Louise Thayer advises not to rush into resolutions too quickly, because the soul needs time to process what the mind is demanding.
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We’re all looking for answers. It seems that the turning of the calendar year causes us to speedily reassess what it is that we didn’t yet tackle in our lives and to make ambitious goals for the future. Then as the glow of the holiday season fades to long winter nights, we beat ourselves up for not following through and dismiss our positive mindsets as madness born of too much eating and merriment.
If I can remember to be kind to myself, especially at this time of the year, I find that my answers form a polite line and stand there waiting for me to discover them.
Nothing done in haste or with negative motivation has ever effected a long-term change in my life. In the past my rigid adherence to these short term resolutions did more to harm my determination than to promote the health and happiness I was seeking.
It’s too much pressure to make January accountable for all the necessary changes that will otherwise subtly come to pass if we’ll just allow for their possibility.
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It’s too much pressure to make January accountable for all the necessary changes that will otherwise subtly come to pass if we’ll just allow for their possibility.
When we are fueled with resolve we ambitiously stoke the fire that may have been needing to be re-stoked for a long time.
As a catalyst, paper burns quickly and chemicals, like resolutions, can help, but we need to be careful to provide our flame with more long-burning fuel too.
Patience is key.
When we inevitably fall prey to loss of motivation, we should try to recall moments of hope and joy and grace; allowing them to linger in the present moment, not become pain about past happinesses, or concerns that they’ll never happen again.
It’s why a rainbow changes everything about a rainy day.
♦◊♦
When I started writing about my mental health journey, (as I called it then, or spiritual awakening as I see it now) I had no idea where I was going or how any possible outcome could improve my rather weary and broken life, I just knew that I needed to keep moving.
So without knowing where I would end up or what shape the changes would take, I consciously documented my unfolding path. I never wanted to get too far ahead of friends and acquaintances who I suspected felt the same world-weariness, because I knew I was in for a long and very real and relatable journey.
Looking back on my columns for The Good Men Project to find my inspiration for this first article of 2016, I find that I’ve shared every mile marker of my life over the past two years, and that it feels good to have a tangible record of the progress for those days where I slip and fall.
We are all storytellers and we use our tales to get to the essence of truth. In stripping down all superfluous language, we get to the root of our story, to the kernel at the center of its existence. When we’ve done that, when we see the lies we’ve told ourselves and others as we attempted to control our stories and create happy endings, we see how fruitless those attempts really were.
The truth is just that. Everything else is a coverup and cannot and should not be stripped from us too soon, or our naked selves will desperately need to embroider a new fabrication to protect us from the unknown.
Slowing down, rooting out, sitting with the kernel of reality, we can see how to cultivate it into smooth and steady growth instead of clawing it out to the light in a vain attempt to excavate the darkness.
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Slowing down, rooting out, sitting with the kernel of reality, we can see how to cultivate it into smooth and steady growth instead of clawing it out to the light in a vain attempt to excavate the darkness.
My truths are here. Your answers lie within you.
Answers
Come to me but come to me slowly.
Open but just a glimpse
as subtle as sunlight through shutters.
I don’t need your
speed at the end of this year.
I need instead
to know what bells its passage
invites me to hear.
I want to see a leaf.
A bird.
I acknowledged its “CA!!”.
In stopping to listen
once more I could also feel
my way to the current of deep sea.
Coming towards.
Going away.
It’s all the same.
We sit in the center
with our own gravitational pull.
We are drawn before we come here,
reimagined as we go along.
It takes a re-creation
to keep us strong
on those days
when strength
and hope
seem gone
but it doesn’t matter
who starts the singing
or where the first notes come from.
Photo—Thomas G. Fiffer