The first week of January—the first week of 2012—I was surprised by the amount of discussion among my clients about it being 2012, and about fears for what may occur this year. Had there not been so much upheaval in the past three years, maybe fewer fearful thoughts might be generated now. I’m not without awareness of the Mayan calendar and various prophecies. I am also aware of how fears can paralyze us, diminishing the value of our days and stealing precious “being-in-the-moment” moments.

Pema Chodron speaks often to our fears: “We are killing the moment by controlling our experience. We want to hold on to what we have. We want every experience to confirm us and congratulate us and make us feel completely together.”

Are we afraid of death—or, are we afraid of life? If we strengthen our courage, do we automatically diminish that which feeds our fears? Try as hard as we might, there is no permanence. There is no price to be paid that can safeguard our insecurities.

How then can we enter this month and year functioning from a different point of view? Taking each day separately, and beginning each day with intention and affirmation to acknowledge courage in meeting our thoughts which define our moments, yields a day culminated in heightened awareness.

It must be us which defines our experiences, and it is time to see them in a different light. It is time to take each experience, each potential experience, and lay about its pieces to bare what aspect of it engulfs the whole as fearful. It is time to take that piece which provokes that learned emotion and declare it powerless. It is time to account ourselves with the responsibility for outcomes which are fed by fearful thoughts. It is time to choose differently. It is time to be empowered by the greater awareness and starve that energy that wrongly disables us.

Instead, consciously direct heart and mind to the future of each moment –engulfed with light and the vision of positive outcome for your highest good. Question not the power you interject into the seconds of each moment of each hour of each day. Examine your every participation from the inside out and examine under new illumination lingering shadows of doubt to extinguish. Then weather any winds of change that may come. Be the observer to your emotions before you react. But, if you are succumbing to fear now—the first month of the entire year—what can you possibly gain by killing every moment in your experience?

This is a new day. This is a new year. Define your role now.