weather patterns, but we have just cycled around the Sun again. What I am beginning to understand is that each day in fact is the same, it is a rotation of the Earth on its axis, and a grand opportunity to re-evaluate where we are as humans and how we live. We have Christmas, Easter, Birthdays and special days, but we are sick, exhausted, miserable and can’t get along harmoniously. What’s so great about Christmas when every other day is not joy-full?
Great point Harry, we are counting the days till Christmas so we can celebrate and be with each other but like you say, how about all the other days? If we cannot feel the joy in every other day, then how truly joyful is Christmas?
For me there’s just one choice; evolution and the commitment to “life with purpose and connection with everyone”.
I agree Joshua – we’re offered a choice of evolution in each and every moment.
I second the same choice Ingrid – commitment to purpose, commitment to connection and commitment to evolution.
We often feel comfortable in the ‘old’ patterns and sayings that prop up a life that remains unchallenged. Happy New Year is one of those and attempts to seduce all who are feeling regretful, resentful and unhappy about the finishing year and the ones that are so happy it is over and finished with. The new year is misleading as we never leave behind the old, we just continue to hold it in our bodies and push what we do not want to feel down with more of the same. I loved your comment Coleen – ‘How much more of myself have I expressed this year and shared this expression with everyone, so that we are all more?’ and how much love have we held in our body to expand for all others to share in? Every moment of everyday offers the opportunity for this reflection and the choice to be and bring in this love, it does not have to wait until the ‘beginning of a new year’. Great topic for discussion on new years eve to challenge old thinking.
‘It is a time to reflect on how we have deepened in our expression of love for ourselves and for others.’ – what a empowering way to celebrate the New Year. Choosing to honor our relationship to love, within and with others. Choosing to appreciate the love that is there and how we express this with the world, whilst being aware of and honest about what is needed to deepen this loving connection and expression for ourselves and with all. This is a powerful message Coleen, of the opportunity offered to deepen our loving connection together, as a Brotherhood – thank you.
I have played Snakes and Ladders with two of my grandchildren and it is the most frustrating game I have ever played, we seem to be swallowed by so many snakes toward the end of the game, and frustration set in so much so, I end up letting go of needing to be a winner and explained how these games, taken too seriously, cause arguments and someone is always the looser and feeling disappointed.
We are getting more loving to others as well as ourselves as we start to understand its not the game of life that is the problem it is the people sharing together that is the important thing. Thank you Coleen for your sharing.
Much to think about here Coleen, I wonder how many of us have made a resolution to change our lives to do things differently only to find that nothing has really changed and the year has just repeated the same old pattern that we have been stuck in for years. I know I have done this throughout my life until Universal Medicine gave me the understanding that we live in cycles and this is why we keep coming back to the same things until we make true change. Understanding that the New Year is not really a new year but another year that we have another opportunity to make choices that will truly change our lives rather than choices that do nothing more than slide us back down the ladder again.
Snakes and Ladders is a game of chance but it is we who throw the dice. When we don’t leave things to chance but make our own choices then it is our own responsibility where we find ourselves. Universal Medicine presents the truth that life is not a lottery but the result of the choices we make.
That is a very powerful blog Coleen I love the following questions: “How much more of myself have I expressed this year and shared this expression with everyone, so that we are all more? To what extent have I accepted the expressions of love offered to me by others?” These kind of questions should everyone choose to ask themselves. We would than allow ourselves to feel our opportunity to make more loving choices in the next year and not to repeat the old not lovings ones again and again.
Such a great exposure of a game that appears on the surface to be so innocent yet in truth, like so many things in life, is indeed laced with an ugly message to strive and win at the expense of others. I feel very blessed that Universal Medicine has come along and is on the surface as it is underneath – nothing but love… so the choice is easy offering what you said… connection, purpose and expansion.
Awesome blog Coleen. I love that how you ask the question with this blog if we are aware of what we are aligning to and reflect that, we do indeed have a choice. ‘The choice to align with this energy places one’s personal rhythms within a larger context, which encompasses us all.’ – beautifully said. When we begin to feel and appreciate the deeper meaning of the cycles that we are all part of and connected to we can begin to understand and celebrate the glory of life and our divine part in it.
We can choose to either continue treating life as a game of chance, or to take responsibility for our choices and how we are in every moment, in order to truly evolve from one year to the next.
The thing with snakes and ladders for me is that wherever I land is not enough. I ‘play’ in this constant fear of falling backwards and a continual anticipation of my race to the top. When you put it like this Colleen I feel absolutely this is also how I have chosen to live. How different indeed to understand now that there is absolutely no-where for me to ‘get to’ and nothing to fear when I choose evolution, love and my soul.
I love this Analogy! Especially your comment “we are ringing out the old and ringing in the… old, so it’s all… old?” There is nothing about New Years Eve that is evolving in its celebrations of drinking – in fact I can see where the snakes come in! Universal Medicine has presented to me a true way to celebrate the New Year, with markers, reflection and evolution. So refreshing to have an understanding of something that truly ‘grows’ me as a human being to my next point of awareness – a way of living that supports me in all things… emotionally, physically and soulfully.
I really love how you summed this up Coleen, “Snakes and Ladders,” or a continued expansion of myself in love. No brainer indeed. When you describe it as such, why is it we over complicate in life when it can actually be this simple.
I loved re reading this blog it made me realise how I used to feel like life was a game I was stuck playing and felt a bit helpless in. The line that jumped out for me “God does not play dice with the Universe” God also doesn’t play dice with me, I am responsible for all my choices and living with a deeper understanding of this is so freeing.
I have noticed there are lots of different cycles throughout the year now where I reflect on my choices and whether I have evolved in relation to where I am at and my choices at the same time the previous year/period/cycle.
I too used to be swept up in the frenzy of the festive season. It was always a very stressing time on many levels but everybody was going along so I kept doing as well. In the last few years the coming of the new year has been celebrated in a simple and subdued way but with a greater understanding of my connection to humanity in general and to myself. It is a time to reflect and move on to the next level.
“A game of apparent chance, with snakes, or a life with purpose and connection with everyone.” I can see how in the past I have had a lot of chancing and allowed my true purpose to take a back seat. I had thought I was doing ok but was really caught up in this game. A great analogy and a poignant reminder to keep choosing ” a continued expansion of myself in love” Thank you Coleen.
“Happy Old year” – what a fantastic difference that would make.
Thank you for your inspiration Coleen.
The belief that for us to succeed in life we have to be better, stronger, more intelligent or some such, than others and the competition to beat one another is actually a really horrible way to live. High end sport is another example where there are few winners and many losers. So what is it that we can truly develop ourselves to be ?: with the new year do we do the same old same old or do we connect to who we truly are and live with that connection developing honesty, stillness joy and harmony. Thank you to Universal Medicine for re-introducing the wisdom and the choice is yours.
Thank you Coleen and everyone for your comments. I also use to play ‘Snakes and Ladders’ when I was young, but never truly enjoyed the adrenaline, tension, and competitiveness. It definitely felt ugly and disgusting. It is interesting that children aren’t supported to be in their fullness by the world, they are given games, that will take them out, games that will already build this horrible separateness from young. Universal Medicine has been the only place I have experienced that completely support the young to be in their absolute expression and fullness, exposing the false games for everyone, as in turn…we have most likely all been exposed and effected by these while we were young or in our lives at some point.
Superb analogy for life and the yearly cycle. ‘Happy old year’ – such a true observation and one which does not be repeated if we choose that which is presented by Universal Medicine as you so rightly present Coleen. Viewing the New Year as a marker to reflect upon one’s choices as a means to moved forward in the coming year is hugely liberating.
Absolutely agree Jonathan, reflecting ‘upon one’s choices as a means to move forward’ is liberating not just at the New Year, but at any time of the year. Choosing ‘that which is presented by Universal Medicine’ completes the picture!
As we are now 1/4 through the year it’s interesting to see the same level of exhaustion and tension coming back so soon into the year, it’s as if most new year aims had been long forgotten by now. It makes me consider that for a true new year we need to look at every day rather than waiting until once a year. Otherwise we keep going around and around with no real changes, Then the New Year becomes a bigger stock take with actual changes that have been built each day over the year. Why wait 365 days to look at the exhaustion we have? As others have shared it’s all about cycles.
Indeed, New Year is a great time to “reflect” on the passing year and “anticipate” the coming year. By the way I was not aware of the fact that the game of snakes and ladders are played at New Year time in Australia.
Happy old year… What a great observation about the cycles we live in. What do we really want to say?Truly joyful year. day. life. moment. We are going nowhere but round and round so the time factor becomes a bit irrelevant. Joy on the other hand is never be wasted.
I now love welcoming in the new year in light of what you have shared in your blog Colleen. It is a time to take stock, to consider the HOW I had been living the previous year and to consider what changes (not just outwardly, but inwardly) that I would like to consider for my next year to be evolutionary. This is a far cry from how I use to celebrate the new year with partying, alcohol and a hang over on new year’s day. I love waking up on new year’s day, after an early night to bed, feeling refreshed and ready to embrace the new year.
Thanks Colleen for this blog, I remember the expection of the New Years party having to be the best party of the year you would plan it weeks in advance where you would be etc. For me it was mostly a let down and looking back what a terrible way to set the foundation for the year ahead
I could not agree more Kev. One year I drove my boyfriend and his friends from one drinking venue to another. As they got drunker and drunker I got angrier and angrier…yep a great start to the next year…
Now New Years Eve is life as usual. To bed at the same time, possibly celebrating with fresh clean sheets…up early for a glass of water and some writing work and gentle exercise.
As I type this I can recall New Year’s days past..out of sorts, slightly hung over and a sort of disappointed loneliness and sense of isolation.
Now I know how to handle those feelings when they arise, I do not lose myself in them because I have a vastly clearer body, free of alcohol and well-nurtured and well-slept, don’t load myself up with impossible expectations so there is no great dive on the “other side”. Yes I do not seek the ladders, so I don’t fear the snakes.
I celebrated the new year by going to bed as any other day with no pressure or feeling of missing out on a party with friends. The new year was a time for reflection, for approaching a new cycle and continue on the route to unfolding.
There’s something I experience every year at 12pm – I get phone calls or text messages from people I know. And there’s the tradition – not only for them I bet – to “raise the glasses”. I did this too, for many years. I would enter the new beginning being either drunk or at least half dizzy. To me that now seems that’s the same like saying “cheers” for getting the next year even worse. Numb and contracted.
Coleen, I really love what you have shared here……..”How much more of myself have I expressed this year and shared this expression with everyone, so that we are all more? To what extent have I accepted the expressions of love offered to me by others?” these are great questions……wouldn’t it be amazing if we all posed those questions to ourselves each year. I can only imagine that the world may be a different place if we did so!
Coleen I like your words “Good old year”. When I read it I felt like we would not need to celebrate the new year as a fresh start if we could look back on the previous year and celebrate our growth, we could have “good old year” celebrations, with complete readiness knowing the purpose of the “new” year, as it is the same as the last, to keep expanding oneself. We would be celebrating what is already with us rather than some perceived idea of how we should be.
An exposing look at what is going on concerning society’s willingness to start all over again each 1st January rather than live in a consistent way. “Does our maladaptive end of year behaviour simply set us up for yet another annual game of Snakes and Ladders?” I was never a fan of New Years Eve, It allows felt such a stench of desperation and anxiety in the air, it felt so contrived. And I felt like I would celebrate and never really know what the celebration was about? Since I have taken the pressure off myself and I live in a more consistently supportive way throughout the year, I appreciate when cycles come and offer a new beginning but I do not feel the pressure of having one opportunity to forget or put it right each year. Interesting to consider how we move from one year into another and whether this sets us up for the next, our intention is so vital in life. We have every moment to make a choice…
“Moreover, Universal Medicine presents that each year has its own specific quality of energy to which we can align, if that is our choice.
Wow, Coleen, such a great line. Through Universal Medicine I have realised that it is my choice to step on the next rung of the ladder and to avoid the snakes at all costs, it is my choice to evolve or not. And through my new-found awareness, I choose to evolve.
Snakes and ladders, up and down and around in circles, that’s what life used to feel like. Then there was Universal Medicine, who spoke about changes one could make in life, and life is definitely on the up and up.
Thank you, Coleen. I love how you claim at the end – “the only way worthy of my consideration is the way set forth by Universal Medicine”. Enough for me too, of playing games. The way set forth by Universal Medicine is a completely different choice, to make each day about love and expanding one another rather than survival and competition.
I love it Coleen.
‘A game of apparent chance, with snakes, or a life with purpose and connection with everyone.’
Well I know what I have chosen; purpose, deepening my self loving choices and seeing this time as a maker of evolution. No luck and no fireworks, only the ones going off within me.
This game ‘snakes and ladders’ was ever present as I grew up as well as another game called ‘frustration’. Imagine that life is all about chance and not commitment and dedication and that there is frustration all around when you don’t get to win. My life was very much like this seesaw before Universal Medicine – no steadiness whatsoever. Life I am discovering more and more each day is an absolute joy and when purposeful inspires many to see that they can climb off the board game and go for it.
Coleen this is truly revolutionary, you have exposed how we happily repeat a pattern over and over again, actually thinking we are getting somewhere, but as you say if we are not evolving, if our relationships are not improving, if our health is declining, if our expression is decreasing then we certainly have not evolved and hence for another year gotten nowhere. I had a friend once tell me that every mothers day she would ask her child how she did as a mother that year, she didn’t take for granted that it was for her to receive a present just because it was Mothers Day but use it as a marker for how she is going as a mother and what could be improved or built on. I find this truly commendable and absolutely responsible, your article is asking us all to do the same, thank you.
I agree Caroline, and thank you Coleen – it is about re-assessing and adjusting as needed. And also about welcoming each and every day for the ‘new’ opportunities that are being offered. In reality these are not really new opportunities, rather they are the same ones offered to us before, but simply ones that we may have turned a blind eye to in the past or may not have fully embraced. Herein lies our opportunity to reassess how we want to express this time around in this particular moment – and hence evolution is offered when we take up the responsibility that comes with it.
Great point Brendan. Competition does breed separation. Often without us realising, an innocent game can turn into a full blown battle of the spirits. Unless we are able to see what goes on for everybody involved, it is easy for the victorious to further the odds and the further levels they play at. This is the society we have created for ourselves.
Well I am not a big fan of snakes or ladders so I choose evolution! On a more serious note though, we can place a lot of emphasis and expectation on a date such as the New Year as paving the way to a ‘better’ future, but of course we know nothing is ever going to truly change without us navigating change by the choices we make. I like this time of year as a point of reflection, a pause, to look at the year past and consider what I will include or discard in the new cycle.
“Snakes and Ladders,” or a continued expansion of myself in love.
Wow, what a powerful statement to ask myself continually! It is so easy to engage in life in the snakes and ladders, he wins, she wins, tug o war approach.
This is a great reminder Colleen of the folly of the modern Christmas traditions, thank you for your insight and wisdom in presenting another way for us.
Coleen, you lay out the fallacy of our standard new year celebrations and games so well. Unless we’re prepared to truly step back, review ourselves and where we are at, nothing will change, it’s just another merry go round. True change involves an honest appraisal, and not a hope and a wishing, it’s within us and we can choose to change, but to do so involves honesty, purpose and being willing to see and feel what supports us to truly evolve or what takes us back onto the merry go round. Great blog, thank you.
Hi Colleen. It is such a funny time of year, new year. It’s funny how we signify by a date that might indicate a start to something. But if we didn’t have a date at all, what might we do? Start looking at our days and seasons, even our choices in a new way perhaps?
A great blog to read as we move into March and to take stock of how the year is moving on. Are we playing snakes and ladders or is there a loving consistancy building in our life for the rest of the year? It is our choices that really do make a difference.
Great blog, new year for me now has a totally different meaning
I love your line, ‘The choice to align with this energy places one’s personal rhythms within a larger context, which encompasses us all.’ I am inspired to deepen my connection to this larger context which feels so expansive and blows away any concept that our actions do not affect another. We are always connected even when we try to blinker our awareness and pretend it’s all about ‘me’!
Since coming to Universal Medicine the ‘New Year’ has taken on a whole different meaning for me too. Whereas I used to celebrate the end of one year and be barely coherent to welcome in the new one, I now recognise the cycle we are in and that each New Year is an opportunity for growth and expansion. I love to celebrate New Year’s Day with loved ones and take the time to reflect on where I am at in terms of living the love that I know myself to be.
Ha ha! I love how you turned this game on its head! What you have illustrated is that we actually have choices in how we deal with life and that we are presented with so many choices we could make on a daily basis. Question is do we allow life to be a game of chance and keep on sliding down snakes or do we make a different choice? Knowing that we can make a different choice ( taking responsibility perhaps) changes everything.
Great point Tony; we end up feeling much worse because we have ‘failed’ our resolution… even though often we set up ourselves up with impossible goals.
Great blog Coleen, you really show how making responsible choices is the key to bring about true change in our lives. Through that we can bring about our own “luck”!
Evolution for me please!
Great blog, Colleen. The Snakes and Ladders analogy (or Shoots and Ladders as we call it in the US) is brilliant and so true.
Spot on Danielle; there is a way of living with such consistency that every day is the same day, and where we continue to evolve no matter what life ‘throws’ at us, or what lessons we may need to learn.
For as long as I can remember, I had a sense that time was a never ending loop that felt like a trap. The presentations by Serge Benhayon helped me understand how evolution is really up to our own choices, and time is its container.
Fumiyo very true, I used to dread new years, the over hype of what would turn out to be a far from fulfilling night and the thought of January that followed. What I really enjoy is seeing new years as a time to reflect on what choices I am making now compared to 365 days ago – as Universal Medicine has helped me understand we are going around and around, each year an opportunity to build a deeper honesty, truth, care and love into my life.
It’s like anything we load expectations onto ends up being exposed as a way to avoid a feeling of emptiness or that something is missing. Expecting one evening, in this case the one that has been called ‘new year’ to change the course of our lives really does appear to be quite crazy.
‘Evolution is really up to our own choices, and time is its container’ – Very well put Fumiyo, time simply gives us space in order to evolve at our own pace.
I agree Felix, for a long time I felt this around Christmas time and I especially feel the coldness of the push to commercialize each of the holidays.. You only need to go to the supermarket and see that no sooner have they taken the last of the Christmas cards off the shelves and the Easter eggs are out to see that the message is lost in the push make more and more money..
Hello Coleen, there are many things you have said in this blog. What is interesting for me is how you highlight the way we “celebrate” the old and new year. We always picture ourselves leaving something behind when going from the old year into the new year. We meet the new year with such a verbal optimism and ‘hope’ the new year will bring us something more than the last. But what are we truly offered in this time? and what do we bring to ourselves in this time?. If it truly is a marker of a fresh start then why do we celebrate the way we do and then hope for a difference. We would be much better off starting off with how we want it to be, not only having the intent but giving it an action from the first point. Every moment is important and in every moment there is time to change. We don’t need the start of something new to bring change to ourselves. The way we start the new year and the thoughts that go with it don’t seem to have worked for us as people. So the first new year change maybe the way we welcome it in. Maybe we need to look at how we approach these things and that may support a change. For me, yes it is a time to be with people and celebrate, but the intention is that of ‘just another day’. But not in the grinding sense, more in it is a day like any other and not more important than the day before or the next day. It is a day to connect to yourself and feel the moments and express what you are feeling with those around you. It is not a day to wipe yourself out and then take that as the first step. It is a day to build a connection because that is what I want for the next day and the next year.
I totally agree, Ray: action needs to accompany intent and not, as you say, verbal optimism plus wiping oneself out equals new start. It is really a crazy concept when expressed thus.
Hello Coleen and this is very clear, “action needs to accompany intent”. As they say, ‘walk the walk and not just talk the talk’. As I said, “It is a day to build a connection because that is what I want for the next day and the next year.” Thank you Coleen.
Here here, Coleen, I absolutely agree, it is only through being a student of universal medicine that I have found the ability I have always had, but didn’t know how to live to truly change my life, bringing into it joy, honour, love acceptance and appreciation. My deepest heartfelt thanks to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.
Dear Ray,
You are spot on, why don’t we begin the New Year how we want to live in it, why do we celebrate by checking out with alcohol and such, all the while hoping something will be different in the coming year? I feel it is because deeply embedded in our society is an arrogance that it is not us that has to change and that things don’t happen because of how we live, they happen to us not from us. This is fundamentally the most important point that needs addressing by us all, to open our hearts and our minds to the possibility that we are the centre point of our lives and that how our life transpires is driven directly from us. With this understanding each of us comes to the reality that life change is nothing about hope and everything about our choices and what choice we make, either to live in hope and constant fear of what is coming next, or to live claiming our choices and beginning to make choices that are supportive of the life we truly want.
I love this blog Coleen and equally love what you have added with your little gem of a comment Raymond. New years for me before I met Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine was a total drinking drug induced blur with the only goal for the evening was making sure I had a hot guy kissing me and wishing me happy new year when the clock strikes 12. If I couldn’t find that hot somebody than I would usually settle for the guy standing next to me and might I add this was socially acceptable and encouraged in my circles. If for some reason there was no one next to you or willing to kiss then you had in fact, failed and your night meant nothing. Strange tradition and to me looking back now miles away from the empty life I use to lead and can see how it was a deliberate distraction, so I didn’t have to feel the year I had just lived and as you put it Ray and Coleen.. the year I was about to repeat.
Thank god for everyone involved in Universal Medicine. The truth presented there showed me the way out of the rat wheel I was caught on. Now everyday is worth celebrating.
I can so relate to what you’re saying here Sarah – wow those same false ideals and expectations I used to have about new years eve – whilst living on the other side of the planet to you. This just confirms to me how we are all the same – across the Nationalities and the generations, getting caught up in the same beliefs, thinking a kiss from a stranger – if one hasn’t got a significant other at the time of New Years – will make it all ok. How dis-empowering is this!
Yes, thanks to Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon my approach to New Years (as well as every part of my life) has completely changed and I know I cannot expect the next year to be any different to the last one if I’m not truly changing my own commitment to what I bring to life.
“Every moment is important and in every moment there is time to change”, I like this Ray, and why not make this our philosophy for the beginning of every new day, that way we get 365 opportunities to change and 365 opportunities to celebrate!
Beautiful sandrahenden, 365 opportunities to change – no more can we have excuses that nothing changes – if we choose it – it can.
..’each ‘new’ day, or year is an opportunity to build upon the awareness I have, and grow deeply within’ – Absolutely Victoria. How incredible is it that this opportunity never goes away or stops and presents itself again every single day.
Good old Snakes and ladders I hated this game as a kid, drove me nuts one of those start, stop, go backwards games, really does sound a lot like my life
prior to Universal Medicine and being inspired by Serge Benhayon.
It completely makes sense that each year presents us a choice to align to the energy of the new year. There are only ladders here and no snakes if we surrender ourselves to the loving choices. Thank you, Colleen.
In my experience, competition just makes for unhappiness. I am continually confronted by large examples of how accepting competition and comparison as a way of life separates us from each other so that there is disconnection from others and often to self. I then have to see how this reflects in my own life, because there has to be a reason I am confronted by this, and gently pull myself up on any comparison, flattering or not, that I am making between me and another, and realise that this small beginning leads to the larger disconnection. I might just frame that snakes and ladders game as a reminder of this.
Love it, Ariana: “How’s your ‘Happy New Year’ going? Very revealing! I’m going to give that a go tomorrow…..
Yes Ben, Snakes and Ladders has a whole new level of meaning now… l’ve never seen the way it echoes and fosters a competitive edge. A very clever and apt analogy indeed.
Love it Coleen, ‘Happy Old Year’… so clever because it’s so apt. And yes, I’ve had a similar conversation recently around why the excess of food and alcohol at Xmas… at a time when we perhaps ought to be reflecting on the year gone by before heading into what has a chance of being a ‘New’ Year with a renewed sense of ‘where to from here’.
Great blog with very timely and important questions like: “How much more of myself have I expressed this year and shared this expression with everyone, so that we are all more? To what extent have I accepted the expressions of love offered to me by others?” That’s what it’s all about. That’s what I strive for. After having started to observe the “craziness of the December festive season” from the outside it all looks and feels very absurd. It seems like it’s all on autopilot with no individual choices.
When we play life like a game of chance we give ourselves an excuse to relinquish responsibility. On the other hand when we can choose to live life with commitment, purpose and connection, we continue to build upon and expand from the previous year and therefore we evolve. When we are evolving there is no need to wish for a happy new year… evolution contains an inherit joy far beyond any hoped for happiness.
“Evolution contains an inherent joy far beyond any hoped for happiness.” That’s beautiful, Rob.
I loved feeling everyone when I read this blog – as you say we are all here every year making a choice about how to live for the next year. Really connecting and feeling where everyone is at – no matter what corner of the globe is so cool, and brings much greater purpose and awareness to how I choose to live. Thank you.
What a powerful way to embrace the new year Coleen and all of humanity by leaving behind the game of chance and adopting a simple and loving way to live life.
I agree wholeheartedly that Universal Medicine offers a philosophy that supports making true change in ones life. A way that involves no snakes or ladders, just simple steps and consistent living.
I love the choice you propose between “a game of apparent chance, with snakes, or a life with purpose and connection with everyone.” It is the competitive nature that comes out and the glee when an opponent has to slide down the snake that I find particularly nasty! I’m choosing the second option; a life of connection with everyone equally.
Thanks Coleen, for a great blog. The analogy with Snakes and Ladders is very apt (not asp-t!). I never did like that game, and found it downright nasty. But it is indeed a reflection of how we are taught to live life.
How freeing it has been, thanks to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, to learn that life is not a straight line, that we leave behind as we move from one year to the next; but a cycle, that we return to, as we go around the sun for yet another year.
It is no longer about climbing the ladder, at the expense of everyone else, but about love and evolution, for everyone, equally so.
Great point Anne, if we feel the cycle of movement we live in, it is indeed pointless to try and achieve and climb in life, rather than connect and live more fully who we truly are.
Connection or climbing? I love the simplicity in that question, Jenny. Thank you.
I agree, I used to make so many new year resolutions and only to feel the crushing blow of failure when I couldn’t maintain them.
Yes, the only way I was able to break out of this was via choosing to look at why I was doing certain things, really examine the underlying causes, and then choose differently. There was no sense in just insisting that I would always be on time from now on, if I didn’t get to the bottom of why I was often late, for example.
I love how you’ve used Snakes and Ladder analogy with life!
We do tend to live that way year after year (trying to win/loose, so called going forward but really living in an endless circle of repeating the same stuff over and over to the old ways), in making resolutions and then not keeping them and then being hard on yourself for not keeping them etc..
It is that simple as you question it ‘So… Snakes and Ladders or Evolution?’
The way you put it, it surely would be an no brainer with love, connection, purpose and evolution with Universal Medicine.
“Letting go of the old… and ringing in the new” certainly brings up the question where this ‘new’ is going to come from – it certainly isn’t something that will be bestowed upon us by virtue of the fact that the year that we write has changed; could it have something to do with taking responsibility and making choices, as Universal Medicine presents?
Yes – the ‘wiping the slate clean’ is like ‘kicking the rubbish under the bed,’ : the rubbish is still there; just not immediately visible. It also tends to ‘go off’ and smell badly because no one is dealing with it effectively! Hmmmm….
It is definitely a sobering thought, Joshua.
Thank You Colleen. Love the way you expressed on your Blog so simple.
I also Love the fact that each year is an opportunity for us all to acknowledge where we are ” Point of Reference” to be a loving human Being. Reflect on how we have deepened in our expression of love for ourselves and others.
That is gold it needed repeating once again, Thank you for your form of expression.
Colleen, this is such a great blog to read. It is so true. Thank you for sharing in such a way that makes it so clear. I have never really enjoyed this time of year as it brings with it such highs and lows and now I understand why.
” The only way worthy of consideration is the way set forth by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine.” Thank you Coleen, well said!
That seems to be the case and even though we are spending time with loved ones because we lack the true connection to ourselves and then with others ultimately this kind of celebrating will continue to numb the fact that we are not meeting each other with true Love. I have most definitely noticed a shift in the way I eat, drink and celebrate when I choose to be in connection with myself and have this deeper love that doesn’t need or want to be indulging in anything that takes me away for this connection.
I love what you have expressed here Natalie. Without a true connection to ourselves the ongoing search for something outside ourselves, can become a never ending quest, so often using ‘celebration’ of this and that in an effort to fulfill this need.
I used to be into celebrations, ceremonies etc in a big way, my yearly cycle was made up of these, and I have really welcomed the ‘letting go’ of all the fuss and expectation around these occasions, in which food and alcohol was often a big focus, and now feel that each and every day is a day to celebrate the joy of life. Yes there are birthdays and Christmas etc in there, and I now enjoy the simplicity of these days, often just allowing them to unfold simply without planning too much around them at all.
That’s great point, Natalie: celebration without self connection is empty and lacks meaning: hence, people turning to alcohol and other indulgences to avoid the awfulness of that emptiness.
There are so many cycles within cycles years, months, weeks, days, hours really every minute of the day is a cyclic opportunity for us to heal or harm. To evolve or not.
Not only does the general approach to the end of the year and the start of a new year help us kid ourselves that things magically change because one day at the end of December becomes another on the first of January, it also helps to stop us seeing that we have an equal opportunity to start to change in every moment of every day.
Thank you Coleen, I have always had behavior I wanted to change, but it never lasted and I repeated falling down the same snakes in life.
That all changed when I began to put into practice what I had learnt from Universal medicine presentations.
I was able to look at my bad behavior without judgment but with an understanding of the energy behind the actions. This lead to honesty that exposed the depth of lies I had been telling myself.
I know there is much more ill behavior for me to clear but thanks to Universal Medicine I have woken up from my Groundhog day of happy old year.
I totally agree with how the festive season appears to be every year, for most in society.
But what you have made available and from other bloggers is why new year resolutions don’t work . People start out the new year (same one just repeating itself) with good intentions but if the foundation isn’t there then the goal is not sustainable.
I love what you say about climbing snakes Rebecca. I have found that taking responsibility no matter what the situation is what allows for lasting change.
I also relate to the idea of climbing ladders to seemingly get ahead whilst others might be sliding down ladders, or vice versa. But in reality, just going around in circles returning to complete again and again what I have not done in absolute love or equalness.
Thank you for this offering. It definitely resonates with me. Are we continuing to do the same old same old, as each year passes, ending up back where we started or are we choosing to expand and express more of who we truly are? For me, I am choosing to express more of who I am, even if it is in little ways, like commenting on blogs that resonate with me 🙂
This article points the way to really looking into what we want for the future and starting the discussion on what we want in our lives, a simple clear plan for the next year.
Well said, Felix. I couldn’t agree more.
“When seen in this light, the game appears to be ethically rather questionable as a game for children. As a preparation for adulthood, it unfortunately brings a rather too accurate mirror of life of many segments of our society” and many would say ‘That’s life’. But does it have to be this way? I vote for cooperation, not competition, then we all support each other up the ladder of life and care for our brothers should they slip down the snakes, treating each other with respect and love.
Beautiful claim Sue: “support each other up the ladder of life” – I put myself on this program!
Sign me up for that programme, too, Sue and Sandra
Well said Sue. Coorperation not competition. This would be a much better way of living with each other and certainly more productive.
I love this Sue. True brotherhood and co-operation, supporting and encouraging each other in life to live our potential through love and respect, no games needed, simply meeting each other in equality.
A great observation Coleen, we do indeed have a truer choice we can make and I for one am choosing to expand the Love in my life as well. Interestingly I am reading this blog in February and where all the new years madness has settled down back into the daily grind for some, I am asking why wait for a new year or new month to expand our love? when every moment can mark the beginning of a new cycle in the quality of our own choosing.
Robyn I love your comment. I definitely spent many a woefull New Year’s day thinking how bad my life was and how rubbish I was for never making any changes and berating the universe for not giving me what I wanted! I really appreciate it’s about putting in ‘the time and effort in to truly make a change.’ Nor does it have to feel like running a marathon (never liked running) but is actually, the more I come to appreciate myself, a lovely way to spend time.
What a wonderful way to look at the annual cycle of the new year. I have been running an Esoteric Yoga course in which we have been looking at the choices we made last year and how we can feel the consequences of those choices in the body. And the quality of choices we might like to make for this year ahead, based on the way we know we can feel, but don’t. It is a great way to look at the annual cycle. Do we make new choices and bring in a new year, or keep doing the same thing and have a ‘happy old year’.
Thank you Coleen for bringing in an true understand what live and “new year” are really about. To change the foundation /quality we live every day to a way to express love in everything-not to try to make it better tomorrow or next year but not really to consider what choices are we making in every moment.
“Universal Medicine presents that each year is an opportunity for us to acknowledge where we are as a marker, a reference point if you will, of our energetic development as a loving human being. It is a time to reflect on how we have deepened in our expression of love for ourselves and for others.”
There is often a sense of relief associated with the end of each year – as if we can’t wait to get this one behind us and have a fresh start …as if the former year and the choices we have made will some how miraculously disappear and not come with us into the next one. I have also observed those who view the party at the end of the year as incentive to get through it.
Yes – the “miraculous disappearance” of the previous year shows a rather naive or “phantasmic” way of thinking about life, doesn’t it?
Yes so true, the illusion of ‘leaving it all behind…’ without realising we’re going round and round. Crazy thing is we all know our patterns keep repeating themselves, even the clock just keeps going round – yet we still keep thinking we’re moving on somewhere!