he idea that all is asleep in winter is an ancient one. Daylight shines less brightly; all around us the season seems to reach a standstill, a point of repose, and activities cut short as a result. It’s time for inward turning, a time to honor the year just past, taking stock of where you’re at and what you’ve accomplished, an inventory of what is manifest for you today. Yet winter is also but a prelude to spring. One cycle is ending, for certain, but with New Year’s fast approaching, it’s time to also think about new things to come.
-- What do you long for?
-- Where does the discontent lie?
-- What is it that you want to change?
It is a time to begin to conceptualize just how the momentum of the past predisposes you to a probable future - unless you undertake an intentional effort to shift course. This may simply mean making adjustments - or designing an entirely new course! New Year’s resolutions are the starting point for that.
The time of the year between the Christmas holidays and New Year’s Day is especially potent for envisioning new life. Literally, the New Year wakens as the Solstice Sun moves across the heavens; the days grow longer, and we prepare for new beginnings starting on December 22. It is a time when collective energy once again begins to build, turning the cycles of the year. Lighting a fire (or a candle) is one of the oldest and best ways of honoring the return of the Sun. By purposefully aligning yourself with this movement, you tap into this new momentum, the natural order of things. It is a time of quietude, of firelight and dreaming, when seeds of new life are sown.
At the very primordial levels you are creating your life experience, whether you’re aware of it or not. By writing out a list of resolutions during this time of the year, you plug into the universal current, creating a channel by way of well-honed intentions as the means to direct energy into motion on your behalf. It is the first step in creating your own destiny.
Here’s a useful exercise to start:
Ask yourself, what would make you happy right now? Don't censor yourself. It’s not so important right now how your resolutions will come to life.
-- What quality of life do you aspire to?
You need to write this down. If you could wake up tomorrow and have whatever it is you are seeking, what would that be? If you want a new computer, that's fine, but that's not what this is all about. What quality of life would that new computer allow you to experience? It is in identifying the quality of your desired life experience – the reflections of your attitude towards life - that this is all about.
Whatever you think about, whatever arises spontaneously in your imagination, whatever your dreams may hold – they can come true. But the future holds many possibilities. So it’s time for you to start to hone your focus.
Your resolutions will consist of a combination of feelings, thoughts and desires made by way of broad strokes to articulate the vision of what you want to accomplish, the realization of how you want to live, or what you want to be. For each item on your list, you need to shift to future time to clearly define the desired results. It is the destination at which you intend to arrive.
Having trouble identifying just what it is you want to create?
-- Take note of passions that may begin to surface when new hopes start
to take hold.
-- Pause in consideration of any chance encounters or coincidences that catch your attention.
-- What are the wishes, the inspired thoughts or unexpected joys you have met in
your life of late?
-- Where do things no longer feel right?
These are impulses of life energy, indicators of the field of possibilities. They are weaving together to lead you on to something else. There are no accidents; the universe is on purpose; the right person or situation will show up and has, in fact, always been there - ready when you are. You are now being asked to start to take note, and then to tap into this movement by way of formulating your New Year’s resolutions.
-- Are elements of your vision already manifest in your life today?
-- Can these be nurtured and grown?
Just like when you plant any new seed, it needs some attention, support, until it can stand on its own - including weeding out those things that stand to choke it out.
-- Who or what (people, circumstances, activities) are you drawing to yourself, either as a source or a drain?
Focus more on those people, circumstances and activities that serve as a source, and by this I mean taking concrete actions. You can begin to renegotiate or disengage from those people, circumstances and activities that serve as a drain. Perhaps others in your life are feelings things are not as they should be, as well. Be open and sincere. You may choose temporary changes in your daily routine, or your life may evolve into something wholly new.
Noted author and speaker Wayne Dyer reminds us that there are three things which all humankind, from all cultures and all walks of life have held in common through all of time.
1. There is an invisible intelligence that exists beyond our visible world of change, and it is an abundant, ever flowing source.
2. This intelligence is also a part of every human being; that is, we are part of the field of all possibilities.
3. The purpose of life is to discover this unrestricted potential. You can call it whatever you want, but call upon it you must. And once you truly ask, you will get a response - in the form of direct experience.
At bottom, this last point is the purpose of writing out resolutions for the coming year. Your resolutions allow you to begin to open to the field of possibilities -- by asking! What you do with the answers – the insights, chance encounters, feelings engendered, et al – then becomes a matter of individual choice.
The future is not fixed. It is an open door of myriad possibilities. You can choose to walk confidently forward and through that door. That is, you can choose to align yourself with your new vision, through the choices you make in the present, but the first step is to make your intentions real by spelling them out in a list of New Year’s resolutions. As you do, you are setting the wheel to turn for the coming year. You are beginning the act of creation.
