New Year is an interesting time for lots of reasons. Putting Covid aside, just for a moment, one of the things we may notice is a sense of wanting things to be different on a personal level - a desire to do something new or 'improving'. Perhaps we’re feeling like we want to cleanse in some way or get rid of some ‘stuff’ or change something about ourselves to look or feel different! These desires lie behind our New Year Resolutions – and maybe they contain the seeds that explain why these resolutions are often short-lived.
New Year is, without question, an opportunity for using the sense of seasonal shift to support our aims. But another aim is worth a look in the winter light. How about, as best as we can, investigating the radical possibility that we are not in need of change or improvement - we are all that is needed, as we are right now?
We could explore getting out of our own way - our views, judgments, ambitions - for a moment, and seeing what obscures this awareness of our ‘enoughness’. And the breath offers us the chance to open to the layers that obscure our ingrained habits of thinking and acting and to let be…. and let be… and let be. In breath, out-breath. Just this.
Isn’t it the gap between where we are and where we think we should be that causes our unhappiness? By bringing awareness, patience, and acceptance to 'what is' now, the 'actuality of our experience', we can rest, awaiting the energy that will surely come to meet our needs in skillful ways. And we may begin to see more clearly the wisdom of our inner knowing leaving us less vulnerable to the seductive external messages that tell us 'you are not enough'.
In this gentle way, we can set intentions for ourselves that are more in line with what we truly need - and we can begin to move forward into the New Year with patience and kindness.
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