I’m not a big fan of ‘resolutions’.
They’re flawed for so many reasons, perhaps primarily because they’re the result of tremendous self-judgement. Every gym and diet center in the world is counting on your resolutions and your end-of-the-holiday insecurities about the weight you gained since they began. They’re hopeful that you feel so terrible about yourself, you’ll buy their promises for an instant new you. Their 2016 budgets are counting on it.
I’m not a big fan of anyone beating themselves up. The word ‘resolution’ has such a negative connotation for most of us. We dwell on our failures, glaring at the three things we completed on the two-page list of ‘resolutions’ we wrote at the beginning of last year. The list that didn’t get looked at again until a week ago. You felt like crap when you saw it, didn’t you…
Self-shaming and awareness are two very different approaches to how you choose to feel about yourself.
Enough with the negative talk!
You did three things on that list. And then you did another 400 that weren’t on it that you had no idea would need to be done at the beginning of 2015. Good for you for riding the roller coaster and making it to the end of another year!! Good for you for all the beauty and grace and growth and even heartache that you experienced.
So if you’re not making resolutions, how are you going to prepare for the year ahead?
How will you set your goals, if not with another list that you won’t look at until the end of the year with shame?
First — and I may say this in every single blog from now on, because you, my friend, NEED TO HEAR IT — PLEASE be kinder to yourself. Drop the negative words and unkind thoughts, the feelings of incompetence. Even better, don’t just drop the negativity. What would it take for you to actually speak to yourself with the same loving kindness that you show your closest friends? Whoever you are, I promise you that you are a beautiful, radiant human being, filled with endless possibilities.
Second, find a few words that resonate with you, words that express how you’re feeling right now. Find the words that really light you up. Pick one of your words, find an online thesaurus and look up other words around it. Look up their definition so that you get a true understanding of what they mean – I’m finding words that we misuse regularly in our common language these days, so it’s worth really investigating a word’s origin and meaning.
For example, ‘deserving’ was a word that I was struggling with. At first glance, it has definite potential for negative connotation. We often associate it with ‘entitlement’, but that’s not what it means at all! Its origin is from ‘de servire’, devotion to being in service. I now love it so much that I want it as a tattoo!
Other words that resonate for me for 2016 are:
Certainty | Joy | Family | Radiance | Devotion | Receptive
Find YOUR words, YOUR voice.
Write them down and stick them on a wall somewhere that you look at every day – on the bathroom mirror or on the wall behind your computer screen. Let them infuse you and remind you of the hope that you begin this new year with, especially on those days when it feels like you’re just spinning on the hamster wheel again. I’ll check back with you at the end of the year and see how far you took your words, or how far they brought you – how their meaning changed, how you changed around them. I promise that you won’t end the year regretting what didn’t get done.
Happy New Year, my sweet friend. May this next year be filled with your heart’s desires! Namaste, Dr. Marissa
