Yesterday I had the wonderful opportunity to listen to the story of one man's journey from trauma as a child and adolescent days and his healing process and journey to where he was in life.  Words of wisdom flew through him and it was a positive way to start the new year.   The first being - never underestimate the impact you have on others - and you can take that on many levels - for him he was speaking about his specific life expereince and the people in his life that made a difference.  
But as I listened to him, i began looking at it on many layers - whomever we come in contact with - we may not be conscious of how we indirectly or directly impacted that person....think of examples in your lives where you or others have got in contact with you and either mentioned how "they thought of you" or "they thanked you" because of that one incident or that one word you may have said - and you probably thought nothing of it....but to THAT ONE person you did make a difference....  It was food for thought and on many levels made me revaluate as a person our connection to society as a whole and being more in tuned with our thoughts/actions/words.  We can be so oblivious to our nonverbal cues, we can be so out of tune with our energy that we may give off - both negative or positive - and being in tune with that or being more conscious of it was a reminder.  For those of us that are parents, it was a reminder for us to be aware of our behaviors because children will mimic us whether we realize it or not and be impacted by the words we say to them - positive and negative.  How many of you changed your life around because of that ONE person who encouraged you to keep going? How many of you are still stuck in your ways because everytime you want to take one step forward -the voice of THAT PERSON OR THAT EXPERIENCE will say STOP?   We may not be aware of it until each of us begins our own healing process - whatever that may be.   And we all have healing to do....we all need to return to our whole selves again.   Which brings me to his second word of wisdom....
Our health - and the need to take the time for us to take care of ourselves -that if we can't devote time to ourselves - on all levels - spiritually, physically, emotionally, etc then we can't perform our tasks appropriately - our jobs appropriately ---For those of you who are in the caring profession or for those of you who are caregivers - how important is that - all else is secondary if you can't be ur full self - and no matter how much you push yourself to do all that you want to, because of the health gap - or the spiritual gap - it prevents us from fully being effective in our work and relationships.   
What does that mean for so many of us - it starts with learning to say no - and set boundaries to things that we know may be impeding us from being full and whole.   Identifying what those things are is key and to the outside world you  may seem aloof or you may seem crazy, but trusting your heart, trusting your instinct and going with that so that you can return to the state of balance is key.  It takes courage and it takes repetition because habits are dfficult to break, patterns are difficult to break. 
There was an exercise I once did where you make a wheel and list the five most important things in your life and examine in each category where you are fulfilled and wehre you are lacking ---the goal of this exercise was really to see how each one complements the other - and one can't truly stand on its own - so if one feels financially deplete - how much of it is linked to beliefs, what could one be doing more of to fill that gap.  it was a very interesting exercise- and i would encourage you to look into that.  see link attached - http://hhd.fullerton.edu/csa/wholeperson/about.htm
Taking stock of what is deplete and complete in us helps us make the wheel fuller and makes us as human beings more conscious beings. If the theory of six degrees of separation is true, then think about each of those people in their own way made some form of impact on the other person and the ripple effect that can have - in a positive or negative way.   Or think about if we work on our wellness charts by beginning to take care of ourselves how much more of a positive difference we would have on those are close to us and those that surround us.    Imagine that....

An exercise - think about someone who made a positive difference in your life and tell them about it either writing or verbally -