Article by Make The Days Count Contributor Blake Cothron

 

This time of year is seen as a time for new beginnings, a fresh start.  It’s seen often as a time to wipe clean the slate of last year’s stuff and start anew.  Personally, I don’t get wrapped up in any festivities or making New Year’s resolutions.  I think they’re mostly short-lived and overly hyped. 

 

How often have any of us really kept any resolution in the long-term?  Instead, let’s embrace change in our lives, letting go of the realities that aren’t in harmony.

 

Go Beyond the Hype

I know it’s happened to most of us.  The New Year comes along and we join in the tradition of making New Year’s resolutions.  It’s commercialized by … weight loss companies, stop-smoking programs, and others hoping to profit off of this mostly hopeless charade.  The pounds come back and the cigarettes do too … and then next year the resolution programs get us again!

 

Let’s go beyond hype and deeply examine ourselves and our patterns.  Sound scary?  It usually is!  But do we want harmony, real change, peace, abundant health, meaningful lives and careers … or do we want ease and numbness and familiarity?  It’s up to us.

 

As Gandhi famously said, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.”  This principle has been a hugely powerful driving force in my life, pushing me to deeply examine my motives and actions and make real, radical changes in my life to align with my highest values. 

 

What Change Do YOU Want?

What is the change you wish to see in the world?  Is it greater peace, more respect for the environment and animals, greater harmony between the races and religions, non-violence, what is it?  Maybe you see the drastic dependence on foreign oil, imported food or automobiles as concerns.  Would you like to see real connection between families and friends, healthier entertainment, low-impact technology, honesty?  What is the change you would like to see in yourself?  Maybe more courage, a healthier diet, more quiet time, greater intimacy, more honesty?  Maybe you crave more connection with people, deeper communication, more love and compassion, a bigger heart.  Perhaps it’s your career or job that you’d like to change.  Or perhaps it’s your dependence on other people for satisfaction. 

 

It’s easy to feel like many of these issues are way too big for you to solve or even consider.

 

The philosophy I have is that we are all a part of this world and this reality and we have personal responsibility for how things turn out.  We have almost complete responsibility for how things are in our lives.  We choose how we react to things.  We choose our patterns we follow.  We choose what companies and corporations to support, and in turn, the ethics (or lack of) they employ.  Perhaps now is the time we deeply examine these relationships instead of grasping at temporary, fleeting resolutions, another “quick fix pill” our culture believes in.

 

A method to examine our reality is to be very conscious of our very first thoughts of the day, as we awaken.

 

Stress or Gratitude?

Are these thoughts about the stressful day ahead or about thankfulness for a new day?  Are we focused on some pain, some loss, or problem as we awaken?  Or are we hearing the birds singing, saying a prayer, and feeling appreciation for a new day?  I find it makes a big difference to how my next few hours, if not the whole day goes. 

 

I make it a practice to watch these thoughts and focus on being appreciative, saying a prayer of thanks and positive affirmations for the day, and spending a few minutes in quiet reflection.  This simple practice can bring to light what our motives are, what our reality has become.  This practice is about realizing what frequency our minds and hearts are operating on.  Is it the frequency of joy and thankfulness, or pain, fear, stress, etc? 

 

Witness Your Thoughts

In Zen Buddhist practice, one of the founding principles is called being a witness.  It’s done by watching our thoughts flow by, like fall leaves on a flowing river.  Just spend a few moments watching your thoughts.  Try it now.  Don’t cling to or judge or analyze them, just observe and witness.  This is a powerful method of seeing the mind for what it is, and seeing which thoughts creates our day to day reality.

 

Instead of getting completely caught up in our thoughts and constructing entire realities around them (called “formations” in Zen Buddhism) we can see them for what they are: thoughts.  Just flowing, ever-changing thoughts.  These thoughts are what create our “frequency,” and that determines how much heart we’re putting into every action.  If our thoughts are focused on being aware, being respectful, being compassionate, our actions will reflect that.  If we’re completely stressed, afraid, or looking to rip someone off, that is our reality. 

 

The Words You Speak

What words do you speak, and what tone do you use?  Are your words full of power, honesty, compassion, and intelligence?  Are your words derogatory, fearful, oppressive, condescending, profane?  What about the tone?  Do your words rise up in optimistic crescendos, or fall to the ground in pessimism?  Do you usually start sentences with “if only,” “I never,” “you don’t,” “it sucks,” “maybe someday,” or “I can’t believe”? 

 

The words we speak reinforce our reality and relations with people.  When we speak from the heart with honesty and integrity, we are reinforcing those principles in our lives.  We can create real change through our words, which are really physical manifestations of thoughts and feelings. 

 

Instead, try empowering yourself through words.  Say “I can!”  Empower others as well.  Don’t reinforce their painful reality through sympathy.  Instead, listen to them and empower them through positive words and feelings, envisioning the positive change they desire.  Say a prayer, which is a form of expressing empowering, positive affirmations.

 

What things in your life could you alter or completely get rid of and feel happier and more peaceful without?  How about a more peaceful alarm clock, instead of a nerve-shattering one?  How about organic food instead of fast food?  How would it feel to not read or watch the news for a few days?  Do you know there are publications of good news?  Does your cell phone drive you crazy?  What might happen if you left it at home more often?  Do you secretly crave exploring more fulfilling career options?  What might life be like if you explored the possibilities of eco-village life or cohousing? 

 

Explore one of these questions, or one that is more applicable to your life, and really deeply examine its impact and what a total change might really be like. 

 

Then go for what’s right for you.

 

In these ways we can each be the change we wish to see in the world.  We all want a better world.  And it all starts every moment with us and the way we live our lives.

 

“Change your thoughts and you change your world.”

-Norman Vincent Peale

 

“The changes in our life must come from the impossibility to live otherwise than according to the demands of our conscience … not from our mental resolution to try a new form of life.”
-Leo Tolstoy, letter [Tolstoy’s Letters, vol. 2 (1978)], February 23, 1903

 

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