All these incoming emails about the New Year…yikes. I’m on a lot of small business lists.
Everyone’s asking things like “Have you set your goals?” “Do you want to achieve x finally this year?” “Are you sick of failing at the same plan once again?”
And then all the solutions for making sure failure does NOT happen this year and you DO reach your goals.
Sigh.
Fortunately for me, after a sense of feeling a little like a deflated balloon, since I don’t really enjoy goals….
….I felt The Work also bubbling within, with its beautiful and freeing questions.
‘Oh!’ (I suddenly thought). ‘I seem to believe I should have goals and plans and growth targets and new ideas and big surges of energy about what I desire and what I can “make” happen’.
Is this true?
Can I absolutely know this stance is the “best” one to take about this “new year”? A stance that feels like a warrior on the edge of the battle field yelling “CHARGE!!!”?
What a relief to notice the answer to the question “is it true?” was quite fast….”no”.
How do you react when you make plans and pull yourself together and focus energy on your goals for the upcoming year, and all you want to accomplish?
I get hyped up and tired at the same time. Life begins to look a little bleak a moment later…all the expectations come swarming in.
I’m completely out of this moment now, and in the future in my head.
Who would you be without this belief that NOW is the time to push forward with plans for accomplishment?
It doesn’t mean you give up joy or excitement about what’s possible.
It feels to me like without the thought about getting somewhere else that isn’t here, I access a true joy and peace right now, right in this moment. Like really feeling the immense beauty of this precious life, today.
I’m also paradoxically holding a sense of wonder about what 2019 will bring. Who knows?
Instead of that being an alarming thought when I wonder what this year will bring, as the mind has had it in the past (including needing to MAKE something happen)….I can question the images, pictures, stories that have bothered, upset or deeply disturbed me about life.
When I do this, then this moment right now feels kinder.
Turning the thought around, like trying on a different pair of shoes: I do not need to set goals for 2019, achieve something, or consider what I’ve done in the past to be a ‘failure’.
Could these be just as true, or truer?
Of course.
I can work with my mind today.
What I notice as I question anything stressful, whether it becomes meh, interesting, or even exciting….is something shifts here. And as they say, when my perception of What Is shifts right now, there will be a different future, naturally.
Without a ton of “hard work”.
(Unless you think of this inquiry as hard work, which it can feel like sometimes I know, but it’s not the hard labor we often envision about getting somewhere else than we are).
“If you want to create something, if you realize from the depths of your being that something wants to be created through you….the power of manifesting is to experience the fullness of the present moment. It’s what Jesus called life in its fullness. Life in its fullness is an inner state of being. The ‘I am’. Consciousness itself. To realize that. Once you realize that, no future moment can possibly be better. ” ~ Eckhart Tolle
It doesn’t mean we don’t have preferences. We do. It’s OK.
I love this question: How would you feel, if you had that experience or achievement or condition you want?
Can you feel right now what you imagine you’d have, if you had that experience, thing, goal, accomplishment–even just a tiny bit?
Right now, can we find what is OK and what is working in this moment, or the advantages of What Is…and even the advantages of What Has Been?
If it feels like too much to bite off at once, just take one thought at a time. That’s all. Nothing more.
Not always obvious, or easy for the mind. But this is The Work, and I love how Byron Katie says that’s why it’s called the “work”.
I find, this is the solid foundation, the ground of anything we might want or think would be fun or exciting or wonderful or peaceful in the future: asking if what I’m believing that’s stressful is actually true?
In this moment, when I question what I think needs to happen for me to be truly happy, I notice both the sweetness of life happening here, and what’s possible, all at the same time. Amazing.
It’s here for us, and anything can happen. One tiny questioned belief at a time. One little baby step at a time. Nothing huge or massive required.
Start where you are. Inquire within.
Happy New Moment!
Much love,GraceP.S. If you notice a goal for you is to be at peace with a primary relationship gone south, and pain, fear, disappointment or anxiety appearing with separation, break-up, or divorce….join the upcoming Sunday telecourse beginning January 6th. Divorce/Break-Up/Separation is Hell: Is It True?