December 31 is one of the major times of the year most of us have a ritual of counting down. Counting down to a new year filled with new possibilities. New goals. New dreams. It is happy thoughts, song, fireworks, champagne and kisses! The phrase, counting down, in my humble opinion though, conjures up lying on my back with a stranger looking upside down at me and telling me to count down from 100 as drugs sends me into oblivion. But there is definitely no singing or fireworks involved for me. Maybe for the medical professionals as this is the only time where I am quiet. My mouth is not moving. There is no chatter. There is no whining. No complaints and no what ifs from me.
Counting down, when I was a teacher, was what I focused on as I taught Algebra to a group of high school students with special needs. They hated Math, but fortunately loved me most days. We worked on integers every day (negative and positive). I would draw a number line on the sidewalk. As they counted down and stepped to the left, they realized that they got closer to zero and, sometimes, less than zero. It was those negative numbers that tripped them up a lot. Who wants to get closer to zero? I certainly don’t!
Most of us hippies have a long and checkered past with our hips where we may count the negative days as far outweighing the positive days on a tally sheet. As a teenager, I critiqued the shape of my hips as most girls do. As a new mom, I saw them as life giving and an instrument to carry my baby close to me. I have also seen them as pain, defeat, fear and worry. Sometimes, even in the same breath and thought, those feelings vacillate to hope. Counting down to me conjures up negative integers and negatives vibes.
My goal for you (and for me) is to count on to health, hope, strength, mobility and confidence. Counting on is a whole other way to look at your journey. The instructions are to move those defeats and negative integers of your hips to the positive side of the column. Erase the memories of your past hip journey and move on. Count on! Count on to those moments of healing pain – the kind of pain that has a purpose. Count on towards your mobility. Count on towards confidence. Count on towards life. Throw your negative journey and negative vibes into the garbage heap of the past. You are now counting on!
When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.