Happy New Year

This week I wanted to wish everyone a happy new year and share some of my thoughts on resolutions. Hope everyone is ready for 2019.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the solstice and why it's an opportune time to make resolutions. That said I realize society at large is a bit off key when following natural rhythms. While the solstice is the “natural” time step out of our old patterns so we may create new ones, I acknowledge that for most of us, the day of collective repatterning is Jan 1st. I further concede, despite whatever romantic notions may I hold, new years days may actually be a better day to will ourselves to better habits. Pushing back this process a week and a half, allows us to enjoy and survive the holidays. This may help us to better focus our attention, so we may craft a more thoughtful intention. I also realize that while we are still under the influence of seasonal light, we are now subjected to so much artificial light, that it is only natural that we have become somewhat alienated from the natural rhythm of the planet.

With that said and knowing that most of us will make a resolution for new years day rather than the solstice I thought I scribble down some more of my thoughts concerning making and keeping resolutions. So first off I want to admit I’m new to making resolutions. I've always regarded them as empty promises. The reoccurring theme I see is people misframing their goal. The classic example that comes to my mind is the new year's gym membership. So many people joining a gym only to be done with it in a few months. But is this really a failure. For many people having a place to go and exercise for the winter is all they want. Once spring comes they can spend more time being active outdoors, which in my opinion is more beneficial on a number of levels than bobbing on a treadmill in front of a screen full of legacy media. There nothing wrong with deciding to get in shape and a join a gym for a few months as a step in this process. If that is what we want though we should be careful how we spell out our resolution. Let’s understand our resolution need to be something that we want to enact throughout the year.

There is something powerful in completing a year knowing you kept your resolutions. To be fully honest this is the first year I took this ritual seriously and I only completed my resolution in a modified way, but I do feel the intention of my goal was met. I do feel inspired by having completed my goal to challenge myself to a greater goal this year. I do recommend if you were like me last year and new to this whole resolution thing that you do some internal negotiating with yourself before you set a goal. While we want our goal to be enough of an accomplishment that we have a sense of pride we also want it to be something we can stick to when chaos enters our lives. Like I said I’m new to all this but I do intuit that as we meet our goals we are giving the internal fortitude to take on more challenging and rewarding goals.

Finally, I like to add we should be precise with what we ask our future selves to do. We should really ask ourselves is that what we really want. At least for me, this is difficult. Having to ask what I want implies I do not yet have something I want. This may sound petty, but I can see how we form a mental block in order to protect our psyche from having to acknowledge our deficiencies. I can see how this has to lead me to seek out goals that were not quite what I wanted. When this happens, it's all too easy to self-sabotage ourselves.

So lets us take the time to name what we want out of the new year and craft a plan that takes into account as much of the unplanned variables that be can reasonably speculate about. Then l et's get to work.

Happy New Year

Anthony Bruni