New Year, New Moments, New Beginnings
Happy New Year!
In the open envelope of dawn
A message left by the night
‘Yesterday has gone
Let there be light’
Lemn Sissay
Everyday has possibility for change and growth. Every day is a new start, or can be. Each moment is also a new beginning. Remind yourself of this each day, not just at New Year.
Making intentions for the coming year.
I often use this time of year to reflect, learn and move forward in my chosen direction on a personal level, a teaching level and a business level. I do this periodically throughout the year as well, intentions (or resolutions) are not just for new year and often work better at other times of year.
As a rule - I don't make big new years resolutions. It always feels like resolutions are hard goals, that I am setting myself up for disappointment or worse failure, adding a layer of stress I don’t really need to add and following the crowd rather than my inner wisdom. Instead I like to think of making intentions. For me this feels softer, it changes my perspective a little. An intention is a positive direction I want to take where the path may meander a little, I might step off it now and again to find something unexpected, and then return to the path and my direction. An intention, to me, feels more open to possibilities, more spacious and joyful.
For some of you new year may be a great time to make resolutions, or intentions, to make positive changes big or small. But maybe the time is not right for you, it feels too pressured, or your heart is not in it. Either way, here’s a couple of little ways to start the year with lightness and joy. They cost nothing, require no equipment and you can use them daily with no pressure, judgement or failure if you don’t do them, but lots of added well being if you do.
Stop and watch your breath
As yoga and meditation students we learn to connect to our breath mindfully, we learn to observe each breath as it rises in our body through an inhale, and falls away, leaving our body through an exhale. Each round of breath has subtleties that we can tune into. Each breath is different. Each breath marks the birth of a new moment. Each breath brings us to the present, to the here and now.
So take a minute every so often in your day to stop and watch your breath. This can be at anytime of the day to suit you. When you wake before getting out of bed, while you are waiting for the kettle to boil or your cup of tea to cool. When you have finished a task, before you start a new one. While you are walking. While you are in a queue, when you arrive at work before you get out of the car. Just before you settle to sleep. There are endless moments in our day when we can just be with our breath.
Here’s How:
Relax, maybe close your eyes (but you don’t have to) let the breath lead and simply watch it move in and our of your body. Sometimes you might be able to tune into the natural space or gap at the top of the breath between inhale and exhale and at the bottom of the breath between exhale and the next inhale. The key is to just let the breath happen, let yourself be breathed. Don’t expect your breath to be a particular way, don’t judge your breath, there’s no right or wrong way to breath, just be with the breath as it is. You might notice patterns, differences between breaths, the space at the top and bottom of the breath, or you might not. That’s ok. The important thing is you notice your breath which for the rest of the time is simply happening without our attention. Stay with the breath for as long as you can - a minute, five minutes, 15 minutes. Come back to your day slowly and with the intention to hold the calmness you’ve created for as long as you can.
Stopping and watching the breath will help you to reset, to calm, to reconnect to yourself. It will bring you to the present moment. It will bring a sense of well-being and grounded-ness and maybe even joy.
Notice positive things
“Abundant moments often go unnoticed and unappreciated. We need to make an effort to see them and capture them in awareness, and we have to continually work at it because the mind is so easily veiled from the fullness at any moment by so many other things.” Jon Kabat-Zinn
How often do we define our day by the challenges we’ve had to overcome, the things that have caused us negative emotion – irritation, stress, maybe even anger? How often do we celebrate the myriad of joyful, beautiful or positive things that happen in our day? Your answer is probably that you define your day more by its challenges than by its fuller positive moments.
This is because we humans, especially those of us living in the western world, are a busy species with powerful, active minds to match. We are hardwired to problem solve, to survive and we are always pursuing the things that will make us feel happier and more fulfilled. But more often than not the things that we think will make us happier cause us the most stress to achieve. Our minds are pulled to the constant noise around us of social media and marketing, to societies pressures, to the things we think we need or should have. We forget that we already have so much.
Our busyness, striving and stress might be slight or extreme, but either way it covers up the fact that so much of our life is made up of beautiful moments – the way the sun shines on a tree in your garden or the dew gathers on a spider web, the look in the eyes of a loved one, the colours in your pets fur/feathers, the person that holds the door for you, the person who smiles at you in the street, the sound of birdsong, the aroma of the food on your plate, the colours in the bubbles in your washing up bowl… the beauty in the everyday things we do and experience. And these moments amount to so many more than those that cause us challenge.
So everyday remind yourself to notice the little moments of positivity, joy and abundance – see how this adds to your well-being. Does it change your definition of your day?
Checking in with intentions
Last year I made the intention at new year to make more spaces in my day to stop and be present. I included making my morning meditation time more regular, finishing my cup of tea in the morning despite my kids, dogs and the dishwasher calling, putting my social media icons on the second page of my phone and remembering to check in if my social media time is useful or not, and finally, purposefully look out at/and or spend time in my beautiful garden and just be with the birds and the squirrels a couple of times a day.
My path over the year has taken me in the direction of all of these things. It took until September for my meditation practice to become a daily practice (and it does sometimes lapse for a day or so – and that’s ok). I shifted my peaceful cup of tea to after the morning school run and I do spend time each day in or looking out at my garden. Social media icons are happily on the second page of my phone. I still spend unuseful time on social media and one of my intentions this year is to detach from my phone more often and not use the excuse of ‘work’ to be on it so much. But whatever my intentions, wherever the path takes me as I head towards them,