I love celebrating New Year’s. Not because of the ball dropping or spending time with family and friends, but rather the time I make sure to take to reflect on the past year of my life. I find the process sometimes yet refreshing and most times quite humiliating. Taking time to rediscover yourself takes courage, especially when we like to think we are truly better than we really are.

I know I have slacked so much with the goals of themindfulcatholic.com. I wanted to create a community of hope and inspiration to any who wanted to take the time to be a part of it. But, I also was facing a world of doubt. Yes, I was doubting my faith in people, in myself, and more importantly in God. As I reflect now, I actually believe it’s a healthy process to undergo. Faith is a great power. However, faith is constantly challenged because there is so much social proof that contradicts its being. The thing is with faith you don’t need proof to have it.

So, as this New Year starts I want to turn the tables. I want to challenge myself in working in creating a community where in some way or another you, the readers, can be encouraged. That yes, we will accept that life can often be stressful, difficult, and humiliating, but we will have the faith to persevere through it all and perhaps we can get through it together. Let us also celebrate the blessings and wins of our life. If you are a parent, perhaps it’s when you see your child run to you as soon as they see you come from work and give you a great big hug, or perhaps you got the promotion or salary increase. I don’t think it has to be big win to celebrate. Small wins work fine too. Learn to rejoice in being kind to yourself. Quite often, are self-criticism can be too harsh that we make ourselves paralyzed to action. Inaction is the best way to lose faith in anything.

Everyone has a story. A story that is untold and kept within. Let’s begin this year writing our stories with renewed vigor and faith. Numbers 6:26 states, “The Lord look upon your kindly and give you peace!” I believe “peace” in this case means that God gives us happiness, good health, prosperity, friendship, and good vibes. Let us pray with “peace” over ourselves, our families, and all the neighbors we will encounter this New Year, this new beginning.

Peaceful Father,

Fill our hearts today with renewed faith and vigor in your love. As we go throughout our day today, let us be grateful of the blessings you provide us thus far, and let us share with others your loving peace with all those we will encounter. Let your love shine through me that it will help inspire someone else.

Amen.

I hate gardening. There I said it. It is just one of the chores like many others that I simply do not care for. Much respect for you garden aficionados out there in the world. Although, I am fascinated with the idea of growing things and keeping my landscapes maintained. I simply refuse to get myself to work outside; get on my hands and knees in the heat, and simply put in the work to maintaining a beautiful garden. It takes patience and dedication to make your garden as beautiful as it is. The thing is; I really crave to be a gardener. Not so much in the physical sense, but a mental gardener or landscaper of sorts. Just like an overgrown garden filled with weeds and other parasitic plants, our minds fill up with negativity. It is these negative thoughts that must be weeded and dug out before they can grow and infest our way of thinking.

The information age is here and now. Information about everything is simply at our fingertips. However, during the course of this knowledge overshare we cannot simply disseminate all the possible bad weeds of information that clutter our mind. We can find thousands of websites of diet and detox plans. We can watch videos of people becoming healthy and fueling their awesome lifestyles. But, where is the negativity thinking detox plan or guides? If we are what we eat, then perhaps it is true that we think is what we do. The problem is that many of us, sad to say it, don’t want to be mental gardeners. Too often, we get distracted and think that not dealing with the bad will somehow make the bad just go away.

Negative thinking needs to be stopped at the root just like a weed needs to be dug out or it will come back again. When we rid of ourselves of negative thinking, we can be free to finally do better and be better. We have to take small steps in retraining our minds not to focus so much on dark emotions like anger, sadness, pain, and disappointment. We need to stop our addiction to pain and sadness. Too many times, we easily forget the happy moments we have once shared, but when something bad happens in our life we are left scarred and we dwell in that negativity for weeks, months, and perhaps years. Just think about it now, when was the last time you laughed out loud or so hard that your cheeks started to hurt? How about the last time someone made you smile and it wasn’t forced? Now, think about the last time someone pissed you off? How about the last time you felt alone and sad? Perhaps, now you see how much easier it is to remember negative outcomes than good times.

Here at themindfulcatholic.com, we focus and train very hard to bring God into our daily lives. We make it priority to include God in everything we do. When we turn our focus on God, we finally get ourselves out of own way and realize that this life isn’t just about us. That all that we are, all that we do is really for the Glory of God. By being aware that God is fully with us at all times helps us to weed out and stop negative thinking in its tracks. In no means, are we guaranteed that life will be easy and we are to expect to be walking on rainbows and playing with unicorns all the time. It means that when things get tough, our God is looking out for us. It means that if we keep our faith and focus on Him, He will helps us weed out the bad and overcome negativity because doing God’s work can only bring about positive outcomes.

Do we dare to cultivate a more positive thinking environment? The choice is always there for you to make.