Happy New Year! I have a confession: I’m not a fan of new year’s resolutions. As I’ve aged, I’ve realized that most of the resolutions that are typical and that I had made were shame-based and “should”-based. Resolutions like losing weight, meditating more, exercising more and the like were always things that I felt like I “should” be resolving, and then, when the resolutions slipped by February (which they always did), I just felt bad about myself. That paradigm shifted for me about 15 years ago when someone told me that their new year’s resolution was to always have a good bottle of wine on hand. I adopted that one and forever let go of the shame or should-based resolutions.
I do appreciate the practice of picking a word for the year. Last year I wrote the word on a small piece of paper and put it on my bathroom mirror so that I wouldn’t forget it by February; it has been both a comfort and call to action for me this year.
Whether you have resolutions, positive intentions, a word for the year or some other way of marking the year (or none), I wish you peace, love and joy in this new year.
Several of you commented on the John O’Donohue poem that I read this past Sunday. It is one of my favorites. I can read it over and over again and still find something new in it. It has such delicious phrases like “seduction of safety,” “promises of sameness,” “a path of plenitude,” and “Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning.” I hope it inspires you in the new year like it does me.
For a New Beginning
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.