I am not sure how 2024 has come and gone with only a few days left. It has been a year filled with a gamut of emotions for myself and for many in our country as we transition into uncertain times. OMA itself has been in transition as several Board members are gone, as well as our youth program that has always been a special part of my heart, Art in the Garden, which moved to a different parent 501(c)(3).
Life is always changing, and as much as I have known and embraced change, I still feel sad with an empty place in my heart for the loss of our youth program, as well as the amazing Board members who are no longer with us. I know they still support OMA in ways that honor them, and I am grateful to all for the dedication and hard work they brought during their times with us.
For me, it is an opportunity to look within, to see if I could have made other choices that would have brought a different outcome. I have learned to always try to look within before I look outside of myself. It is so easy to blame external factors or weave a tale of faults by others, instead of exploring my part and the source of my beliefs, emotions and choices.
All I can change is myself and I will work on myself until I no longer occupy space in this physical form…hopefully a few decades from now at least. A wise and beautiful soul once told me I would be 93 years old when I step down from OMA, which gives me 20 more years to continue to make a difference in healing programs that teach, support, and encourage a mindset of growth and healing for all who are seeking it. The Board members who remain are an incredibly brilliant and dedicated group and as we recruit new members and someone who would love to lead a new Youth Program, we will have even more support and alignment in our community to create that which will help us all heal and learn.
Loss is always an opportunity to look within ourselves to explore what dreams and wishes are waiting to be embraced by the heart, mind and spirit. That is what resilience can look like when we can see a light within that is always there, and the possibility of what we could choose to create in reconnecting with ourselves and others. Even when we aren’t able to see the light and our brilliance within us, that light and brilliance never goes away…it remains there just waiting for us to look again until we do see it and remember it as ours. This is where truth always lives and where possibilities are given root and nourished, loved and encouraged…for us to be brave enough to take one small step into the potential wealth of possibilities we all came here with…awaiting to emerge by our own invitation of remembering…This is who I am and always have been. We can then begin to experience love, empathy, compassion, forgiveness and gratitude that always begins with ourselves.
Trauma of all types can block our own ability to ‘hear’ the voice of truth within us and the conscious awareness of our full potential. Our work is to step into healing the traumas of our lives and rediscover that very small voice within us that is saying…I am here waiting for you to remember me and live each moment, each thought, each choice from this deep place of truth and knowing. I believe this is the God, the Divine, the Creator or by whatever name you reference, the part of us that is always connected to spirit, to our soul and to each other in the knowing of the collective of all Humanity through the Divine within.
In discerning what is the Truth that I can hear from within myself, when I hear and embrace and embody it, I can make for myself those choices revealed from remembering this authentic belief about self and the collective humanity that we all exist within. I don’t have the ability or power to bring Peace to the Middle East or Russia/Ukraine; or to help all awaken to know and ‘see’ the Racism and White Male Supremacy and all the ‘isms’ that still exist; or to the thousands of families that are not being helped to become part of our United States legally, just as everyone of our past generations had been helped, instead of being hunted and treated as if they are not a part of humanity.
What I do have within me is the ability to awaken and see/hear ‘Truth’ when it is spoken and when it is not spoken from myself or another. The clearer I become with myself, the clearer I can see and hear others. If I then speak critically, negatively or even abusively to myself, in my self-awareness I can learn to choose to reframe and release the underlying fears that fuel the negativity within me and mask the ‘voice’ of Truth within myself. Only then will I begin to discern and hear clearly what originates from self and what originates from others, and I can choose what resonates as a collective Truth from within. I can then use my voice and free will to choose to align with the innate, intuitive collective belief of humanity.
One moment of kindness to ones you love and ones you don’t know, creates an energetic wave of healing energy that can multiply and extend far beyond ourselves.
Let it start with a moment of kindness to yourself, and as that is given permission to expand within yourself, you will observe it moving from you to those you ‘gift’ with an act of Kindness and bestowal of Truth. If we all choose this path, the world would feel the empowerment of each voice and the collective ‘one voice’ of Truth and compassion.
We just have to start with ourselves to begin the process of healing ourselves, and then healing will begin to extend to our relationships, our communities, our country and beyond.
I wish for you a New Year filled with laughter and joy, kindness and compassion, and most of all Love and Truth.
Gail Hunter
President of the Board,
OMA Center for Mind, Body & Spirit