Loving my New Years Resolutions:

As I contemplate the New Year and the mini hype that I have observed some make about the New Decade, yet again I consider what I want for and from myself in the year ahead. Even as I sit down late in the day on the First of January, I can already begin beating myself up for being “late” in posting a New Years message. No more of that. No more kicking and getting down on myself. My New Years, yes New Decade Resolution is to fully and completely love myself, embrace all my flaws and weaknesses, offer myself all the best I can possibly give myself in my effort to take responsibility for peace in my small corner of the world. Yes Peace, not selfish indulgence, which is what it just might sound like to some.

Think about it for just a moment. If you can offer yourself complete and full loving, all those wonderful virtuous New Years Resolutions that sometimes sound punishing might just happen by default. After all, if you truly love yourself would you go out and ingest all kinds of fatty, sugary, and intoxicating substances into your precious body? Would you become lazy about offering yourself an appropriate exercise routine? Would you become sloppy and inefficient about getting your work done that you know is the source of your life’s income and sustenance? Would you deprive yourself of nurturance in the hopes that someone other than yourself might accept the role of being called upon to know you as well as or better than you do, and give that person responsibility for nurturing you to your complete satisfaction? Likely not. And, you likely would not make choices for yourself that were distasteful and felt tortuous to follow through with either.

So here is my invitation for you to offer yourself New Years Resolutions of Pure Love. Indulge yourself with as much love as you would offer your own child. As I think I have said before on this page, “You are your own first child.” If we all lived our lives loving ourselves with the same loving intention that we offer our children, I believe that the grown ups in the world would be a happier, more content, lot of people. Relationships would be easier. Instead of demanding that our partners and other loved ones in our lives fill all our needy, wounded, sad, grieving hearts, we would be given the latitude to do that for ourselves. From there we would come into relationship more whole and fully available to give, offer, and receive love from a more honest and accessible place. So, close your eyes for a moment, and offer yourself a fantasy of what the world would look like if everyone in it could offer to their self the very love that we spend our lives seeking from people places and things outside of ourselves. Picture the “Peace on Earth”, and “Good Will towards Man (and Woman!) Kind” that would ensue. Go ahead, it really is OK. Breathe into that fantasy, and now decide that you will do your part by offering yourself all the Love that is there, ready and waiting for you, accessible as soon as you say yes to yourself. May you look ahead to the year, decade, and many years and decades to come, with an abundance of love and hope for yourself and the world you live in!
Donna