Recently, Jimmy Kimmel gave parent’s a mission:  Let their kids unwrap one special present before Christmas and give them something they would not like.  He asked parents to upload a video labeled “Hey Jimmy Kimmel I gave my kids a terrible present.”  The videos were hilarious and the kids were surprised and shocked by the opening of what they perceived an exciting present from Santa.  Comments ranged from I don’t like this. . .an old banana? . . . I don’t want an onion. . .this is the worst gift ever. . . I appreciate her getting a present but I didn’t know it would be like that. . . .   Have you ever found yourself thinking these thoughts when the presents of life show up?

In our family my niece gave her daughter Madison a bottle of mustard.  Madison detests mustard.  As the family watched Madison open the gift via Skype, Madison’s dismay was clear and obvious.  She threw the gift and stormed around the room.  The adults got quite a big kick out of it.  The moment subsided and the real gift opening ensued. Madison’s gift opening style resembles law enforcement executing a search warrant.  As she riffled through the packages, throwing each gift hastily aside as she continued to open in a cavalier fashion.   I doubt she will remember anything she opened that morning, except the mustard.  Not only will she remember the mustard, our family will have a story to share for many Christmas’s to come.

It is these moments of uniqueness that we remember over and over.  They are not lost in the obligatory celebrations of drinking and ball dropping that we blindly walk through year after year.   As I wrote in my blog post yesterday a component missing from our celebrations is symbolism of the newness the turning of the clock represents.  It is when you find yourself in a moment which is not planned and seemingly unceremonious that magic happens.

The turning of the clock last night presented one of those magic moments last night.  After several hours at a local street celebration, my friend Carole and I found ourselves at an Arco gas station at two minutes till midnight.  As we hastily punched the radio buttons to find a countdown to 2012, the only station broadcasting the momentous moment was in Spanish.  As the countdown continued,  cinco, cuatro, tres, dos, uno “¡Feliz año nuevo!”, the incongruity of the moment was both comical and perfect.  Since my new home is in Mexico it seemed fitting my New Year albeit in the states should be rung in this way.  It seemed like a gift from the universe.  This night it was my “mustard”.

We hugged and danced in the gas station for the obligatory moment and then were off to a memorable 2012.  It is when life hands us these seemingly mundane moments that we may choose to turn them into our own celebration.

Simple life moments, just as mustard, can be boring.  Or you can see the possibilities.  Mustard can be a cure for a hangover, leave a fingerprint on life, spice to a simple dish or anything you dream.  So too are your life moments.

It is in the memories that we create and hold firm to that change and mold us.  I brought in the New Year with a dear friend, had Buzz Lightyear moment and am grateful for all the gifts to come in 2012 in my new home Playa. 

Here’s the challenge for you today and the coming week.   “What is your mustard”.  Find a moment today or this week that appears to be out of place, unceremonious or just plain boring.  How can you shift your perception and create a new possibility.  How can this moment of “mustard” become a memorable and poignant gift?

New Year’s Eve.  Fireworks will light up the skies across the world tonight.  Exuberant celebration will abound. 

As a “Playa Girl”, I am struck by the Mexican tradition of Año Nuevo.  At the stroke of midnight 12 grapes are eaten, each representing a wish for the New Year.  Symbolically grapes have an incredible history.  Some traditions believe it is evidence of God’s kindness and a symbol of goodness of providence.  In Feng Shui, grapes symbolize abundance of material wealth, success and good luck and still others hold them as a promise of new life.

Another Mexican tradition involves decorating your home or wearing a garment of a certain color.  If you wear red underwear you will have good luck in love.  Something yellow, say a great pair of pants, for improved employment.  If you decorate or wear something white you will garner improved health, while the color green improves a financial condition.

The one symbol I like the best is if you hope for travel in the New Year, get out your luggage and take it for a walk around the block.

All of these customs serve as a reminder that hope is alive and well in each new year.  Growing up in America, our traditions mostly include New Year’s celebrations peppered with fireworks, parties, dancing, eating and drinking.  Although I have nothing against any of those things, a component which seems to be missing is that of family, respect, rejoicing and symbolism of the newness the turning of the clock represents.

One of the most poignant traditions in Mexico is, before midnight; make a list of all the bad or unhappy events from the current year.  At midnight this list is thrown into a fire, symbolizing the removal of negative energy from the new year.   At the same time give thanks for all the good things which occurred during the past year so they will continue in the New Year.

In preparation for this New Year’s Eve, I invite you to go buy a bunch of grapes (share with your friends), find something red, yellow, green or white to wear and write your list before your first drink.

Make a decision that 2012 is YOUR year.  That nothing, absolutely nothing will stop you from being all you can be.  As mentioned in a previous blog, don’t choose to do something different; choose to “be” the person you have always meant to be!

In the words of Madonna “Let me whisper in your ear an invitation to the dance of life.”

Celebrate everything about YOU!

What do you see in this picture?  A face or a vase?

Such a simple exercise yet so profound in the insight it provides.  Danish Psychologist, Edgar Rubin conducted extensive scientific study on this phenomenon.  You see what your “perceptual experience” feeds back to you.

Most of what you see is “in your head”.  Your visions do not stay in your physical body.  Your brain takes over and tells you what you see “out there”.  Your experiences will see either a vase or a face at first.  You can shift your perception and see something else.  Your eye sight is simply the back of your eyes reflecting an image to this arbitrary place in your mind.  In fact your eyes are simply screens where light patterns form upside down, full of holes and splotches badly bent out of shape.

You “believe” something is existing outside of you.  You say chocolate is sweet or the patio is hard, when in fact it is you who tastes the chocolate and feels the patio on your bare feet.

Simply put:

“The worst disease afflicting humankind is hardening of the categories.”
      Artist, Bob Miller

Categories being your perception of life.  Perceptions take on truthful meaning such as “Mexico is dangerous”, “I don’t have enough time”, “I don’t have enough money”.  Maybe your perception is “Life is hard”.   Regardless of what your “perception” is, it involves the “interpretation” of secondary bits of information you have gathered through a lifetime.  It does not make it truth.  Just a perception or belief.  You are seeing life with much more than your eyes.

New Years is always a perfect opportunity to change your perception.  A review of early descriptions of the universe led scientists to conclude that the world was flat.  Although that seems silly now, at the time it was agreed upon by many.  Concurrence by many is sometimes a dangerous thing for change.

As our world transforms rapidly today with technology and our ability to see more, we correct our vision.  Ideas that seem right today may be overturned tomorrow.  What is your “the world is flat” perception?  Is it “money does not grow on trees”; “You cannot get ahead unless you attend college”;  “You cannot make money doing what you love”.  Your list is most likely long and limiting.  I’ll bet you have even proven it time and time again.  You may even get others to agree with you, thus entrenching it in your mind’s “perception” .

The greatest gifts in the Caribbean waters of Playa are the infinite possibilities that exist as it extends to lands unseen.  For most people seeing the unfamiliar is extremely difficult.  The truth is this is where change occurs.  Finding your true self in Playa is a mystical and magical experience.  Potential is there.  Life affirmation is there.  Love is there.

 Shift Your Point of View

If you walk down the beach in Playa del Carmen you will see many things that are unexpected and unaccountable.   Shells are always in abundance.  After a storm you might find a huge piece of driftwood large enough to build a lovely table.  Other days you might find a diamond ring, lost perhaps from a newlywed on a cruise ship.  It would not be unusual to stumble on a kilo of cocaine or a bottle from a pirate ship.  There is absolutely no end to what gift the sea will present as an obedient puppy to its master.  It reminds me of a quote by Joseph Campbell:

 “All the time.  It is miraculous.  I even have a superstition that has grown on me as a result of invisible hands coming all the time – namely, that if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living.  When you see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you.  I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”

 The sea is simply a metaphor for how your life turns deliciously quirky when you stop resisting its abundant flow.  

 Just as the ocean can swallow you up in a hurricane or unsettling weather, so too can your fears swallow your dreams.  I prefer the exotic experience of the gifts left on the sand after the hurricane and allowing my “dreams’ to swallow me.  Goethe says it this way:

 “The moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.  All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred . . . unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man (or woman) could have dreamed would have come his (her) way.”

 When you make the choice to follow your bliss, you will see those gifts you cannot account for.  Don’t be surprised, Expect the Miracles!

In the Caribbean there are currents that flow beneath the surface of the water.  You can start out in one spot and in a matter of minutes you are half way down the beach from where you started.   If you allow the current to carry you the view can change in a magical, mystical way.  If you struggle to stay in the same spot, you will miss the organic gifts that lie down the beach, a whale shark, a perfectly formed shell, a star fish, a sea turtle, a wave which carries you to bliss or the sun hitting the ocean in a way that takes your breath away.

So is your life current nestled beneath your learned life.  You learn skills as you grow.  Some of these skills make a great deal of money yet leave your soul longing for that natural talent to carry you along on the flow of success and happiness.  Your current of natural talent is the world’s gift to you and using them is your gift back to the world.

An overused phrase is “you must work hard to get ahead”.   The truth is you must “play hard to get ahead”.  Surfing your current allows life to support you down the beach to surprises beyond imagination.  You will never experience the surprises as long as you are treading water.

Discovering your Playa Purpose is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself.  Everyone has a playa purpose in life . . .  a unique gift or special talent to give to others.  A Playa Purpose is a being talent, not a doing “thang”.   When you blend your unique talent with service to others, you experience the ecstasy and exultation of your own spirit.  This is the ultimate goal of all goals.

Instead of setting “To Do” goals this year, decide to set “To Be” goals.  This is easy in Playa.  Learning from watching the birds, the jungle life and the ocean.   Each is “being” its true nature.

Today make a list of your true nature.  What is the unique gift or talent you “present’ to this world?  Are you uniquely kind, generous, fun, adventurous, mysterious, spontaneous, free?  These are all qualities that shine in the Mayan mystery. 

Step into the field of possibilities and today recognize and praise those qualities in yourself.  Be a good “finder” and catch yourself doing those things that exhibit your unique talent or gift.  Praise yourself and tell someone.

Take Time for Yourself Today

Phew!  You made it through Christmas.  Now it’s time to face down the week before New Years.   Historically for many this is a week where New Year’s Resolutions are decided upon, party planning begins for that elusive midnight celebration and review of the previous year is the staple for new programs.

What if you were to begin the New Year with a different perspective beginning today?

“Are you in earnest?  Seize this very minute.  What you can do or dream, you can begin it.  Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.  Only engage, and then the mind grows heated.  Begin it, and the work will be completed.”  Goethe “Faust, Part I”

Instead of reviewing what the rest of the world has been doing this year, review your own life.   As I have walked the beaches of Playa del Carmen, I am always struck by my own footprints as well as those who walk ahead of me or behind me.  There is something about a foot print that is a trace suggesting that something was once present or felt otherwise important.

If you are not in Playa today, you can do this:  On a piece paper or anything you find fun, draw around your foot, yes draw around your own foot.  Then write inside the outline where your feet have taken you.

If you want to do more than one, don’t hold back.  What paths have you been down?  Have you always chosen the path you wanted?  Is it a path of wellness for you and your family, success, skill building, energy, responsibility, pampering?

Now draw another outline of your foot and decide what path you wish to take in 2012.  Rather than set a resolution that you won’t keep, make a plan for your path.  What goals would you need to accomplish to stay on this path?  Ask yourself what choices do you make differently?

If your path going to be to:

. . . lead a healthier life?

. . . lead a happier life?

. . . understand more about stress?

. . . exercise more?

. . . understand more about nutrition?

. . . play and laugh more?

. . .dive into your spirituality?

Whatever path you choose, allow your feet to deliver you there.

So take time today for yourself to play, laugh, spend time with your kids, friends, and family because you want to.

Also begin today to write about yourself as you are now and as you see yourself to be. Really decide what your dreams and aspirations and plans for the future are.  Start the journal today and add to it daily.  By the end of 2012 you will have your own Playa footprint to add to Paradise.

Christmas is an inside Job

On this holiest of holidays I reflect on what we are celebrating this day.  Although there is an array of celebrations this month, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Christmas and more, our modern-day Christmas celebration in the West can be traced back to St. Nicholas the patron saint of school children.

In all our adult hustle and bustle it feels as though the Spirit of this holiday is lost by the “grown up”.

I have gorged on my share of sugary Lifetime/Hallmark movies, steeled ravenous mall crowds and cursed as I untangled a string of lights or two.

Whether you celebrate these December holidays as religious, spiritual or Christmas, it is the child like Joy that comes from within that is the true Spirit of all the festivities.

Many people begrudgingly attend family gatherings, reluctantly spend too much money on gifts for people they don’t like or don’t know and through it all, and have lost that Joy.

I am reminded of a quote by Henry David Thoreau:

“It is easier to sail many thousands of miles through cold and storm and cannibals, in a government ship, with five hundred men and boys to assist one, than it is to explore the private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one’s being alone.”

Spend a moment today “alone” with your thoughts to reflect on those things you have to be grateful for.  Be thee like a child and truly sense the Joy that emanates from within.  Imagine you are sitting on the white sandy beaches of Playa.  Let the waves sing a lullaby to your heart. Jump up and down in the beautiful blue ocean.  Embrace peacefully good will toward men (and women).  The Miracle of Christmas will descend upon you and those you share this day with.

Feliz Navidad

Holidays are the highest season in the Mayan Rivera.  Throngs of vacationers are hitting the beaches this week along the outlying arm of the Caribbean.  They come from all over the world.  Americans especially flock here to take the chill off of the eastern seaboard, the mid west and the chilly South.

These vacationers will begin their day with the early morning sun beating down on a strip of freshly cleaned beach (yes they actually clean the beaches in Playa).

During the afternoon in Playa del Carmen (while it used to be a sleepy beach town) they will shop in this bustling community which is now bursting at the seams.  As they navigate their way through the famous Fifth Avenue with the craft-cigar makers, hammock vendors, shops of every conceivable souvenir, a siesta will soon be in order.

After a long day in the hot sun and shopping, there’s nothing more welcoming than a margarita on the rocks as the ocean winds embrace you like that warm winter blanket.

As the afternoon light cascades through the palm trees sipping their troubles away in their lounge chair at Fusion.

The sun is about to go down, you can feel the sand in your toes.  Tranquility can come at the most unexpected moment.

 Mexico is well-known as a Catholic country and they hold Christmas sacred.  Imagine yourself now at midnight Christmas Eve mass under a sprawling stained glass dome.  One of the many holiday gifts you might give yourself in this magical location.

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

On my first trip to Playa del Carmen in 2002, walking the then unpaved streets and marveling at this Paradise I now call home, I knew then I wanted to live here.

After spending every conceivable holiday, including Christmas, 4^th of July, Thanksgiving, the Super Bowl and numerous weekends, I moved to Playa for 8 months.  After being back in theU.S. for a few weeks I marvel at the simplicity of life in Playa especially during this holiday season.

Bombarded in theU.S.by ugly news, staggering holiday crowds and lots of “scrooge” like attitudes, I choose to remember the idea of Christmas:  Family, good will toward men (and women), children’s smiling faces, gratitude, love, blessings and most of all that you can create paradise where ever you are.

When you find yourself being stressed out over your core family dynamics, too much shopping or too little love, just remember, you are the Christmas Spirit, shine baby shine.