The way forward is the pathway inwards

As we are bombarded with advice about how we can improve our lot, besieged by the tyranny of the New Year’s resolution. Perhaps instead of setting ourselves impossible or at least unreasonable expectations let’s try the opposite. Instead of resolutions let us pause for reflection, evaluate the experience of the past year. Be honest, but with a degree of tenderness and good humour. Where and how have we treated ourselves with the love and respect our uniqueness deserves? And where have we been less than generous, less than accepting that everything is a process and is always in a state of development. Change is inevitable and constant. Yet it isn’t always obvious or comfortable. So where have we let go of the central conversation in our lives? Failed to sow, tend, nurture, prune and harvest in a sensitive way, in time with the rhythms that make us exclusively ourselves? Perhaps our evaluation can be less about new and improved. But to emphasise affection. Where can we add more value? And bring quality of attention for the relationships in our lives that we still carry a passion , or simply an affinity for. And where can we redirect that energy in the most elegant and frictionless way, away from anything that can no longer keep the shape, the promise, the relevance it once did.

As meditators we can manage our expectations and begin to seed the way we sense and anticipate our coming year to unfold. In the Vedic knowledge traditions the inception of a new year, a new day, a fresh experience encapsulates or is already carrying a complete energetic pattern of how that particular period of time will play out. Like a holographic image, if we took a small piece away from the complete picture and directed the laser light that makes seeing the hologram possible we would reveal the entire image , yet at a slightly lower resolution. So the parts always contain the essence of the whole. Understanding this we could step into the first day or week of the new year and have it contain small versions of all the things we want to be in alignment with this year. Apply your attention in a generous way, but keep it simple and efficient. Effectiveness is born of regularity. Find the time to be still and silent. Get out into an open sky. Feed yourselves and those you love as if it were a sacred act. Gently ease into new ideas, or interests by reading a few pages or listening for a few minutes every day. Create an ambient or atmosphere of welcome to new adventures. So we can start to shape our identity to match the beckoning future that’s so looking forward to meeting us