My New Years Eve resolution for the past 8 years has pretty much never strayed from:

• stop biting my nails
• stop dating losers

On occasion I will throw in the "lose 5lbs", but even I know that a shallow endeavor such as this for an intention never sticks around for long. So, what to do - what to do? I figured that this year my aspirations should be a little bit higher, so I decided to utilize an exercise that Seane Corn ("Off the Mat, Into the World") had published in Yoga Journal a few years back {thanks Michelle for resending it to me!!}:

Making Positive Changes In The World:

1. Write down two or three words that someone who loves you would use to describe you. Choose the qualities that you think others appreciate about you.

2. Write down three of your favorite hobbies or talents (ex: gardening, surfing, etc.)

3. Write down your ideal vision of the world (ex: a world free from violence, where everyone has organic food to eat, etc.)

4. Now put it all together in a sentence.

This was mine:

1. Passionate, Authentic, Charismatic
2. Cooking, Traveling, Teaching Yoga
3. A more compassionate world.

Example 1:

I will use my passion for and through traveling to create a more compassionate world.

Example 2:

I will use my authenticity through teaching yoga to create a more compassionate world.

Last night when people would ask me my New Years Resolution....I'd respond with, "Well, I plan to use my authentic nature through teaching yoga in hopes of creating a more compassionate world". The response was first surprise, and then a huge, heartfelt smile.

What was YOUR resolution? Or better yet, what could your sentence be?

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do."

New Years Resolution

New Years Resolutions. Everyone makes em, and not many follow through with them. This year, I have three of them, that I'm going to work my hardest to keep. The first two don't really concern me, because quite frankly I don't mind these qualities - they just affect those around me. So after Shawn pointed them out, I figured that they were worthy of becoming a new years resolution - something that I really should try my best to work on.

1: Complaining.
I complain a lot, I'm told. I don't mind - I just see it as a way of venting. Complain, get it out, and move on. Maybe I need to do more of this complaining in my own head, instead of out loud. If I'm achy, then be achy - no reason to share my misery with the rest of the world. If I'm being eaten alive by mosquitoes, then so be it. It is what it is and complaining isn't going to get me any further.

2: Patience.
I'm told that I'm not patient at all. I think that this is a good and bad quality - the bad part I need to start phasing out. I believe that I get what I want, do what I want, and go where I want because I'm not patient - I am a mover and a shaker and I make things happen. The bad patient comes out usually in conversations - me CONSTANTLY talking OVER people, and interrupting, because I simply cannot wait my turn.

And now for number 3....one that I am making for myself. To make MYSELF happy.

3: NO.
That's right, NO. No, I don't want to accompany you to your grandmothers picnic. NO, I don't want to go for a bikeride through town - I want to sit here and read my book. NO, I don't want to go out for lunch - it's nothing personal but I'd rather eat alone today. NO thankyou, I don't really want to buy that $20 tshirt to support your baseball team, I give to certain charities and I can sleep at night knowing that I'm a giver. No. No. No. I often say YES to whatever anyone asks me to do, whether I already have plans or if I'd really just not like to participate at all. Why is saying "no" so difficult? Do I really think that by saying NO to a lunch date that I am ruining someone's day? No...so then what is it? This year I am going to start saying NO, doing what it is that I really want to do, spending every second of my time being satisfied with how I'm spending it. It may sound selfish, but it's a way of survival, and that's what I need right now.

“The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.” - Tony Blair

So on that note, NO, I'm not returning to New Jersey until my birthday. Because that's what I want to do.

This is going to be 2009's Mantra:

“I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it -- I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know -- but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me. However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me. I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am Okay.”
Virginia Satir

Happy New Year!