Well the first part is important but not very catchy so I added the second J Yes, I always wear red underwear on New Year’s Eve, ever since visiting two good friends in Italy one year and being told this is an Italian tradition. It seems like a very good tradition to me and so I adopted it. I also adopted from my Swedish sister-in-law, to exit the house by the back door at midnight and then enter through the front, ushering out the old and bringing in the new. And from China, I fully clean my house and am sure to move some objects at New Year’s. Even if it’s just putting my dish liquid on the other side of the faucet – though I try to be a bit more creative than that – the Chinese believe that moving objects shakes up and wakes up the energy in the house, allowing new energy in. So…here I am sitting at my computer in my red underwear, in my clean and slightly altered house, and now I am thinking of resolutions.
I dropped the word “resolutions” in favor of the trendier “intentions” a few years ago but now I see that resolutions is actually the best word. It is not that we make a list and magically expect the things on it to happen (like losing 10 lbs or earning more money), it’s that we must be resolved. We make a decision to be resolved and that sounds to me like a long term thing, a mind-set not an action, and that’s what creates real change. So, when we become resolved to create something, remember that this time of year is about slowness and depth. We don’t have to see results in 4 days or get so discouraged we drop our resolution. Keep with it. We are trying to solve an issue we’d like to change. And then when we hit a block we “re-solve” the problem, and then we “re-solve” it again. Think of New Year’s Day as the planting of a seed that we will nurture and grow until it is strong it takes on a life of its own. In Chinese thinking we are still very much in the deep Yin time of the year, the time when seeds are deep in the earth and are mostly still, when it is cold and we are indoors and activity is lower. That said, we have just shifted to the days getting longer and moving toward spring so it is a perfect time to make a resolution. To plant the seed and then PLAN on it taking a while to see a result. Plan on watering and nurturing that seed through our thoughts and actions over weeks, and months, and then by the time Spring does burst out, those resolutions will have taken root, will be real, will be visible.
So stay resolved. Start small. Nurture your intentions and wait and see what comes. I once read a passage by the author and energy worker Louise Hay that said if you plant a tomato seed and you pull up every green plant that starts to emerge saying, “that’s not a tomato!” you will never see the fruit. At first what shows up doesn’t necessarily look like what we are expecting. But stay with it. Stay resolved. Keep watering the plant and eventually you’ll recognize your tomato, your intention, has emerged even though at first it probably didn’t look anything like what you expected.
Wishing you all a new year filled with blessings, peace, joy, health and fun!
A friend on Facebook (Dr. Amy Sheinberg to be exact, check out her FB page, it’s fabulous) told me she has randomly decided to call this the year of kindness. I loved that. Then I got an email yesterday from my MIL saying at church the Priest had talked about that idea. To name this year. Chose something you want to create, or to foster, or to be able to see in all circumstances this year, and name the year. My MIL named it the year of joy and said that in all things that happen this year, good or bad, she will try to see the joy in her life. I have named mine the year of Delight. I don’t want to enjoy things, or be less grumpy, I want to be delighted! I love that word. I love that it contains the word “light” because one of my struggles is that I get too heavy, I take things too seriously, I get weighed down. I want to delight, be light, be fizzy with pleasure in my work, in being with my children, in cleaning the kitchen, yes really, even there. Because I have so much to be delighted with in my life and yet I spend so much time trudging through things just to get them done. So for me this is 2014, The Year Of Delight. What do you name yours?
BlissLoveFun 