Resolution Redesign
The calendar-call to set goals, intentions, and New Year’s resolutions is effective for some thinkers, and for others it’s simply misaligned with their energetic timeline. Goal and resolution-setting can be helpful if someone needs an energetic jolt. For other beings who have been noticing and mindfully acting upon energetic shifts all year, setting new goals can be counterintuitive to the natural trajectory of growth… think, “intention overload”, leading to potential burnout. For myself, the outcome or result of most goals change as I actively work toward them. My non-traditional response is to reject setting any expectations, and patiently trust the unfolding as I visualize my growth. It’s like preparing a full itinerary knowing the real goal is to feel into each moment and let the experience of feeling be the guide. And no, I’m not saying skip your goal-setting… especially if you use the SMART Goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, timely) framework as a guide, you’re already digging deeper.
Personally, the “new year” is less about setting a certain goal or holding precedent for change, and the new year is more about reflecting on the growth and experiences from the previous 365 days. I ask myself, what expressions of self served my higher purpose? What experiences do I want more of in the future? and what do I want to do to make my dreams a reality in this lifetime? What experiences from this past year hindered my growth or expansion?
To initiate growth, honest reflection must come first. In stillness and meditation, I believe the call to “higher purpose”, truth, or energetic alignment becomes more clear… By observing your natural breath in stillness, the body can experience glimmers of truth about your being and what to do with your time here on earth. In the channel of clarity that you’ve created through stillness and breath, the physical form may reflect upon memories, thoughts, daydreams or transformative experiences, both from the past or from another dimension of time. Initially, there may be a conditioned response or reaction to “re-living” certain moments from the past, or a strong desire to control your future. By remaining in the present moment with clarity and ease, the physical form is able to surrender to the illusion of control, go beyond the default-mode network of thinking, and observe which experiences, emotions, or ways of being are aligned with your individual truth. In steady awareness of your own patterns and behaviors, it becomes possible to focus your attention on the now.
As you move into a fresh calendar year, perhaps presence in the current moment serves as a foundation for what’s possible. By honoring the intuitive voice and energetic guidance from meditation or mindful awareness, you can set goals, resolutions, and intentions that are true to your current being and aligned with your higher self. Reflection must be followed by actions upholding the truth that belongs to your higher self (or a divine source that you may believe in).
The first of Pantanjali’s Yoga Sutras states “ atha yoga anushasanam: Now the practice of yoga begins”… now the instruction of yoga is being made... yoga begins now. In recognition of the overwhelm of choices in a waking day, this first sutra allows you to begin again and again in light, truth, expansion, and eternal alignment with the infinite source. Every time you begin again, you have the choice to expand. You won’t get better at (insert that thing you’ve been wanting to improve at) unless you do it. The thing that scares you the most is probably a call to make peace with it. So go study yourself, study yoga, study what brings you joy as you already are. Allow yourself to begin again in this current moment, the only moment that truly exists.
The new year begins now, and it’s full of living and being in ways that have never been before.
