I heard this statistic that 45% of us make resolutions this time of year and only 17% follow through. I have a few suggestions.
I was pretty involved in the holidays this year. More so than normal in a more “un-normal” way. I didn’t put up a Christmas tree. I didn’t go home to see my family. I didn’t eat a big meal on Christmas. But, I did go to many Christmas parties. I baked – wow! I bought and wrapped gifts. I went to see a Christmas ballet. I wrote Christmas cards and of course, I taught class on Christmas. I even went out on New Year’s Eve (which I don’t usually do) and of course, taught at that time too. Teaching on the holidays is tradition. The season had energy of gratitude because of the energy that I chose to put in it. And it was carried out with some planning, some spontaneity and a whole lot of whirlwind. Between the regular routines we engage in, the work we have to do and now the tasks of holiday commitments, there is no time wasted and focus is needed. I explained to class on Christmas day that this was now the day to stop. As a society now, all days are pitted towards Christmas Day. But when that day comes, all activities come to a screeching halt. We go from 60 miles an hour to 10 in less than a day. If we are conscious about it, we can look forward to that day and know that it is simply a time to be present in whatever presence is created by the preparation you did throughout the season. What a rush!
But wait a minute…what if we took away the content in this intense context. Let’s see: take out the skeleton and leave only the vibe. Or another way to look at it, drop the hardware and concentrate on just the software and you start to “feel” the energy and the ebb and flow of the season. You might “feel” the presence of a task at hand, you might “feel” the emotions of a heart full of giving and appreciation, you might “feel” the pressure to get where you need to go, you might “feel” the endorphins from the rush to accomplish a goal set, and you might “feel” the relief to finally be where you want to be in the place that feels most comfortable to you.
All rolling towards a day that has you out late the night before, drinking and eating more than usual, most likely in a place that you don’t want to be – New Year’s Eve. But take the content away and in the context somewhere in that “celebration” of whatever you did or did not do, there exists the vibe of hope. It’s a new year that comes along right when the wind is strong and the vibrations are dialed to a high tide. The season’s hustle excavated a new landscape, enabling you to scrap last year’s drama while fueling you up with post-holiday energy, delivering you to new, fertile soil and inspiring you to grow in the direction of what and where you want to now be – AWESOME!
I caught the fever too. I picked my angel card; I am doing the 60 Day Challenge; I started a new routine in the morning of meditating but like many that don’t follow through on resolution goals, I’ll go right back to old patterns if I don’t do something more in an area that opposes my natural way of being. For instance, it’s easy for me to do class every day. In fact, I enjoy practicing twice a day. I will gladly do the challenge with the energy of our community but what is hard for me is to put my hair up before class and to be on time! Seems silly, but for me – that’s hard. In addition, I like to look at my phone in the morning. Pending what’s going on and the interaction I take on my phone, I may have enough time to meditate or read something inspiring for 5-10 minutes. What’s hard is to leave the phone alone and sit on the couch and meditate for 20 minutes, then check my phone. A good friend of mine stated it this way, “it’s like you’ve been sitting in the room one way for so long and now you want to turn the chair around and see things from a different perspective.” Yes. Exactly.
But why? Because a top notch individual or being your best SELF comes from the polarities we create. How do I know what I don’t know? Is there something I’m not seeing that is important for me to see? Resolutions are not insanity, “playing the same tune over and over again expecting a different result.” Instead, resolutions are the acts that hope creates, showing us the blind spots in areas of our lives we looked over for whatever reason. And the energy of HOPE is as powerful as it is going to get right now! Tis the season to Resolve!
I heard these words recently, “to not accept things as they are but insist on how they ought to be.” So play out your resolution in a way that makes you “turn your chair around”, as that way you’ll have a better chance of sticking to it! And if that view holds something of value for you, insist don’t accept! It may take time, but like our yoga practice, be realistic in what you can do now knowing you’ll progress with insistence and not acceptance. By the end of the year when all of this starts up again, whether you stuck to the plan or not, you will notice that you are not on that same gerbil wheel but off track just enough, ready to resolve yet again to evolve into something more once again!