Finding New Resolve

Years ago, I used to make New Year’s Resolutions. If my memory serves me correctly, I don’t think I ever kept one. Sighting myself as a dismal failure, I then started skipping the whole tradition all together.  What I realize now, that over the past few years I have accomplished more “resolutions” than ever but it came from a different place not a “to do” list that you wake up January 1^st and make happen.

So many times we write down or mentally catalogue all the ways we wish we were better. Basically we take our “I suck” list and turn it around into our resolution list. In my mind this sets a negative energy toward these so called goals before they ever get started.

Instead of resolutions, I now set intentions. I don’t wait for a new year to do so but welcome the reminder of this tradition. I set an intention for nearly all aspects of my life. This is different from setting a goal because it doesn’t matter if I accomplish what I have set out for myself. The important thing is to set out.

True change and growth are born out of compassion. It is an evolution. It comes from choosing life at every opportunity.  Putting one foot in front of the other but allowing yourself to stop, change directions even - allowing life to happen. Yes, this takes a healthy dose of fearlessness.  We so very often get unnerved by the idea of not know where we are headed. This is why so often we resort back to our old ways of “same”.  The same that leaves that list of resolutions balled up in a corner somewhere. It’s safer.

This kind of living change takes practice. You can’t make it happen.  Willpower is a misunderstood word if you ask me.  So often I hear people tell me they have no willpower as if it is something that was handed out one day and they were absent. Willpower is a practice - a vehicle of intent.  A vehicle that is often out of its main source of fuel. I am talking again of the compassion needed for change. Compassion for self. A compassion that allows for failures, changes of mind and  plain old sucky days.

I have been very lucky that I have had some up close and personal experiences that showed me that living is a choice and that the only true legacy of how you lived is how you love. Let me tell you that these were not easy lessons or lessons that I woke up one morning and learned. It has been an integrative practice of intent.

All I can say is that, in the past few years, with new level of self compassion, I have found a new resolve. Just some of the fruits of this practice have been a new profession I am completely in love with and a now one year old business that is growing and more rewarding than I could have imagined. I am a healthier, happier me. Loving living.

So, do I hope you get up tomorrow morning and excise more, eat a whole foods diet and get to bed on time? Damn straight! If however by next Tuesday, you are coming down with a cold, have way to much work to do after your holiday, and forgot to pack your lunch….May this not be your excuse to stay as you are but allow it to be just Tuesday.  Celebrate the fact that you at least had some water during that coughing fit. There is another day lined up right after and another on after that. Just choose life, show a little compassion for you. Fuel that new resolve.

Intending the very best that 2013 has for all of you.

Happy New Year!

bella