Have you ever heard the saying “2020 hindsight”? Well this year we can really put that into practice. After what’s been probably the most challenging year for most people on the planet I thought this week it would be good to look back at 2020 so that we can start to prepare for 2021.
Hi everyone, welcome to this week’s episode of Your Freedom unlimited with me Jen Ramsey. I’m so pleased you are here. Today, I am keen for us to shift gears and for us to think about preparing for 2021. To do that, it’s always useful to do a review of the year that we’ve just had.
2020 Was Not What We Expected
2020 was certainly a year, like no other. I think when 2020 came around this time last year everyone was very excited about the potential for a new decade. It was such an opportunity for a fresh start. I remember thinking as the calendar flipped to 1 January it was like flipping to a fresh new page in my journal. The new year always has such potential. And 2020 seemed even more significant. The year 2020 was an even number and from a numerological perspective, is very significant. And the beginning of a new decade always seems to be a great chance for a fresh start.
However, as we all know, 2020 certainly didn’t turn out the way anyone thought it would. It was certainly a very, very different year.
Many people have told me it’s been their toughest year ever. COVID-19 made sure of that. It was a difficult year for many globally and for many it is still going on. People have lost family members, jobs and businesses and, for most of us, the things we thought would happen have not.
There Is A Chance to Focus on the Good
However, if you’ve listened to this podcast for a while you know that I’m a firm believer that there is an opportunity for us to find the good in everything – that everything, at some level, is for us. My grandmother always said every cloud has a silver lining and I now know she was right.
Looking for the good also came up in a fascinating conversation with an old friend of mine last night. We had shared texts but hadn’t spoken all year. And so our conversation last night was a huge recap on the year that was. What was very interesting was that despite the difficult things that happened this year both of us were able to share the good that happened to both of us. While some big things happened for both of us we were still able to talk about what had gone right this year versus dwelling on what had gone wrong.
And that’s really the conversation I wanted to open up with you today. If you were to look back on this last year, what are some of the learnings and goodness you could find in this year? Even if you felt it was tough, is there some good in the year that you could find?
Why am I talking about all of this?
I’m a big believer in setting intentions and being intentional in all things – in everything from being intentional about my day to being intentional about my year ahead. If you listened to last week’s Episode 37 with Dr Dean Radin from the Institute of Noetic Sciences you’ll know that being intentional is no longer a “woo woo” thing it is backed by science. Dean was very clear that the science shows that our intention will have an impact on our outcomes.
Setting Intentions for 2021 – Step #1
So as 2020 comes to a close it’s time to start preparing and setting intentions for 2021. This episode is the first of a series of episodes I’ll be doing in this space in the next few weeks.
So the first step in the process is to do a review of the year that was. But this is not a traditional review where we focus on “what went wrong” and what we need to fix about ourselves or others.
This review is about what worked for you in 2020. What went well? What did you learn? What can you have gratitude for? Even if really tough things – what can you take from then?
I do this review process every year and I find it really enlightening to focus on what went well vs what didn’t. It also really helps me in setting intentions for the year ahead.
Why is it so enlightening? Because our brains have a negativity bias and we can all typically list right off the bat the tough things … it’s much harder to remember the great things.
What Am I Discovering From My 2020 Review?
So I thought if I’m asking you to consider those questions I could start to share with you a little about what I learned and what I felt was great about 2021. I have only just started this process for the year. Typically I dive in even more deeply between Christmas and New Year.
I have quite a process for delving into this which I’d like to share with you in the next episode in this series.
So what did I learn in 2020? A lot it seems. Here are five things I learnt in 2020 that will help me in setting intentions for 2021:
#1: The Power of Peace and Love Vs Fear and Control
For me, this was really what COVID-19 taught me. I realized very early on I definitely had to be intentional about navigating COVID-19. When it hit here in March my son was a contact of not one, but two of the very first cases at his university, and my elderly father had to go into lockdown with no visitors for an unknown period of time. My friend Lynne was also a high risk of the virus.
It was scary and it was unknown.
I knew I had a very clear choice of how I was going to emotionally approach COVID-19, I could approach it from a feeling of peacefulness and acceptance (which ultimately is love), or I could buy into the fear, listen to the media and stockpile toilet paper in an attempt to control what has been an uncontrollable outcome.
I chose peace and acceptance because, I know from my own experience of anxiety, that fear and anxiety do NOTHING to fix a situation. Absolutely nothing. In fact I know the opposite to be true. When I’m in fear and high resistance of a situation it is actually so much harder to deal with this.
As I record this I know that many people globally are still dealing with COVID-19. Here in Australia, we have managed it well so far – but I know this is not a past tense for many people. But wherever we are in the process of COVID-19 we still have a choice to choose our emotional frequency in terms of how to approach it now.
#2: The Power of Authenticity and Vulnerability
If there was a theme for 2020 for me it was authenticity and vulnerability. This year I started this podcast. While this was a long held dream it was really about going out on a limb as well.
Why?
Because in this podcast I’ve been sharing ideas about emotional frequency and vibration and that we are the creators of our own reality. Before I started I knew these would be new concepts that not everyone would agree with, or may find difficult to take on board. I’ve also shared alot of my own personal stories. It was scary but I did it anyway. I knew it was time for me to do something about this dream that I had rather than talk about.
The good news is that I’ve had incredible feedback. I’ve had some lovely reviews and many people have told me personally they are enjoying it. Last week I had some beautiful feedback from Tom, the partner of a friend of mine. Tom told me he’d listened to Episode 11 about the stories you tell yourself.
He told me he’d really taken it to heart at work. He told me he’d been working in the same place for a number of years and had a difficult relationship with his boss. After listening to Episode 11 he realized that he’d been telling himself alot of negative stories about his boss. So he decided to drop those stories and create a new one. Their relationship is now completely different – they’re much closer and work is a lot better.
Tom also realised there was a guy he’d sat next to for four years but didn’t really know. He saw he’d been running another story about this guy. So he invited the guy out for coffee and now they are starting to develop a friendship.
Hearing a story like that means this podcast is worth the time and effort it takes. So a big thank you to you my listeners – for your continued support and feedback. I really appreciate it.
I’ve certainly grown a lot through this process of sharing some of my innermost thoughts and stories and am looking forward to what 2021 will bring in this space.
Also Episode 11 on the stories you tell yourself is one of my favourites – you can listen to it here.
#3 When I Truly Trust Things Unfold Magically
Trust has been another ever present frequency for me this year. What I’ve learned this year is how when I trust that I’m supported by the higher consciousness and my inner source self things can unfold magically.
A great example of this in 2020 was the opportunity for me to do my yoga teacher training. While this has been something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time I did not think 2020 was the year for it. Seven years ago I’d paid my deposit to do my yoga teacher training with a school called Being Yoga, but for a range of reasons I wasn’t able to do it.
But this year when COVID-19 arrived and my yoga studio was shut down I hit a bit of a blank. I tried a couple of online yoga classes but was not a fan. I realised that yoga was much more for me than an online yoga class – it was a devoted practice and my yoga studio was also a big part of my community. But with COVID-19 shutting everything down the idea of practicing with a community did not look possible … until a thought “randomly” popped into my head one night while walking Lucy. The thought came really clearly … “see what Being Yoga is offering”. Bingo – of course the very next week their new online yoga teacher training was starting.
This was better than anything I could have imagined – a chance to connect regularly with a community and a chance to dive deeper into yoga by becoming a yoga teacher.
The training took me through from April to November of this year and I met an amazing new group of beautiful people. This incredible experience has also really seen me step more into my love of yoga, meditation, and how to weave these powerful philosophies into our daily lives.
This is a great case study for me into the power of trust and letting go.
#4 When We Choose to Be Love Rather Than Demand It Of Others Love Flows Back to Us
While this is a lesson I really got in 2019 I saw it in action again everywhere in my life in 2020. This is about truly understanding that because we are a part of Source we are love itself. In this space we realise we have all the love we need and we don’t need to drag it out of others. In fact the opposite is true – when we feel love for, and in ourselves, more love flows back to us.
An unexpected example of this happened when I facilitated a strategy workshop with a Board and Senior LTeam during the year. Before I arrived at the workshop I consciously set the intentions for it to be a great workshop that everyone would enjoy, and that I would show up as my best self to facilitate the workshop.
When I walked in I said hello to everyone and after a few moments of conversation went to check the room set up. I then went to check with the CEO to make sure he had everything he needed for the day. He was with some other members of his team. Straight after this a member of his team said: “Wow, I love your energy. I’d like some of that.”
This was a left field comment but it did show me that when I’m feeling good within myself and setting an intention for things to go well then others pick that up and reflect that back.
From a neuroscience perspective we know this works because of what’s called mirror neurons in our brain. In that moment she was picking up the positivity in me and taking it in what she needed for hers. If I had gone in feeling anxious, nervous or self-doubting she would have picked up on that as well.
If you’d like to hear more about this approach to love listen to Episode 27.
#5 When We Show Up As Love We Can Do, Be and Have More
The other big thing I learned again this year was that when I come from a place of love I can truly do, be and have more.
This year I’ve had more energy, slept better, had deeper connections and more success in every area of my life. And I’ve physically done a lot more.
Why? Because when you come from a place of love rather than fear there is far less resistance to things. You step into a flow state that opens a lot of doors.
I made this decision consciously a few years ago. As I’ve shared before on the podcast I’ve experienced quite a bit of anxiety in my life but in the last few years I have stepped out of that story to consciously come from a place of love, of being a loving person to myself. When I started showing up that way consistently everything changed.
Over To You
So, as ever it’s over to you. Why not take some time out to review 2020? Ask yourself: what was great for you about 2020? What did you learn? What worked well for you and what can you have gratitude for?
Then stay tuned for Part Two of this series between Christmas and New Year where we’ll talk specifically about setting intentions for 2021. My intention is for you to have the most amazing 2021 possible so I would love you to join me for that episode.
If you’re listening to this episode before Christmas I really want to wish you and your family, a very safe, a very blessed and a very restful Christmas season, wherever you are.
And may you take the best of what 2020 has given you and really soak that in and see the power of that for you. So sending you lots of love wherever you are, and looking forward to talking to you soon.
Let’s connect:
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