The beginning of the year came, and you fell prey to the tempting nature of resolutions. You reviewed the year that came and saw a bright shiny year in front of you. This year, you would do what you say you would. No ifs, ands or buts.
It happens to the best of us.
Perhaps you are one of the few who is still trucking along, drinking your celery juice, getting up at 5 am to meditate and never missing a workout.
More likely, you are back in the life that you were leading in 2020—a year you thought you’d left behind.
If your resolution merely exists to remind you of what you did not do, this meditation is for you.
First of all, have a seat. A seat in the winter usually involves a book or a streaming service, but this seat is for just you. You and your intentions and your resolutions and everything that actually is.
Meditation might collect a whole bunch of thoughts for you, but it also aims to remind you that we can’t live in the future. We can’t live in future New Year self. We have to live with the self of today.
Take a few deep breaths and allow yourself to go through intentions, resolutions or wishes. Do your best to push away the thoughts that cruelly remind you that your failure to launch any of these things is a failure of character.
(Those thoughts are wrong.)
Give yourself a set period of time to dream.
After that time, can you sit in the now? Can you notice your breath, the temperature in the room, the feeling of what it is to be in your body?
Intentions and resolutions (the future) will come in, as will disappointment or pride about past intentions and resolutions (the past). This is present you—a collection of resolutions that worked and others that didn’t.
You are you because of failure as much as success.
And, by the way, you are pretty awesome. We’re certain of it.
