I like to stir the pot from time to time. I could write something pithy and Polly Anna about seizing the moment to make a grandiose resolution and “have the life you’ve always dreamed of!” But instead, I invite you to seize this moment and question…look inward to the motivations beneath the process of making a resolution.
First, why? Why resolve to change at the beginning of the calendar year? My experience personally and in working with thousands of clients is that a resolution is only as effective as the AWARENESS with which you make it. Let’s use the examples of weight loss, smoking, or other addictions. It is important to ask, “Why now?” What makes your chance of long term success any greater by choosing January 1st to start?
Another question to ask: “Why THIS particular resolution?” It is one thing to know intellectually that you need lose 10 lbs or quit smoking, or to respond to the pleas of your family or partner to take action. However, it is infinitely more powerful to make a commitment from a place of self-awareness and a felt experience of the consequences of your current actions. From this presence comes the possibility of lasting change. True transformation comes from an internal reference point of self love, self awareness, and ideally, compassion for the self, rather than from a place of beating yourself into submission.
The reason our resolutions lose steam after a month or even a week is that they are lacking the fuel of compassion and curiosity! Commit to really looking at the suffering that your condition or actions are creating in your life. Then feel the suffering fully. How does it feel to inhale smoke all day long? Notice all the pieces of the experience, the pleasant and not so pleasant. The relief of the first puff or bite, the shame that may follow after. How does it feel to eat too much sugar? Before, during, after? How does the extra weight or smoking affect your body, your moods, your dreams and goals?
This practice is called “conscious, compassionate awareness.” When you become fully present to your life and the suffering you may be creating it becomes natural to do something about it in the present moment as well. If you are of the mindset that you will continue to abuse your body or choose suffering “until a certain date” at which time you will suddenly stop-I urge you to consider that you may not be ready to make that particular change. And you know what? That’s okay. Because when you are truly ready, the change will be for good.
Getting curious and asking deeper questions-tilling the soil of your being- can be uncomfortable and messy, downright crappy feeling. But discovering what motivates you and what calls you to action is a gift worth working towards.
And from the fertile ground of presence and compassionate awareness, you can plant seeds that grow into the life you want for yourself.
Recommended reading: There is Nothing Wrong With You, by Cheri Huber
