How You Will Try To Destroy Your New Year’s Resolutions

Your New Year’s resolutions are in for a battle!  Not because they aren’t made in all sincerity.  Most of the time they are!

It is just they are by nature inviting resistance from the person who made the list!  You and your inner rebel!

You might ask, but how is that?  Do we just set ourselves up to fail?  Are we all just too undisciplined to carry through with our resolutions?  Are we unconsciously not really that invested?

Perhaps there is a grain of truth in all of the above.  Above all your inner rebel really rules your roost.

You see, your inner rebel does not like changes and absolutely hates being told that from now on that You are going to do this and that.  Oh yeah?

Your inner rebel goes back a long time ago with you.  It started to show its difficult side and determination when you were about two years old.

If you have forgotten how powerful your inner rebel is, just hang around a normal two year old toddler for a while!

Total down and out rebellion can be unleashed with tremendous fury, that will leave you pulling your hair out in exasperation! You do not want to tangle with a two-year old!

Sure, your inner rebel has by now, I hope, matured somewhat and like most of us been subdued and tucked away by societal and familial consequences that got you thrown in the quiet corner, dunce corner, whipped, yelled at, ignored or even abandoned.

Your somewhat socialized inner rebel now is for the most part tucked away in your psyche, but frankly remains a very despot ruler!

The key to getting along with this powerful entity inside of you is to gently cajole, not command. Commanding will get you in trouble because your inner rebel literally hates being told what to do, plain and simple.

So what are you to do with this aberrant tyrannical part of you?  Like any of us, your little rebel wants to be heard and understood and above all accepted.

This tyrant may be difficult, but honestly it is an important part of your psyche.  Why?

Because it is one of the most honest and truest part of the real you!

It deserves to be heard, especially if it has been neglected and pushed aside by demands that held no rewards of any worthwhile value to you, except to please others.

In some ways you might want to see your inner rebel as your true self, as representing that which holds a mirror to the real you and your real needs.

Don’t be afraid to taking a peek into this little rascal.  More than likely, he/she has grown up enough to be talked to with empathic understanding.

You have to learn to treat that part of you like a good therapist will treat a patient.  That inner rebel deserves empathic understanding and going slow with a gentle approach.

Sure you have some goals you what to employ in your life for the better of you.

Wanting to change something in our lives is all good and positive, but is has to come about through changing a vision of ourselves, rather than tweaking a few things  like we are Lego or tinker toy  figures.

Resolutions, however positive they might be, can be as empty in real value to you as a fast food burger. They are the quick fixes that trick you into thinking they are going to change some aspect of your life through sheer commands.

Resolutions come from resolute, which means decisive, firm, determined and unwavering.  Within each resolution is a seed of resistance just waiting to thwart your best intentions.

Precisely, if your inner rebel does not see that change as valuable, it will put up resistance and the battle will begin.

You see, any desired changes you want to make must come from  the real you, including that little rebel.

Not because your family thinks you should, not your sweetheart, or anything outside of yourself.

You have to value the changes and the necessary investment because you hunger for it and desperately need it above all else.

Investment in changing your life takes time and it is not something you can accomplish overnight.

I don’t expect my patients to make any changes in their lives unless they honestly want too, and because they are sick and tired of remaining the same.

You need to develop the same sort of patience that I have with them and the same sort of empathic listening to their doubts and fears of making changes.

As one of my patients use to say; the path of hell is paved with good intentions.  Although I personally do not believe that, I do indeed get the gist.

A good intention doesn’t get you very far without at least some action.

As I said earlier, creating a vision or image requires an honest assessment of where we are in life and where we want to go.

It is all about creating a different image that we want to evolve into, not shoved and commanded at some magical date.

It is a way that avoids the inevitable resistance from your inner rebel that I  see so often in making absolute resolutions.

It is a softer way to bring about changes you ordinarily would want to accomplish through making resolutions, because it deviates from holding yourself to a strict yes or no mentality.

When you fault on carrying through whatever resolution you made for the New Year, you have just another excuse to kick yourself and feel like a failure.

That in itself can be enough for some to just throw in the towel and give up for the rest of the year.

Rather than holding a gun to yourself with a resolution to start doing this and that come January, decide what you want to accomplish for yourself the coming years.

Remember  that you don’t have to be like a roaring bull behind the gate raring to come out kicking and bucking.

Change should come slowly.  You don’t have to jerk yourself in shape all at once.   Make a list of baby steps that will lead to the desired change.

Then you have to give yourself enough slack to ease off sometimes, yet keep the vision alive.

You must always reward yourself for any efforts towards the change and not kick yourself when you get sidetracked for a while.  You can always get back on track.

Sharing your desired vision or new image with a trusted other, can be beneficial as once we have bounced off our desires with another person that cares about us, they can be our cheerleaders and encourage us on.

The key towards making any change in your life, beside the decision to do so,  is persistence towards the goal, not speed.

Aim to be a tugboat rather than a sailboat to avoid losing  your sails or capsizing in the rough waters of life.

I love the wisdom of the  I Ching hexagram saying that you can’t make a rice plant grow taller nor quicker, by going out in the rice field and pulling up a new shoot.  Well it is the same with us.

We have a season to grow and season to be dormant, yet dormancy can be beneficial as it stores up energy, just like a plant, to be fruitful again when the timing is right.

So whatever you desire for yourself in the coming year, see yourself doing it with your imagination and hold that vision.

Look into what steps you can realistically do that will lead you towards that goal.

Use imagination to hold that vision.  Look into what steps you can realistically do that will lead you towards that goal.

Don’t shove yourself into relentless changes overnight, anymore than you would a child. Timing is very important and has a mysterious spiritual calendar, that is hidden from view.

As an example from my own life, was my desire to come here to live.  I kept seeing myself here even when I was not doing anything concretely to advance the goal.

Eventually life presented me circumstances that opened up new doors or new energies to propel me to take action.

Several years ago,  I knew I wanted to start  blog to share whatever I could to help others.  I did not give myself a deadline, but kept the idea or vision of doing so in my head.

In may of 2012, for whatever reason the energy and determination came to get the boat in the water so to speak and my little blog took shape.

Instead of New Years resolutions, you can at least pledge to be more kind and loving to yourself, and that includes your body, which has carried you through life so far.

Believe in your goodness and share your talents and passions with others.

There is only one you in the world, and you don’t have to be perfect and that includes your inner rebel.

Learn to love your dents and scratches that you have accumulated through your journey on planet earth.

As with sterling silver, it is only with use that it obtains its patina and it is this patina that makes us also even more beautiful.  Bonne Année!