Photo by Jared DeSimio

I experienced a lot of change personally and professionally last year. My daughter was born last January. Being a first-time parent pretty much sums up the personal changes from the last year! Professionally, I continued my ongoing study of how people make positive, lasting changes. I fully believe everyone can make such changes.

One theme from last year is that people have tremendous power to shape their emotional lives, but most fail to realize they have this potential. I am very impacted by the work of Brene Brown. She is a researcher who has studied important topics like shame and worthiness. Brown says that one of the keys to living a connected, “wholehearted” life (her term), is to believe in your own worthiness. Much pain and disconnection from others is caused by the mistaken belief that we are not good enough. Brown has a terrific blog and an inspiring TEDx talk. Start the new year off right, and check these out.

I am currently in the process of reading Joe Dispenza’s book Evolve Your Brain. He talks about how neuroscience proves that we have the ability to change our thinking and, in turn our bodies and emotions. He asserts, with compelling science, that the very thoughts we think literally change the biochemistry in our bodies. Thoughts are incredibly powerful. What most people don’t know is that we can change our thinking. Thus, we can change ourselves. This is a fundamental underpinning of many types of psychotherapy. My goal is to use this knowledge to help inspire clients to change old thinking patterns into more helpful ones. Isn’t it amazing to think that you can simply decide to change?  

I’m taking these two big ideas into my work in 2012: We are all worthy and we are all capable of making changes. I hope more and more people will begin to understand these truths in the new year.