It is the time of year for new light, new hope, and new beginnings. Even though winter has just started, solstice has taken place and the dark begins to retreat a little more each day. Traditionally the next seven days are a time of feasting, fasting, and prayer in preparation for the welcoming in of the New Year.
What new consciousness do you wish to birth in this new year? What would you like to bring from wish into fulfillment in this coming year? This is an excellent time to set heartfelt intentions for the coming year as a lot of energies of creation begin anew and fresh when we ring in the New Year.
When I ask questions like “What do you wish for?” I am not asking about stuff like physical world acquisitions, but what does your heart want you to do to build your inner happiness and fulfillment? The mind likes the world of stuff, but it is really just a passenger in the back of the bus of life. We identify with it as the part of us that decides what to do in each moment, but it does not provide us the why we decide what we decide. It is the heart that drives the bus, because the heart provides the sustaining feeling motivation critical to making anything actually happen. The head/ mind/ ego is full of fear and excitement that drives us in the moment, but functions like a child with ADHD. The mind is unfocused and flighty or fear driven, neither of which work well for manifesting any sort of sustained happiness.
If you are looking for the promise of new lightness in your life, you must dig deeper to the level of your feeling desires. These desires are purely personal and not about the outside world. These desires are about how you feel about yourself and your ability to relate to the world and to the greater “what is.” Most people relate to “what is” as God, but you do not need to personalize it in this way. If you are more scientifically oriented, you could refer to “what is” as the experience of the anti-entropic pattern of organization in manifest matter. The point is your deep feeling desires are all about your ability to assert and express yourself in the world and your ability to effectively connect with others in a sustainable manner. The ability to do this is what drives happiness.
The holiday season magically, or artificially, mocks up the assertion and/or expression and connection experience for us by providing the traditions and occasions with the appropriate behaviors already mapped out for us. We take on the seasonal spirit and express our good cheer to everyone through words, cards, and gifts and attend pre-designed traditional gatherings to experience safe connections with friends and family – hopefully. For a few weeks out of the year we let go of our demand that everyone be our way and express the spirit of goodwill to all. Too bad the holidays don’t last all year.
How could we make the spirit of the holidays last? What is it we are doing during the holidays that we couldn’t do all year long? Is it so terrible to express goodwill and accept everyone just as they are during the rest of the year? It feels better when we do. What is so important to us the rest of the year that stops us from having ‘peace on earth and goodwill toward men’ now?
I’m just asking. I don’t pretend to know the answers, but many people have asked this question to no avail. I know the holidays also seem to be exhausting. Maybe all that goodwill is exhausting. Maybe it takes a lot of energy to overcome our fears, judgments, and resistances for a couple weeks in order to be kind for the holiday season. Maybe the challenge is overcoming our inclination to be self-centered for a bit. I could see the energy it takes to reach out of our little comfort box and connect with all the differences around us as being overwhelming and therefore very short-lived.
Whatever the challenge is, I am thinking that overcoming this challenge might be a worthy goal for the coming year. It appears to directly lead to more happiness, so its pursuit is not without a valuable reward. What blocks me from having goodwill towards all? Who do I have to become to be able to feel goodwill towards all? Clearly this would make me a happier person, but is that happiness worth what I would have to give up? Would I be less of me if I gave up those fears, judgments, and resistances? Or could I possibly become more of me?
It is not my job to have the answers, but to have the right questions.