Resolve to Love and Forgive

 

Many years ago I was on that treadmill of creating lists of things I would do differently ("on your marks, get set, GO!") in the New Year.  There would be some magic difference in my ability to control my eating, spending, or what have you after midnight December 31.  So the obligatory list would be made, gym memberships would be purchased, the requested workout clothes received as Christmas gifts would be laid out and ready for my body toning enterprises.   I was ready for the first run out the door on January First.   Planning to eat for health, I ate the last of the holiday cookies and chocolates as I selected recipes for the new year out of magazines and news papers: the food columns themselves having taken a lean turn after the indulgences of Thanksgiving and other holiday offerings.  Promising to live within my budget I reviewed ads for what bargains I could find in the post holiday sales.  After several years of dissapointments and broken committments I dropped the resolution process all together.

While I didn't think I was perfect, I was tired of falling short of expectations and being part of the joke that resolutions had become.  In addition, the things I truly wish to resolve, or to continue to practice, have little to do with money, weight, or the physical trappings of life. My resolutions are balanced between "A Day At A Time" and setting intentions for living (a decidedly future looking activity.) Balanced between my current step and the path before me, I make resolutions daily.  The sankalpa, or resolution, is of an enduring nature, a quality that I struggle with but wish to enhance and encourage in myself.

Rather than look at what I may want to accomplish I am looking at how I will get there.  Today I will forgive myself for mistakes; leaving more room for the successes to flourish. Today I will take care of myself when I am not well, using the skills I have learned to promote healing in body, mind and spirit.  Today I rejoice in the times I have taken right action.  Today I will practice the discipline of follow through AND congratulate myself for tasks completed. Today I will Love Myself, as I am before all that is to come, and I will Love Myself in spite of all that has come before. I am lovable.

2014 is my year to inhabit my very BEing.

Kyczy Hawk E-RYT200, RTY500 is the author of "Yoga and the Twelve Step Path", a leader of Y12SR classes, and the creator of SOAR(tm) (Success Over Addiction and Relapse) a teacher certification training she holds with her good friend Kent Bond E-RYT500. Find out more about her, her classes and the training at www.yogarecovery.com