From the Brain of Dr. Nicki: HOPE…Our New Year’s lubricant!

Individuals, couples, houses, towns, cities – even nations – all are aglow with anticipation. It’s that time of year – that hour of reckoning. Precipice time – when we bundle desires, expectations, aims and plans to set off down the New Year’s road! Sigh. So much pressure for one little date.

Sure last year, as always we started out full of aspiration, but look what happened. 2016, most agree, was rough. Just to highlight as few moments there’s: brazen, wild-west politics; whimpering financial struggle; Zika virus; rampant heroin epidemic; brash hydrogen bomb tests; dying fighters both supreme and boxing; the ever-growing, pandemic, sure demise of true intimate communication; and finally, the Fisher/Reynolds’ deaths saying farewell to 2016 with an oh-no groan.

So hell yes - we need this neck-cranking yearning!! Need to change things up. Need to dig out from under the rubble of 2016 whatever small, remaining shards of hope we can retrieve. Need to make 2017 mean more success, more happiness and, lord knows, more personal approbation! Maybe pumping up our FB likes can get us enough dopamine jolts to do the trick.

Or is this really different than any other year? On balance there are inevitably things to appreciate, people to love, theories to get excited about, wishes coming true and outcomes more beautiful than anticipated. Life continues to surprise us with its resilience even in the face of our doubts, destructions, inactions, fears and resistances. No matter how hard we try, it appears, the human race continues to race onward. So far anyway.

But believe me when I tell you: neither hope nor Facebook are enough. You’ll need to cooperate with life. You’ll need to step up, throw your hat in the ring and stop imagining yourself as a non-participating witness. Start walking the talk. Action is key.

So put on those party clothes; make your intention lists; set your sights on a fabulous 2017. Who knows – if you actually actualize those intentions, the exciting future you’ve been dreaming about might just be right around the corner.