I started this blog post on the day with the longest night of the year, and it’s taken a bit longer to get finished than I expected! So, here’s a late happy New Year post. Yes, New Year’s Resolutions are absurd, but there’s something else going on here, lurking in the shadows, that might help you make some big changes.
Change starts today
I have always felt that this time of year is an auspicious time to start something new. Of course, nearly every culture has attached significance to the Winter Solstice, and we have poetic labels like “longest night”. Whatever spiritual significance or cultural memory there might be, there’s also powerful biology in this part of the year.
Whether we want to or not, we respond to lengthening days. Our energy grows, seeds in the ground are doing their thing to get ready for Spring, and projects we start tend to flourish.
In our culture, this has been reduced to silly New Year’s resolutions, which no one seriously intends to keep. It’s a joke, but your success—your future—is not a joke.
So, if you haven’t already done so, this might be a good time to think about what you really, truly desire… what you are willing to suffer and to sacrifice for. And then start moving and get it done. If you don’t do it, no one is going to rally behind you and push you toward your goals.
But if you start today, you might be amazed at what the combination of this time of year, the energies flowing at the beginning of a decade, and the untapped potential within your self and your world can accomplish.
As we move out of the holidays and into the year, make sure you are doing, mindfully and deliberately, things that will serve you and the people in your world.