Reverb10. December 11.

11 Things. What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life?(from Sam Davidson, author of 50 Things Your Life Doesn’t Need).

1. Fear. This is slightly unrealistic. There is a place for fear. It kept my ancestors from being eaten. It’s kept me out of bad situations and kept me safe in questionable places. Although I think it’s the awareness of fear that’s beneficial, more than fear itself. This fear that sneaks up on me daily is tricky. It wants to be helpful but it goes overboard and I end up shaken, my heart pounding, my brain on overload.

I struggle to let it go. I meditate. I talk to it. I resist then accept it. I ask for help. I battle it in the dark on my own. I think time,  compassion and a moment-by-moment turning toward trust, are the light I need to shine on this particular darkness. If I continue to allow grief to run its course, this fear will lessen. I wish I could snap my fingers and make it happen now.

2. Food as Comfort. In 2010 I gave up gluten. Just yesterday I was told that dairy is no longer my friend. I’m working on saying goodbye to sugar. I want to be healthy, feel healthy. I want to have boundless energy and glowing skin. I know in order to do this, the last of my bad habits has to go.

3. Exhaustion. I have not slept well in the last 5 years. Once upon a time 9 hours a night was my norm. Then life happened. Graduate school, a new baby, a teething toddler. By that time, insomnia had a firm hold. I’ve been working on this with the magician and things have improved, but I am far from the 8 hour ideal. I push myself to stay up because evenings are my time. I get to write, answer emails, tweet once or twice, meditate, maybe (gasp) have a conversation with my husband. I’m risking long term cellular damage. I eat more when it’s mid-afternoon and I’m fighting to stay awake. I’m not as patient or as fun as I’d like to be. But I don’t know how to fix it. I haven’t figured out what has to give. So I’m going to send my intention out for it to change and watch what happens.

4. Extra body weight. This is intimately connected with #2 and #3. I hold a vision of myself at my pre-mama weight, only older, wiser, and more beautiful thanks to the inner light shining through. I know I’ll get there. There are big changes happening and I trust. I trust.

5. Comparison Mind. Anyone who studies improvisational theater learns the key phrase, “yes, and…” is vital to the process. Most of us are taught, almost from birth, “no, but…” No, you can’t be you (jumping on the bed, running around naked, singing at the top of your lungs), but you can do what I want (be a good boy, dress so I’ll be admired, sit down and shut up). If I win, you lose. If you get what you want, I don’t. There’s not enough to go around. We judge and are judged on the size and price of our bodies, houses, cars, partners, the behaviors of our children. I have worked in the last years to recognize when this comes up in me and I am beginning – beginning – to be able to let it go. This kind of acceptance is another car on the Love ‘n’ Compassion train. I don’t live there, but more and more, I am enjoying the ride.

6. Unloved, Unnecessary Stuff. Enough said. Letting go…letting go…letting go…

7. Resistance. In 2011, my year of ease, I hope to recognize more quickly when I am paddling upstream, when I am fighting what is, when I am absent from the moment. Once recognized, I’m gonna turn that boat around and float. Like my canoe on the Yukon River in the summers of my early twenties, I’m going to enjoy the sunshine, make sure I’m pointed in the right direction, and float.

8. Excessive pet hair. Love my pets. Hate their hair. Sigh. Maybe it’s time for a new vacuum.

9. Incompletes. Hanging over my head are emails and phone calls that haven’t been returned, truths that haven’t been told, love that hasn’t been given. 2011 will be the year when I purposefully close doors that have been left open just enough to suck energy and return stale air. It’s time.

10. The sense that I’m constantly behind. I might be, I might not be. I’m not sure it matters. I want to step into acceptance, into trust, into doing what feels joyful. Whether it’s cleaning toilets, playing with my daughter, wishing on a star or sitting to write, I want to live with the deep knowing that I am in the right place, at the right time.

11. Scarcity mentality. Abundance is where it’s at. I don’t mean money necessarily. I mean everything. Where my glass used to be half empty, it’s now three-quarters full. That’s been a massive internal shift. But I’m ready to take it further. I’m ready to live from the overflow.