my thing with the resolutions

I've probably got a couple more posts in my system this month regarding resolutions, so if you're sick of the subject, consider this fair warning.  In my opinion, resolutions get a bad rap, so I'm staying in my corner, cheering, wishing their beneficial effects for all.

Maybe the problem is the word.  Resolutions is so non-specific and tired.  As you can see at left, I prefer the word Plans.

I have a lot of practice at this resolutions thing. Since my birthday is in January, this month always feels like a beginning to me and I've nearly always taken advantage of it to re-check my destination, consult a map, jot some notes.

Some people do a Vision Board this time of year.  I have never made one of those, but I like the idea.  My several attempts to stage a Vision Board party at my house, complete with poster board, magazines, glue sticks and scissors have fizzled -- couldn't make the calendars work -- but I may try and make one soon, if only to put up pretty pictures of sloths and rainforest to stoke my intention of getting to Costa Rica this year.

Resolutions, plans, intentions: they're not magic.  I have no such notion that I will wake up on January 1st a completely changed person, as Bernadette Birney put it on her blog this morning, "with new resolve--as though the past had been surgically removed."  Nope, it isn't that at all.

But wait: in a way they actually ARE magic, these little plans I laboriously write down, in pencil with color-coded underlining, in my brand-spankin'-new notebook on pages that I will later flag with a post-it, for easy reference.  There is something that actually does feel magical to me about creating a little space at the beginning of the calendar year to think about what I really want in the coming period, writing it down in my neat little categories, then using this Chart to steer my life throughout the months.  Not only do I consciously choose the destination, but I even get to make the map. Dude, that is magic.

And it works.  I swear.

OK, it's not foolproof.  Sometimes it doesn't stick for as long as I'd like.  Although I managed to settle my sleep in 2010 (Goal #1 under Personal, which you can see in the photo above), it is still something I work on -- although less consistently since my sleep is less disturbed now as a rule.  And some goals, particularly in the Financial section of my annual Chart, seem to migrate from year-to-year.  The nest egg is just a permanent fixture.

But I really can't say enough about how beneficial this process can be, no matter the bad rap it gets all over the place.

I'm in charge of my life. For me, that means I have a say in where I'm going and I go there consciously, with my bags packed neatly, never forgetting my toothbrush or a pocket knife, essential tools for all journeys, magical or otherwise.

And really if we're talking magic, there is nothing more magic than just being alive.

I'm driving. You in?

Viveka: what good's a theme without a test?

For the past two weeks, I've been seriously dragging by Friday morning, so so sleepy and eager for the weekend and rest.  School started three weeks ago, and the Shri Series with Laura Christensen last week, so I'm gone from home Tuesday - Thursday evenings, getting home between 8:30 and 10.  I recognize that for regular people that's not late, but since we wake up at 5:30 around here, by Friday, I am little more than a caffeinated zombie.

Naturally, I exagerrate.   It's the caffeine talking.

I am remembering that my theme for the year is viveka, discernment.  For me, this really means being discriminating about how I expend my energy.  Since I said Yes to pretty much everything last year and ran myself ragged, this is the year to practice saying No.  So far, sort of good.  But as an indication of how things are going, for the past couple of days I've been carrying around an index card in my calendar, adding notes to my list of Priorities: Allocation of Personal Time.  So far I've written:

- more time to read, read more consistently.
- more time to write, write more consistently.
- time outside every single day.
- set a bedtime and stick to it.

There's more but I'm too tired to get up and fetch the card.  The details matter less than the point -- which is that already, 6 weeks or so into the new year and my new theme, I have come to its first test.

Excellent!

I am really, really serious about doing less and being more particular about what I say Yes to.  I have definitely said No to some things already this year, and made some different choices about how to spend my time.  It's been fun and a little sad also, as I shift the pattern.

So what's the problem?

The problem is that I arrive from class or yoga, excited to be home and eager for kick-back family time on the couch.  Which generally means that the TiVo is in someone's hand and I'm hanging around, in a pile of pillows, watching an animal show or comedy or enjoying Steven Tyler as a judge on American Idol.  Watching TV isn't an activity that really does anything for me at all, except that it's companionable time under a shared blanket, laughing together or discussing yet another delusional singing contestant or crying about some astounding feat of vocal prowess.

But it's keeping me up way too late at night.  Because of course, once the tv goes off and we make our way to bed, then there's the book I've been waiting all day to resume reading.  I can get by on 6 or so hours of sleep for a couple of nights, but if insomnia happens to strike somewhere in there, I'm done for.

Wouldn't it be so much easier to stick to my resolutions if there weren't so many distractions? If it weren't so hard?  But that's exactly the point, ain't it -- if you want it, sometimes you have to work for it.  For me in this year of viveka, I know I need to come back to foundations, re-establish some fundamental discipline at the core of every day.   I need a schedule, damn it, including a bed time.  Since I started my new job at the beginning of January (not coincidentally, at the beginning of viveka-year), I've been de-toxing and floating a bit, part of my recovery.  Enough!

Tomorrow, while Joe is gone at his race, before and after I go to yoga in the morning, I'll be sitting and thinking about how to structure my new schedule so that I'm spending my time on what I really want to spend it on -- reading, writing, thinking, being outside, hanging out, having fun, and still getting enough beauty sleep.  'Cause lord knows, I do need that beauty sleep.

Durga is my homegirl

Probably because it’s Year of the Tiger, this has been a Durga year for me.  I’ve been living with her image from the start, her picture on the front of my notebook and in front of my eyes every time I take it out to scribble an idea, take some more notes.

Year of the Tiger is my year, anyway.  Born in January 1963, I got in at the tail-end J of Year of the Tiger 1962.  And naturally, I have a tiger-thing, have long dreamed of visiting Ranthambore or some other tiger park in India before my demise.  And that there was a tiger painted on the backdrop of the 7-day long Immersion and workshops with John Friend in SF in February, helped seal the image in.

But more than just the tiger, it really has been about Durga  all year for me.  Every time I saw her now-peeling image on my notebook, she reminded me to wield all those weapons in defense of what’s true and right, for me.  I thought about the work of cutting what’s unnecessary, mustered the ferocity to stay on track.

And believe me, you need all those arms and all those weapons.

I’m still reflecting on everything that happened this year.  Durga served me well.  I am really grateful, humbled and happy and satisfied with how much everything has evolved in one year.  And aware of how much work it was to maintain that degree of sustained focus.

And since we’re here, at the end of 2010, it’s time for 2011 notebook and 2011 goals.   Which means pretty soon Durga and the red Moleskin notebook she adorns will be heading into the cabinet soon to sleep with 2009 and prior yeas.

Thanks to this year’s experience,  I realize that the work of setting a course for the year gets bigger every year. It used to be coming up with New Year's resolutions. Then it became for me a list of goals, in discrete categories, 'cause that's how my mind works. Then, thanks to yoga, I added in the creation of a sutra for the coming year, a word or phrase or couple of lines, to help keep on course, a distillation, concentration of the idea of the year.

And now I see that there's another level, too. There's the image, the visual to help keep me on track, to provide a non-verbal heads-up every single day.

So excited to dream about 2011, to consider where I want this path to take me over the coming 12 months.  Year of the Rabbit, here we come!