Looking back at 2017
Jennifer Schmid
I hope that you have been enjoying the holiday season. Despite the darkness of the winter solstice, this is one of my favorite times of year, not only because I get to spend extra time with friends and family, but also because I gift myself several hours of solo meditation and writing time to let go of the year’s pains and challenges while creating my goals for the next year. Carving out this time for releasing and dreaming allows me to appreciate everything I have accomplished as well as come up with the baby steps — those daily little actions I need to take — to make my next year’s big goals come to fruition. It's a healing ritual to see what's working, what’s not working, and how to move forward from a place of love, joy, and abundance.
2017 proved to be an exceptionally challenging year, not just for me, but for our nation and our world. I won’t get into the politics of it all here, but I will say that I am extremely concerned with the direction of where our government is heading, especially with regards to protecting and caring for our beautiful, life-giving planet and all of its people.
Luckily it wasn’t all tweets and geo-storms, however. Some of my highlights included:
- Speaking at the Palo Alto VA for a group of patients and providers about incorporating wellness strategies into Veterans’ health;
- Collaborating with like-minded practitioners to create a new Whole Health Partnership Program for our Veterans which will launch in 2018;
- Helping a physician start an acupuncture clinic for Veterans with spinal cord injury;
- Teaching a class on healthy, holistic snacking as part of Udemy’s Employee Wellness day in San Francisco;
- Uncovering the root cause of a client’s thyroid disease so that she could start to heal for good;
- Exploring northern California’s natural hot springs;
- Hiking part of the Kalalau trail in Kauai;
- Taking the kids to Mexico for some much-needed family R&R; and
- Gaining a better understanding of the challenges faced by health care providers who want to incorporate earth-based medicine into their practice but don’t know where to start.
Looking back, it was actually a really good year for me, and I have much to be grateful for. I also have much to look forward to!
In my next blog, I’ll be sharing with you some of my 2018 goals for Oasis Wellness. Together we can continue to make progress changing our health care paradigm to one of natural wellness, moving us away from the current disease-based, pharmaceutical model that is draining our health and financial resources. At this point it’s not a matter of if, it’s when.
In the meantime, what are your goals and dreams this year? How do you want to improve your health and your life? How do you want to help make this world a better place? Take some time to write down your goals if you haven’t done so already and then comment below. Better yet, head on over to the Facebook group and share some of your goals with us. Having a group of cheerleaders and friends to support you can make all the difference on your journey.