This year I only have one resolution.
Only one thing I resolve to do.
I only desire to keep my spiritual practices as my priority in each day of 2017.
I guess there are a couple of reasons why I came to this, but the main reason is that it’s truly the only thing I really want to do. Like, really, really want to do.
Other than that, I know that I wish to live each day by choice. I want to make a choice about who I am and how I live every day. The only way to bring that level of consciousness and presence to each moment is by dedicating myself to my spiritual pursuits.
2017 will be the year that my husband and I welcome our first child into the world. There is so much about what that entails that I can’t even begin to comprehend, so it seems silly and ineffective to plan in advance.
Of course, I still aspire to have adventures, and do some fun bucket-list things that spark joy within me. For this, I wish to look at the year a month at a time, and see what kind of adventures I can create in that time.
There are however, some concepts that I want to put into practice to create the right kind of atmosphere in my life. They are:
I don’t need a key to open my heart
All my life I have believed my heart is a guarded thing. That only certain people who are like me, who are “my kind”, who make me feel comfortable and accepted and safe, have the key to open it.
And when my heart comes unlocked, I open. I am so wonderfully myself. I am cracked wide open. I become inspired. I become an artist of life. I laugh. I am joy. I am comfortable.
But why…why do I have to wait for a select handful of people who have the key to my heart to open it?
If anyone has a key to my heart, shouldn’t it be me? I am the the owner, the user, after all.
And then I think…why do I even need a key?
Why do I have a lock?
What stops me from being cracked wide open, wonderfully myself, inspired, artist of life, joy to the world, laughter, comfortable, free – all the time with everyone?
Why do I reserve living openly and freely with a few people in life? They are too far and few in between.
Why do I live my life in a prison I have created for myself, reserving true freedom and joy for just a few moments here and there.
So this year, I’m dismantling my locks, I’m gathering the keys I have given to a select few and throwing them away.
Responsible for all
So far I have lived my life believing that the only thing I am responsible for is myself and my life. And sometimes I didn’t even make it that far.
Then as I grew up, I started to feel a sense of responsibility for those close to me. After a certain threshold was reached, the walls went up and I thought “Ok. That’s enough things to be responsible for.”
I also lived my life believing that responsibility was synonymous with blame. If I am responsible for someones pain, doesn’t that mean that I am to blame for it? That I am the cause of it? The concept doesn’t sound appealing to me.
But I have come to understand that responsibility means my ability to respond to something. A response always begins internally, and then can extend externally depending on my capabilities.
Internally, I feel a sense of connection. That connection says
I care
I’m involved
I’m there
I’m with you
What is happening to you is happening to me on some level
Your pain is my pain
Your joy is my joy
Then, there is a call to respond externally.
What can I do?
How can I help?
My capabilities may be limited in certain situations. It depends on my level of skill, my proximity, my abilities, my time, my energy, my commitments.
But my ability to internally respond to anything or anyone is unlimited.
But now, I wish to expand my responsibility, not only to myself and people who are directly connected to me. I wish to be responsible for more. For the community. For children everywhere. For the world. There is nothing and no one that I can’t contain in my heart. There is nothing and no one that I can respond to.
I’m responsible.
I’m responsible for you.
Mother of the world
Traditions
I think about our baby and creating the right environment and atmosphere in life for them to experience their childhood. I think back to my childhood and the best parts of it for me were the traditions cultivated by my family that created a sense of union between all of us.
So this year, I want to think about the kind of traditions that I uphold, knowing that one day, these small things will be the fabric that make up the memories of their childhood.
Joy
I think the most important thing I can do for my baby as a mother, is to live as joyfully as I can. In fact, I think that’s the most important thing I can do as a person, for my family, for everyone. Imagine a world where everyone lived from the center of their joy?
So let 2017 be a year filled with things that spark joy.
_/\_
m
xo
