This post originated with the creation of a blog post on New Year’s Resolutions. I’m trying to keep my blog area focused on inspiration. So, instead of posting this in that area, I’m adding it to my website’s opinion section.
Yesterday, on my blog, I suggested some reasons that resolution brain lets us down:
It fixates on our failures, deficits, and weaknesses
It promotes suffering by triggering loss of hope and depression when resolutions fail
It highlights our sense of not enough: we don’t have enough, we aren’t enough, and incites the Hungry Ghost of wanting more.
Today, I want to highlight a few of the more insidious ways that resolution brain betrays us.
Wait before you make any resolutions. If you don’t, your resolutions make may cost you time, vital energy, money, and hope about your ability to change.
The making of resolutions is a time-worn transition marking the beginning of a new year. Usually, we focus on our deficits, and then create a grocery list of needed changes. If we listen to advertisers, it almost literally turns into a shopping list. Who we are wasn’t good enough. So, voila, we’ve bought a laundry list of things or apps we’ve been told will help us feel better about ourselves.
Imagine you’re asked to fetch a ball. Without arms or legs.
I’m sorry. I can’t. In fact, the very fact that you ask is is insulting and cruel.
But, is it possible we could, at the very least, contemplate working it out: how could I fetch a ball without arms or legs?
We’ll come back to that in a second.
Do animals play?
Yes, it seems some do. But, you have to take into account the definition of play. If an animal does something once, it’s likely a fluke. If the animal does it multiple times on it’s own, it’s possibly play. If the animal does it on request, it might also be play.
I think I was unfailingly gentle with patients, let them rant, and tolerated their abuses. Eventually, their rant lost steam and we started to get to the core of their often legitimate frustrations. They might be directed at an unrealized hope for a dreamed of healing. Or, they might feel they weren’t understood. A pinhole in a balloon release pressurized air madly at first out of a pricked balloon. Then, the balloon eventually loses pressure and falls to the floor. That is often the way it is with our anger. For me and for patients. You just had to allow the progression of release without judgment.
During a meditation today, right when I was getting into my space of mental clarity, a notification came through.
It’s good online meeting etiquette to mute ourselves when we join meetings, unless you’re hosting the meeting.
But, we might also take the next step and turn off our notifications. If you’re on iOS (Apple) these are found under your Focus settings.
Don’t be like me. Avoid interruptions right when you get into the Zone. Show up for yourself with care. Turn off distractions and Notifications. They’ll be there later.
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