It’s a dark rainy day here in the Pacific Northwest and I’ve never felt more content. There was a time I might have allowed days such at this to depress me, especially when they string themselves together for days or weeks at a time during the winter months. Instead, I recognize the value of snuggling in with a warm cuppa whatever pleases me in the moment and a keyboard at my fingertips. Today is December 29th, the day before New Year’s Eve. As we are often wont to do, my mind is wandering back over this past year. As I’m doing so I realize. . .

This past year has been my most Stellar Year ever!!!

And I have nothing, not a single thing to show for it. I have accomplished nothing. I have not moved to a new home, initiated a new relationship or a new job as so many others have done this year. I haven’t added anything to my life. In fact, I have less now than I had at the beginning of this year. So much of my prior life has dissolved over the past few months and I’ve passed on many of the physical things that no longer resonate with me to be shared by those who will benefit from them. Therefore, not only have I nothing to show for this year, I own less than I have in a very long time.

Although I haven’t gained anything in the material world, what I have gained has no measure. I am more abundant, happy and content than I have ever been. How do you measure such things?

At the beginning of 2017, I knew this would be a year like no other. While others were writing their lists and repeating their new year’s resolutions like mantras, I made a choice to step into the unknown and allow my Soul to lead the way.

Without realizing it 2017 became the year of my Ultimate Love Affair.

And everything in my life has changed because of it. Although Love has been courting me for quite some time, this was the year I finally fell head over heels in Love with my self. I always wondered about that phrase to “fall in love”. Shouldn’t it be to “rise in love”? This past year I finally understood the depth of “falling in love”. For this past year I have delved deeply into a passionate loving relationship with my human self, nurturing all those fallen parts of my self that got bruised or lost along the way. All those aspects of my self that had been hiding in the shadows for fear of not being good enough to be loved. I simply made a choice to open my arms and invite them all into one big love fest. . . the good, the bad and the ugly.

As a result, what I have experienced this past year has been an ever expanding Love of self. The parts of me that felt most unloved immediately pushed themselves to the front like two year olds with their demanding “me first” attitude. Oh how much I learned from these wee wise ones that our society had sent to the corner for an extended “time out” because they didn’t fit into the pre-made boxes. No wonder they became so vocal! (she says with a chuckle and a wink of the eye). With the patience of Love, each one was intimately heard, honored, and embraced until my Inner Sanctuary became more quiet and spacious, which reflected in my outer world as well.

The more I loved my self, the more I began to love my physical body in ways I had harbored judgment in the past, seeing it as the blessed temple that embodies all of who I Am. Thus I cleared much of its density, activated my LightBody and began the process of rejuvenation, which progressed to the integration of both my human and Soul attributes as my SoulBody. (see my prior post “Behind the Scenes of Soul Embodiment” for more about the SoulBody). This is a new way of being and I’m still playing with it much like a child with a new toy. I’m like a kid at Christmas bubbling over with joy because I just unwrapped the gifts for which I have been yearning for a very long time, lifetimes. Walking this planet as a conscious embodied Soul is what I have always aspired to do. Indeed we are constantly changing and expanding our consciousness so this is not the end of the story. It is a new beginning as we embark upon another new year.

By choosing to live in a small home, free of the cost and eternal maintenance of extraneous things, I am experiencing a spaciousness of both time and space. Time has dissolved, allowing me to live free of the mind’s restraints and cycles that held me captive. Without the interference of those disruptive aspects that have now come into the fold of Love, time becomes irrelevant for I am able to live in the moment. The past has been freed and the future has no need for planning.

This opens a whole new world of potentials beyond anything the mind could envision!!! Words like abundance have disappeared from my vocabulary because I now live in the infinite that only knows abundance so there is no need to speak of it anymore. I simply live it because Love knows no other way.

I now have the spaciousness of an open clear mind, able to recognize and honor that each person has their own soul path for their own unique growth and expansion. Therefore, there is no room or reason for my judgment or interference. This has freed me to love them where they are because there are no more battles to fight, personally or for the collective. For even the human collective has its own soul path which needs to play out without my interference. The most beneficial thing I can offer to the world is my own Love of self which ripples throughout the entire consciousness. Herein lies my peace and contentment with life as it continues to reveal itself unto me.

There aren’t any shadows lurking in the corners anymore because my Light shines brightly. All of my love and light dimmers have been loved into higher service. So BRIGHT it is!!! I know this can frighten some people because they are afraid of what they may see. And that’s okay because I will happily hand out sunglasses for those who would like more time in their own sacred darkness along their unique soul path until they are ready to remove them with their own divine timing. BTW: I also have some rose colored glasses available for anyone who chooses to partake of the Ultimate Love Affair. 

Amidst all the chaos and turmoil happening in the world around us, my experience has been a year of sweetness as I continually immerse my self in Love. Tears of gratitude and joy are overflowing from my depths for the courage it has taken to face that which I was afraid was unlovable. Today I can honestly say, I so Love ME, all of ME. I feel this Love as my Soul feels it for my human self. I’m simultaneously feeling the Love my human self feels for my Soul.

As another year draws to a close. . . Here I AM, having experienced the melding of ME. . . My Energies, my human and my Soul. . .All of ME as the purity of Source.

Therefore, THIS has been a Stellar Year!!!
Although I have little to show as manifestation goes, what I have is ME.
*
~Sharon Lyn Shepard~