A New Year’s Resolution has never worked for me. I can think of countless resolutions that I’ve made over the years, and each one just sets me up to fail. I think it’s because most of them are totally unrealistic. For example, to make a resolution that I will meditate twice daily for 20 minutes for the next 365 days…I mean, really? Then, when I miss a few days of even 10 minutes mediation, I start to give up on myself – those sabotaging thoughts take hold: “You can never stick to anything,” “you’re not spiritual enough,” and “you’re a total failure!”
Even worse, is the white-knuckle situation where I become bound and determined that I will stick to my resolution no matter what! In the meditation example, this could have me virtually chaining myself to a chair and trying to force my mind to be still (ever tried that??) – so, it wasn’t until I reached my forties, that I finally let go of the need to create these “life changing” resolutions.
I get quite a few of my friends asking me how I manage to live such a “healthy” life. “You eat so healthy, Sophie, and you work out and meditate and blah blah..” But the truth is that everything that I do to enhance my experience of life has come about slowly, and piecemeal. There was no “one thing”, or “one big change.” Anything good in my life has always started with a tiny, simple action, which, like a snowball rolling downhill, gathers momentum, speed and weight.
The biggest transformation, and I don’t mean an overnight transformation, happened when I started practicing yoga regularly. I’d always been attracted to yoga and started practicing intermittently in my twenties, but it wasn’t until I was in my thirties that I began to practice regularly. It was when I moved to California and found myself in the Yoga center of the world, that I fully immersed myself in this ancient practice. I started to practice about 3 or 4 times a week, and deep-down changes began to slowly occur: I no longer wanted to eat unhealthy food, and my body felt weird if it wasn’t warmed up and exercised. The most significant change was that I began to crave moments of quiet.
I believe that yoga for me wasn’t and isn’t necessarily about the physical poses – sure they make my body feel great, but it’s more about the awareness that the practice engenders. Because the core of yoga has so much to do with awareness: of my every muscle, my breath, my thought process etc, I slowly developed a sixth sense. Without wanting to sound new agey, I became more tuned-in to myself. I learned to listen to my body and mind, and give both what they needed. I must, however, mention here that this still a work in progress, actually – it’s a lifetime’s work.
In a society where we are increasingly cut off of living mindfully – you think advertisers want us to live mindfully? Hello – they want us numbed and afraid, and totally cut off from what’s really good for us. Moreover, we’re all spending inordinate amounts of time mindlessly staring into screens and devices – no wonder it’s increasingly challenging to drown out the noise. But, drown it out we must if want to create meaningful change.
So, this New Year, I will be “allowing” rather than “forcing” myself to sit for a few minutes when I can daily, to get quiet and become aware of my body, my breathing and my thoughts. I will allow myself to get really quiet and reflect on what is beautiful about my life.
