A New Year’s Ritual

A New Year’s Ritual

by | Jan 1, 2019 | Ask A Coach |

Happy New Year!

This is a tremendously powerful time of year — a time when the universe is moving all of us in an exciting and positive direction, a time when everyone, whether they know it or not, is looking to complete the past and move into a new future. 2019 offers all of us a new beginning!

In the spirit of Debbie Ford’s book Your Holiness which was discovered after her death and published in 2018, we’re excited to share with you Debbie’s 2007 New Year’s Ritual to support you in opening up to a new future. This ritual is a great opportunity to powerfully end this year, igniting new possibilities in your inner and outer worlds, so we invite you to set aside some time to read her message and do the exercise she outlines.

We at The Ford Institute are wishing you a healthy, happy, inspired new year.

A New Year’s Ritual
by Debbie Ford

Welcome to the holy place that lives inside of you. Actually it does not just live inside of you but it is you. You exist in every living thing. You exist in the beauty of a cloudless blue sky and in the chill storm of a cold winter night. You exist in the beginning and in the end, in the openness of a warm hug and in the frozen cold stare of a wounded hateful heart. You are all that is and all that was. You are the brightest star on this planet and the hidden sun on a cloudy day.

So now imagine this is the only real truth that will ever bring you the peace, joy and abundance you so desire. But in order to experience this truth you must be willing to make peace with all that you are at war with. You must make peace with all the thoughts, beliefs and righteous judgments that you have rejected out of shame, fear or ignorance.

What can you do to love all that you are? What can you do to forgive your broken heart and to accept your beauty and grace? If this is all that is needed to live a fulfilled and impassioned life, how can you be present this year to the totality of both your humanity and your divinity, your illusionary self and your eternal essence? When we step away from trying to be something or someone in particular in an attempt to make ourselves feel better about the self that we have identified with, we can see the vastness of our magnificent makeup.

You were birthed as the greatest expression of G_d that there is. Have you hidden that expression? Have you covered it with lipstick, pain or false bravado? Are you living as the giant that you are or a small speck of your fabricated self?

The Ritual

Part One: Your False Self

Write out the story of your false self, your small self, your persona, whether you love it or disapprove of it.

Write out all the ways that you have kept that false self in place:

  • the stories you tell yourself inside of your mind
  • the people you cling to that remind you of your smallness
  • your ego’s grudges and resentments
  • your regrets
  • everything else you want to let go of for the year ahead

Then, fold it up with the love and care you would give to a love note and pray with it next to your heart for 5 to 10 minutes. Chant the words, “I love, to love, thy love” over and over again and until your story and all that is in it is filled with the love that you are.

Next, take out your journal and write out the life lesson that you have needed to learn from your human story and your false persona. Write out, from the divine perspective, why you needed to create this false self, this small version of yourself, and why it is fruitless. Write out 10 reasons why this version of yourself must be sacrificed in order for your holy existence to emerge.

After you have done this, again return to the quiet, peaceful place inside where you are the grandest, greatest version of yourself and spend 5 minutes chanting the words, “I will, to will, thy will” over and over again.

When you are done, tear up, or safely burn your story of the self that you’ve been so that you may be rebirthed as the you that exists inside of the greatest heart there is…the collective, global heart.

Part Two: Your Holy Self

Now, write out the story of your holy self. Write each word like you are writing one of the most important documents in the world.

  • Write out the two feelings that you will leave everyone you interact with this year. Will you leave them feeling admired, respected, loved, complete or holy?
  • Write out the values of the person who would leave everyone they meet with the feelings that you have chosen. What two values are fundamental to this person?
  • Write out the behaviors of this person, the way they look, they way they walk, their level of honesty, their truth, their mannerisms.

Now take the story of your Holy Self and place it near your heart. Close your eyes and ask that all the powers that guide you to come to you, to support you in opening up to your greater self, your Holy Self, and then chant these holy words from the Moses Code. “I am that I am. I am all there is.”

Chant “I am that I am. I am all there is.” into the night until it is encoded in every cell of your being.

Then allow yourself to find a sacred place for the story of your holy self, your new holy scripture.

Part Three: How Will You Live This Year?

How will you live this year? Reflect on this question — the only real question that matters at the end of the day. It won’t matter to your eternal heart what you have gotten, how you look or how much money you have in the bank. Here is what will matter inside the collective heart:

  • Are you healthy?
  • Are you living in accordance with the divine integrity that you are?
  • Are you present to the whole of who you are?
  • Are you beating as one or are you off beating to your own drum? If you are operating as a solo act, ask your grandest self (not your fabricated self), “Does this empower the holiest parts of me and leave me filled up? Or does beating to my own drum at the end of the day, when there is nothing to make me feel better, leave me with the emptiness of a lost soul?” What would the honest answer be?
  • If you were without your lover, your family, your job, your accomplishments or your sweets, would you love who you are?

There is only one path for the soul who longs to belong and be a part of something greater. And that path is the quest to return home to our whole and Holy Self — to love who we are, how we live, and how we serve.

Transformational Action Steps

To seal in the power of this ritual, take the following transformational action steps:

  • Spend an hour this week carefully writing a dossier on the person who has the ability to live not in the madness of the world but as a divine observer of the grander scheme of life. Who will you have to be to be part of a global solution rather than the human problem?
  • Close your eyes each night chanting “I am that I am” and wake up each morning chanting “I am, that I am.” When you are in the shower chant, “I am that I am.”
  • Make a new commitment: “I will give my gift like I am the only person left on the planet because I am that I am. I am all there is.”

I am wishing you a year filled with the knowing that you are the greatest gift there is. Yes, your piece of the puzzle, no matter how large of small, is imperative for the wellness of the greater whole. From my individual heart, the hearts of my staff, and from The Ford Institute, we love and support you in being the greatest expression of yourself this year.

May your precious soul be watched over and protected each and every day, of this new year. May you know yourself outside of yourself and may you see, even if just for an instant each day, how holy, divine and imperative you are.