Beginning...Again

It is the time once again for resolutions, hopes and dreams for the New Year. We launch into the great unknown of 2017 with laudable intentions and high expectations. Too often though, the barriers to our great intentions emerge and those intentions fall by the wayside. It takes effort to change. The siren call of the old and familiar can lull us into the very patterns and behaviors that we want to shift. That’s why it’s such a gift to be able to begin again at any time.

Rarely do we take the direct route from point A

to point B. Instead there is often a period of twisting and turning, tacking like a sailboat with the various winds of our thoughts and desires as we gradually inch forward toward our goal. Too often we see our failure instead of noticing the slight progress that we are making.

I am decidedly a slow changer. It can take me years to make a big change. I will sit with a big change and really get to know it. Why do I want to make that change? What is calling me towards it? What is keeping me where I am? I will meditate on it, write about it, and talk about it. I will move toward it and move away from it. Meanwhile the Universe gives me more and more clues that I really need to make a change. And the clues get stronger and stronger until I can’t ignore them.

I have been known to berate myself for my slow, plodding pace. But by the time that I do bloom, I have stepped on, smelled, tasted and analyzed the whole territory of my life and what needs to change. I have moved with great thought, awareness and intention. And the big changes that I make tend to stick for a long time.

So this year when those resolutions get harder to fulfill, may we just keep at it. May we begin again as many times as it takes. And may we shift our focus to see and affirm that which we are doing to live our vision of a better life